Over the past year my food consumption has become out of control. I have always been on the chubby side, but I still felt like I had some control over my eating habits and engaged in exercise such as playing sports, roller blading or bicycle riding to help control my weight. However, over the past year my unhealthy eating escalated while my exercise time decreased. Before taking this course, I even had a discussion with a family member who has also had trouble controlling her weight,  I suggested that I can’t imagine myself regaining any control over my diet and we should just give in and consider doing bariatric surgery. Lucky, at the same time LiveWell was introduced into our lecture, a good friend of mine started speaking to me about changing my eating habits and joining him in the gym for yoga or the park for biking. Originally I was not hearing it, but as the semester progressed and we were taught about the negative effects of a bad diet and stress on our physical and emotional beings, I slowly started listening to what he had to say. LiveWell helped me along the way by making me realize the importance of being around positive influential people who want to help you on your journey towards good health. I realized how lucky I am to have a friend who wants to be a positive influence. Even more so, he was never overly pushy and keeps on saying I will be there for you when you are ready. I am happy to say that for almost six weeks I have decreased my carbohydrate and sugar intake.  I know that my biggest hindrance to good health was my over indulgent of bread and sandwiches.

   As a home care RN I don’t have the chance to eat a proper breakfast before starting my work day and lunch was usually a sandwich or a pizza while driving from one patient to another. Since I have become more conscious of the food I eat, I make sure to eat a healthy breakfast which usually consist of a plain Greek  yogurt and for lunch I no longer eat pizza or bread insteadi’ll have a salad with tuna or egg salad. I did not weight myself before I started, so this is not about weight loss.  it is about making healthy food choices and gaining control of what I eat and how I eat.

What I am most proud about is the effect it has had on my family. My young son sees me eating more healthy and asked for pieces of my morning fruit and at dinner he want to patriciate in helping prepare and eat my salad. I hope this will instill in him healthy eating habits as well.