Trying to be healthy

The past month and a half I've been taking a deeper look at my nutrition and overall health. Cody and I started walking about four times a week which has been so fun for us, in addition to our Sunday strolls. We've been in the habit of eating fruits and vegetables since we started cooking together fourteen months ago.  I also started taking a multi-vitamin a few weeks ago.

And yet my problem of almost ridiculous tiredness persists, as does my problem with headaches.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday for a general check-up exam and to discuss my headaches with him.  He recommended having a routine blood-check since I had never had one and it would be good to check for diabetes, anemia, etc.  The overall doctor's visit was rather negative and I'll be looking for a different doctor because he made me feel incompetent, but I did leave feeling like what I had been trying to do to have a healthy life was working, but that there were still some things that I should try.

While the doctor's seemingly only answer to how to help my headaches was to take medicine for them (and if it gets to that point in frequency and/or severity, I'll do it), I feel like there is still more that I want to try before getting to that point.

After the new year for health insurance starts on September 1 I'm going to try and see a chiropractor which will hopefully help with my cracky body and headaches.  I think that a lot of my headaches are caused by the tension that my body is in a lot of the time.  And perhaps that is why I am sleepy a lot of the time too; I'm not getting the best possible rest at night because of the fight that happens between my muscles and bones when I'm sleeping.

I also started reading French Women Don't Get Fat a book that I first became aware of my junior year of high school when my French teacher, Kristin Lee, was reading it.  I was intrigued but stayed away from it because I didn't want people to think that I thought I was fat (which I don't, by the way).  I decided to get over those worries and checked the book out from the local library because my friend, Dana, said that it changed the way that she looks at food, cooking, and eating.  While I think I'm an average healthy cooker and consumer, it can always get better.

As I started reading the book this morning, I've really enjoyed it. It is written in prose and starts with the author sharing her adolescent experience when she gained 15 pounds on an exchange student experience in Weston, Massachusetts and how horrified she was when she came back to France a year later and her eating habits led her to gain another ten pounds in three months.  She shares some of the "old French tricks" that her family doctor shared with her: balancing pleasure and need.

I know that I don't need to worry about losing 35 pounds at all, but I'm excited to start looking at more healthy ways to cook, eat, and to view myself.  She focuses on equilibrium (which I'm a proponent for, especially since my body has pretty good techniques for trying to keep me balanced) and not on weight;  it's about how you feel in your clothes and your overall self-image.  Of course, weighing yourself every few weeks is fine, but it should be confirming what you already feel about yourself by looking in the mirror and seeing your body change.

I hope that as I try to research less sugar, less buttery, more vegetable-y, more fruity, and more serving-size portions that some of my fatigue problem will lessen or leave completely.

And that's all I have to say about that.