I Wish That I Knew What I Know Now

You are what you eat may be cliche, but that doesn't mean it is not true. People who have poor diets tend to have more health problems than people who keep careful stock of what goes into their bodies. My mom has always tried to eat healthy and tried to pass this trait along to her children, unfortunately in some ways it backfired. When my brother and I were young we would put our allowance together and get as much candy as $10 could buy, poor it into a bag and eat until we were sick...awwww the good old days! When we did this Saturday morning ritual we would keep it secret from my mother who would have had a heart attack if she saw what we were putting into our bodies. The only time we could openly consume sugar was at birthday parties and believe me we took full advantage! My mother would warn of the importance of balancing sugar with protein especially for me because I suffer from low blood sugar and crash pretty hard when I don't eat responsibly. But when your 10 it's hard to care about such things with cake and punch and cookies in such abundance for such a fleeting amount of time. My mothers words of wisdom were understood at the time as well as through my teens into my early twenties, yet I still find it challenging to apply the knowledge she has passed on to my everyday life. I am naturally thin and find eating healthy appealing, yet only possible in small doses: an organic salad here, snacks of carrots and protein bars there. More often than not I am eating fast food, or at a restaurant and must say it is hard to think about nutritional factors when selecting from a variety of tasty entrees saturated in fat, oil and of course my favorite, sugar. Now that my naturally slim figure has begun to show the impact of eating poorly for 25 years, I've tried to reign in my poor eating habits and opt for less fat and sugar for more protein and vitamins. It is very difficult to go out of my way to eat healthier when there is a plethora of bad foods that are easily accessible. I often think I will eat healthy later, I have the will power and will chose to exercise it when need be. Well the need is here, my blood sugar is very low and I am borderline diabetic, maintaining a healthy weight and blood sugar level are imperative to staying healthy....yet I still find myself in the drive through at Starbucks on my way to Western. Making small changes when you're young is easier than making drastic changes when you have a history of bad eating habits to break. Don't tell her I said this but I should have listened to my mother. Forming good eating habits when you're young beats breaking bad ones when you're older. We are what we consume and sooner or later our bodies will remind us that we are not indestructable, that we are not immune to heart disease and cholestorol problems. If we treat our bodies right, we will reap the benefits of a longer, healthier and happier life.

A book that gives some insight into the importance of nutrition follows:

Wildman, Robert E. C., Advanced human nutrition
Boca Raton : CRC Press, c2000.