While I was attending Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho), I decided towards the end of my 2nd year that I wanted to major in dietetics and become a licensed dietician with my own practice. I was, and always have been very interested in nutrition, and I felt like I could make a profession of it, helping people with nutritional deficiencies or health problems such as diabetes, obesity or eating disorders. I wanted to create specific menus for people based on their individual needs and body types. I developed a love for chemistry and enjoyed learning how different vitamins, minerals and other nutrients interacted in the human body.
During the transition from Ricks to BYU-I, they did not offer a major in that field, and so I simply pursued my general eds in hopes of transferring to a school later that DID offer my major of interest. I graduated with my Associate degree the summer before Mike got home from his mission. We were engaged shortly after, and then 4 months after our marriage we moved to Japan. So, I took about 2 ½ years off from school.
Back in the states we started college classes again at the U of U. I was excited to get some more schooling under my belt and get started on my nutrition degree. After my first semester at the U of U I had an epiphany: I really didn’t like school. I liked going to lectures and participating in classroom conversations, but I despised having to write papers, do homework, complete projects, research material, read texts, meet deadlines, and all the stuff that comes with college. I was also a little disappointed to find out that the U of U offered either a Doctorate program or a minor program in dietetics. There was nothing in between. By this time I started to question whether or not I was committed enough to complete the doctorate program there. My goal was to at least get my Bachelors degree in nutrition, and maybe take some time off to raise children, and then go back. But without a Bachelors program, I felt like I didn’t have the patience or the will to continue 6 more years at the U of U. I thought about getting a minor, but what could I do with that? I was still interested in food and health and I had taken numerous nutrition and cooking classes. But my perspective started to change.
The thing is, I really like to learn new things, but I like to do it on my own time in my own way. I don’t enjoy the pressure of having to read 5 chapters a night from a textbook. So, even though I’m not in school right now, I still make it a point to read different nutrition articles or excerpts from books now and then. So where am I going with this?
I guess that for the past couple of weeks or even months I have been concerned with my lifestyle. I feel like I’m fairly versed in the basics of nutrition. I know what I need to eat and do to sustain good health. And although I know all of the blatant ways to better my health, I continue to defy the knowledge I have attained. Not only academic knowledge, but family history knowledge. I’m totally aware of the health problems in my family. Cancer and heart disease are the top two. My mom’s cause of death was revealed to be more or less a heart attack. She was only 43. That scares me a little. Okay, a lot. But for some reason it’s taken me awhile to realize I need to start making some changes. I just haven’t been able to get motivated for some reason. Like I’ll tell myself I’m going to start exercising regularly and even make up a regimen, but it will last for maybe a week, if that, before I give up. Mike and I know how horrible eating out can be, and yet we have had a really bad habit of eating out multiple times a week. Personally, I hate cooking. I hate trying to calculate everything so that each part of the meal comes out hot at the same time. I hate that cooking essentially leads to another thing I hate, which is cleaning up the mess and washing the dishes afterwards. In the summer especially I hate cooking because using the range, the oven or both at the same time heats up our house to a sweltering temperature, even if the swamp cooler is on. Plus, the dishwasher creates added heat when it’s running a cycle. It seems much more convenient to just grab something and bring it home. But even if we try to eat out at “healthy” places, I know I’m doing my body a complete disservice.
During the transition from Ricks to BYU-I, they did not offer a major in that field, and so I simply pursued my general eds in hopes of transferring to a school later that DID offer my major of interest. I graduated with my Associate degree the summer before Mike got home from his mission. We were engaged shortly after, and then 4 months after our marriage we moved to Japan. So, I took about 2 ½ years off from school.
Back in the states we started college classes again at the U of U. I was excited to get some more schooling under my belt and get started on my nutrition degree. After my first semester at the U of U I had an epiphany: I really didn’t like school. I liked going to lectures and participating in classroom conversations, but I despised having to write papers, do homework, complete projects, research material, read texts, meet deadlines, and all the stuff that comes with college. I was also a little disappointed to find out that the U of U offered either a Doctorate program or a minor program in dietetics. There was nothing in between. By this time I started to question whether or not I was committed enough to complete the doctorate program there. My goal was to at least get my Bachelors degree in nutrition, and maybe take some time off to raise children, and then go back. But without a Bachelors program, I felt like I didn’t have the patience or the will to continue 6 more years at the U of U. I thought about getting a minor, but what could I do with that? I was still interested in food and health and I had taken numerous nutrition and cooking classes. But my perspective started to change.
The thing is, I really like to learn new things, but I like to do it on my own time in my own way. I don’t enjoy the pressure of having to read 5 chapters a night from a textbook. So, even though I’m not in school right now, I still make it a point to read different nutrition articles or excerpts from books now and then. So where am I going with this?
