Eating

I was healthier in high school. I know I was. I remember what I ate and what I did.

First came the "burn 3500 calories a day" thing the summer before my freshman year. I literally sat for hours on the exercise bike we had, because there was nothing else to do. I couldn't drive, and we lived out on Highway 301. Not exactly within walking distance of a pool, and that summer, the pool we went to wasn't even open that much until mid-July. So I read a lot and sat on that bike and tried to burn off a pound a day while watching A Makeover Story on TLC. It didn't work, but hey, exercise, because we lived on the world's shortest dead-end road and didn't walk the dog much.

I started to go to the YMCA to work out when i was in tenth grade. Every day after school. It was good stuff. I also played softball, but let's be honest, it's not exactly an aerobic sport except for the ten seconds you're running to a base.

Okay, so, yeah, pretty general self-improvement, right?

Well, I also turned into sort of a hippie around the same time I got into Lord of the Rings. I gave up pork, avoided red meat, didn't drink soft drinks (at all, ever) for like a year, and ate a whole lot of veggie burgers and tofu. I gave up dairy milk in favor of soy milk, and I drank a ton of tea and water.

Lately I've been missing those days.

I know I was healthier then, mostly because of what I didn't eat. I felt good most of the time, except for the times when I was sick. I mean, the exercise helped too, but the human body is a whole thing and needs completeness in nutrition to make the exercise work. What gets  me is, I moved less then. I was in high school. I sat for seven hours a day, five days a week.

I'm gonna go back to how I ate back then. It really shouldn't be too hard. I still don't drink a lot of soft drinks at all. Maybe once a week. I just know that the terrible food at BJU didn't help (and there weren't options unless you wanted a salad that took a chance on being slimy from wilted lettuce.)

So, I guess I'm going to give the hippie thing a try again. Feels pretty awesome.