OA Month 2: Health

Hi, there, peeps!  We're now into month 2 of Operation Awesomepants, and I haven't yet stated or begun to track October's resolutions.  Oops!  Let's get started now and call it even, shall we?

This month's goals all relate to health - amplifying it, maintaining it, and enjoying it.  This was always going to be one of the 12 months of Operation Awesomepants, but it was launched to ASAP status after a series of tension headaches last month left me hobbled for days.  Good health is one of those things you don't really appreciate until it's compromised, and I discovered that immediately and painfully last month.  So, in the service of happiness, awesomeness, and the ability to move my head without wanting to vomit from the pain, October became Healthtober.

Part of the reason I was shirking the introduction of this month's goals is because some of them relate to losing weight, a practice that I have both personal and philosophical problems with.  Personally, losing weight and counting calories triggers the living shit out of my OCD and makes it hard for me to think about anything else besides numbers in (calories), numbers out (exercise), and numbers on the scale.  Philosophically, I question our culture's preoccupation with body size as a measure of overall health and am loath to participate in it.  But, frankly, it's time to try to remove some of this burden from my bones.  I'm slightly built, weigh more than is comfortable to carry around, and have a huge rack, all of which I think are contributing to my headaches, which reliably start in my upper back, then move up my neck and lodge firmly behind my eyeballs.  So, structurally, losing weight can possibly help improve my health and, therefore, my life.  I don't like it, but I'm going to do it and see whether I can heal myself.

In addition to the discrete goal of seeking medical help for my headaches, this month's resolutions are as follows:

1.  Keep a food journal.

I'm already doing this with The Morah via a shared Google document.  So far, so good.  If it's too embarrassing or too much hassle to write something down, then I shouldn't ingest it.  Plus, I do a lot of unconscious eating during the day (bites of Livy's snacks, eating dinner with her at 4:30 and then eating more later when SLB comes home).  The food log is useful not so much for calorie counting, which makes me crazy anyway, but rather in just keeping me conscious of what I'm stuffing in my face.  Business schools like to remind us that we can't manage what we don't measure, and, even if these aren't strict measurements, they're helping me manage my food intake already.

2.  Plan meals and snacks in advance.

If the carrots are peeled and cut the day before, I will eat them.  If I have to peel and cut them a la minute, I will eat a handful of cheddar bunnies.  A few minutes an evening will save lots of emergency snacking the following day.  Done and done.

3.  Exercise with Livy every day that we're together.

Our dance class has proven so enjoyable, that I think it's time to introduce a little purposeful activity into our everyday life together.  I usually exercise at the gym when she's in childcare, or when she's upstairs napping.  It's time to initiate her into the world of intentional movement.  While I'm not going to necessarily tell her to drop and give me 20, we can do yoga videos together, have dance parties, and go for longer and more challenging walks.  Even if she just watches me lift weights or flail about on the floor doing core work, she's learning something about how to take care of her body later in her life.  Hopefully she will be more graceful and attractive about it than I am, but either way it'll be a good experience to share with her.

4.  Daily weigh-in and documentation in my day planner.

I've been doing this already, and it keeps me aware of the goal of seeing that number go down without making me too crazy.

So, in the name of good health, happiness, and awesomepants, Salud!