I guess that for the past couple of weeks or even months I have been concerned with my lifestyle. I feel like I’m fairly versed in the basics of nutrition. I know what I need to eat and do to sustain good health. And although I know all of the blatant ways to better my health, I continue to defy the knowledge I have attained. Not only academic knowledge, but family history knowledge. I’m totally aware of the health problems in my family. Cancer and heart disease are the top two. My mom’s cause of death was revealed to be more or less a heart attack. She was only 43. That scares me a little. Okay, a lot. But for some reason it’s taken me awhile to realize I need to start making some changes. I just haven’t been able to get motivated for some reason. Like I’ll tell myself I’m going to start exercising regularly and even make up a regimen, but it will last for maybe a week, if that, before I give up. Mike and I know how horrible eating out can be, and yet we have had a really bad habit of eating out multiple times a week. Personally, I hate cooking. I hate trying to calculate everything so that each part of the meal comes out hot at the same time. I hate that cooking essentially leads to another thing I hate, which is cleaning up the mess and washing the dishes afterwards. In the summer especially I hate cooking because using the range, the oven or both at the same time heats up our house to a sweltering temperature, even if the swamp cooler is on. Plus, the dishwasher creates added heat when it’s running a cycle. It seems much more convenient to just grab something and bring it home. But even if we try to eat out at “healthy” places, I know I’m doing my body a complete disservice.
But, I have to say I am so proud of Mike and myself. We decided last week we were going dedicate ourselves to making every meal from home and make them all from scratch when possible. I know Mike actually likes cooking. But I’m not going to lie, it’s been a real challenge for me this week. I was skinning tomatoes for homemade tomato soup one day and stupidly sliced through 2 of my fingers with the paring knife Mike had just sharpened. Yeah, it hurt quite a bit. I burned myself a few times last week too. But overall, there were minimal injuries and I’m proud to say we created some really good homemade meals this past week. Like, I even used whole wheat flour instead of white for pizza dough. Instead of using my traditional banana bread recipe which calls for an unnecessary amount of shortening and sugar, I tried a healthier recipe that actually tasted much better and was even easier to make. Instead of buying flour tortillas for tacos, I made them from scratch.
We've been eating more whole fruits and vegetables too. We made vegetable tempura a couple of nights with mushrooms, green peppers, onions, and acorn squash. Okay, so it’s battered and fried vegetables. At least I’m eating vegetables, give me a break! But seriously, it’s only been a week and Mike said he can already tell a difference in the way his body feels. The whole cooking thing, as hard as it is for me, has been good. I want to be able to be self-sufficient and teach my kids how to make “real” food. And I know we have a long way to go before we are where we need to be. But we are trying. Even if I never fulfill the dietician career, I don’t need a degree in nutrition to know what I need to do to be healthy and have a balanced life. It is time for me to stop being apathetic, stop procrastinating and stop making excuses and just change my lifestyle. I need to keep exercising, I need to keep eating better, and yes, I even need to keep learning and not give up on school…
Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps.
3 comments:
i'm so happy for you guys. it's been a really long journey for us too and we mess up a lot, as obsessed as we are with the whole thing. like we've been eating out a LOT the last few weeks. :( it's the same exact problem for me - i do like to cook, but it's a big commitment - knowing that i'm going to have to clean up a big mess and probably make the house hot and everything really get to me too. and with two kids i just don't have the energy sometimes to think of something to make, assemble all the ingredients, and then actually make it, clean up and everything...it's just exhausting. so it seems easier lately to get something we can almost convince ourselves is better than fast food and call it good. and i feel so horribly bad about it because i AM going to be doing the healthy thing for a living! like, what a hypocrite i am! but sometimes it is two steps forward and one back for a while, and every little bit counts. i really admire that you've stuck with exercise because as well as we eat occasionally, we completely suck at being active.
i was starting to feel like a hypocrite too, because even if i don't end up working in nutrition, i'm not ignorant to the fact that there are some definite things that i could be doing to be healthier. i've kind of had this "i know, but i just don't care" type of attitude for a long time, and i'm starting to realize i SHOULD care because i've only been given one body, ya know? we thought it would be easier if we just made a menu for the whole week and then bought all of our ingredients on monday, so it's helped us save a little money by not going to the store multiple times a week. but then...i get home and realize several menu items are going to go bad before the day that we actually planned to use them. its kinda funny, but oh well, we try.
I have that problem, too--we buy ingredients for the week, but then they won't keep until Thursday or whatever. It's like we eat meals with fresh fruits and veggies Sun-Tue, and stuff from boxes Wed-Sat. Haha. But anyway, I didn't realize that you wanted to get into nutrition. I think it's a great idea, and I hope you can make it work. School sucks and it's hard, but it feels so good to learn and prove that you can apply what you've learned. Heck, you already know that.
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