Goodbye, 20s. (This may be a long post!)

I am just about to say goodbye to the 20s and usher in the 30s. I could mourn this aging process, but I really won't. My very wise grandmother once told me she earned every one of her wrinkles and gray hairs, and that's a mantra I fully believe in.

When I got pregnant with Angelica, I was 27. As I've mentioned, I was overweight, out of shape, and that that really made pregnancy a lot more difficult than it needed to be. I remember telling myself, one day, out of frustration...I will not carry these bad habits into my 30s! I will make that decade of my life the healthiest one yet!

And by healthy, I didn't mean "skinny". I meant just that...healthy. Strong. Full of life.

While I haven't lost all the weight, I'm proud to say that over the past year I have set aside so many unhealthy habits and ushered in so many healthy ones...and even though I still have a long way to go on the weight loss, I can definitely say that I will enter my 30s with the tools necessary to be healthier than I have ever been.

I got fat on the "American Diet". If someone I hadn't talked to for a couple of years saw me now, or heard that I haven't eaten fast food in ages, they would be shocked. I used to eat fast food up to twice a day...hey it was convenient! My plate would be half meat, half fat, and maybe, just maybe, a handful of veggies. Slathered in butter.

Early this year, I watched Food Inc. While I realize that, like all documentaries, it was biased toward the filmmaker's point of view, it was eye-opening nonetheless and was a huge contributor to my choice to be vegetarian. I don't disagree with eating meat (humans are omnivores, after all)...it's the way meat is "processed" that turned me off to it. Add to that processed foods...frozen meals chock full of sodium, 100 calorie packs, "health" shakes, and so on...it's like we're no longer eating food.

Another thing is...we are so consumed with these fad diets, weight loss pills, diet products, get-thin-quick schemes and processed foods with false claims that we forget that it's not about being thin...it's about being healthy.

I remember once, when my daughter was about five months old, a very nasty person sarcastically said to me on a message board, "Seems like your daughter is a few months old now, why are you still such a fatty?" (Or something to that effect.) At that point, I'd already lost 10 pounds through making healthy choices, so it didn't phase me that much, other that to show me that (1) this person was a superficial jerk and (2) reaffirm how much people are obsessed with getting skinny, being skinny, and staying skinny...health be damned.

Considering I had a c-section, had only been cleared to exercise for 8 weeks, and had lost 10 pounds, I think I was right on track at that point.

I refuse to take that to heart, and I refuse to pass the message on to my daughter that it is important to be thin and that you don't have value as a woman if you carry extra weight. Let us not forget that the female body (even my larger sized one) is capable of creating, sustaining, and giving birth to human life. I will take my stretchmarks and extra pounds for the value found in that.

Thinness does not equate health, and it does not equate value. It is important to be healthy, to fill your body with nutrients instead of sugar and junk, to maintain a proper lean body mass so your organs function properly, not to "look good" (something I'm working hard to achieve), and to respect what your body is capable of doing. That's what I want my daughter to believe about herself, too.

How do I teach her that? Someone once told me this quote (not sure who originally said it): "Children may not always listen to what you say, but they are always watching what you do." If I adopt that attitude toward myself, I hope and pray that she will adopt it for herself.

Oh, and that quote is truth. Since I stopped drinking soda and drink tea and water, she wants to drink water all the time!

Speaking of Angelica...trips to the grocery store are a learning experience these days. She begged me for a box of doughnuts the other day, and I had to explain that we couldn't buy those because they're fried and full of sugar and things that aren't healthy. I don't know on what level she understood but she didn't fight it. She just said..."Ohhhhh...okay!"

It's been a learning process for me, too. Until the past six months or so, I wasn't a big label checker, but I've since become one. It's horrifying some of the stuff that goes into kids products. For example, I checked out the label on something I used to buy for Angelica regularly, and the first three ingredients: "High fructose corn syrup, sugar, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil". So...processed sugar, table sugar, and trans fat. I don't mind giving a sweet treat on occasion, but I'd rather it be fruit or a more natural sugar (like evaporated cane syrup)...and I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of clogging my toddler's arteries with trans fats. (They're allowed to put zero on the label if it has less than .5 grams/serving.)

This has been really long-winded, but in summary, I'm glad my eyes have been opened to what proper eating habits are. I will not lie and say I am perfect 100% of the time...who is? But as Michael Pollan wrote (and I mentioned in my Orlando Organics review): "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants." That's what I do. Most of the time. I would just improve upon his mantra as such: "Eat food. Not to much. Mostly plants. And then get up off your butt and MOVE."

Here's to a healthier decade!