2004-11-23
There was a girl I worked with about four years ago named Sara. She was trim and fit and just the sweetest girl you'd ever meet. But what struck me most about her was how healthy she was. For lunch she would bring some cooked rice and steam various veggies and be satisfied. She rarely ate junk or ate too much. She drank tons of water and snacked on fresh fruit or nuts. One day she was pondering a slight dilemma: should eat her apple and go to the gym, or take the day off since she had been to the gym every day that week, go home, have a great dinner and rest. I was flabbergasted!!�You�ve been to the gym everyday??� I remember asking. �Why?�
�Because I like to go,� she said. �It makes me feel good.�
I wondered how she could torture herself like that! Working out regularly and eating fruits and veggies? What kind of monster was she??? Maybe she wondered how I could torture myself with overstuffing junk down my gullet and laying around all the time, but she never made me feel that way. I liked her because she never disregarded me because I was fat. We actually went out to lunch a couple of times and she would get a special �treat� (like lasagna filled with cheesy goodness, she would eat a small bit and pair it with a big garden salad) and she would never give me diet tips or advice to help me lose weight. She�d never look at my plate judging the horribleness of my choice or measure how much I had eaten with a glance of disgust. She was a genuinely nice person.
Looking back I think I was a bit envious of her. Food was just a source of energy for her, not a personal demon. Exercise was something she did to make her feel healthy and better about herself, not something dreadful she HAD to do. She was active and energetic and enjoyed her life. Sure, she had problems like everyone else, but she didn�t take them out on her body.
I�ve been thinking of her often and I�m sad we�ve lost touch. I would love to pick her brain now and figure out how she could be so healthy. Was it the way she grew up? Were her parents healthy eaters? I seem to remember that her boyfriend was chunky and wanted to lose weight and exercise regularly, but wasn�t motivated to do so. She never pushed him though, just loved him the way he was.
Is healthy living something that could be learned? Could it become habit to pick up an apple or go for a walk instead of grabbing a bag of chips and hitting the couch? How hard would it be to change your lifestyle permanently?
And just how much motivation and determination is needed for that change??