A middle ground.

I’ve been thinking about health these past couple of days.  I’ve never really thought about my health. I’m lucky; I’m tremendously healthy.  I rarely get sick, and when I do, it lasts a matter of days at the most.  I’ve had strep throat once, the flu twice, and haven’t visited the doctor for anything more serious than poison ivy in years.  

But I do have borderline cholesterol.  It finally dropped out of the 200s (to 197) at the end of 2006 and that was when I was eating an incredibly spartan diet and running every day. It’s hereditary; my mom’s cholesterol is almost the exact same number as mine even though our eating and exercise habits are completely different.  I don’t worry about it too much; I don’t have that c-reactive protein, my HDL is very high, I have a good ratio, and no other issues like high blood pressure.  So, it’s just one way in which my body doesn’t function perfectly.  I can live with that.

But the honest truth is, I don’t really know how to be healthy.  I’ve never exercised or eaten for health, only for weight loss.  So, now that I’m trying to escape a weight-loss mentality, I’m really kind of scared of trying to focus on being healthy.  Because ”healthy?”  Totally code for ”how to get skinny.”  

I’d like to work on my nutrition, because my eating has been all over the place since I’ve stopped dieting and I’m eating things that, physically, don’t make me feel my best.   You know, high sodium, unhealthy fats, things that are pretty far from nature.  As part of valuing my body and treating myself with love and respect, I know I should pay attention to how I eat, but I’m afraid in doing so, I’ll end up dieting again.

There’s got to be something between food obsession and disordered eating, and absolutely mindless eating.  I’m sure there’s a book out there that could point me in the direction I should go, but as I discovered at the library today, in order to find even a basic nutrition book, you have to look past volume after volume that tells you how to lose weight. 

I just want a fit, functioning body and someone who can tell me how to get there without also telling me that my chubby thighs can be slim before summer.  That’s not so much to ask, is it?