My Health Commitment This Year

My health commitment this year is to make the most of opportunities to improve my life and that of my family.

Personally, I want to exercise regularly, cut out sugary snacks, and drink more water. Regular exercise is great across the board -- it'll keep muscles (and bones later) strong for this year and years to come, and hopefully it'll keep the metabolism revving! The sugary snacks is a response to my emotional eating; I need to be self-disciplined to stop those empty calories! I need to drink more water as I tend to only drink water when I'm thirsty, which is a sign that it's really too late to keep hydrated.

But we've also decided as a family to eat as naturally as we can, and we are avoiding those packages that trumpet "natural" because often natural is not the same as organic. So that means we look for local products at our farmers' markets, and while some are not truly organic, it has been minimally processed and handled by fewer people that those products at the grocery store. For some items, the difference in price is hardly noticeable, so it does take a bit more time and priorities to stick to a budget. We want our food closest to the way it was naturally created. While the health benefits are better, in my opinion, the taste is often more full; produce or livestock that has not been genetically modified to grow faster and stronger might not be as big, but have a fuller flavor to them -- give it a try on heirloom tomatoes and the "regular" tomatoes or splurge (as it often is) on organic chicken. While I do admire the scientist and engineers who can reformulate a plant's dna, I'm also skeptical on the effects in my body (and that of my child) from those alterations.

What are your health commitments this year?

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