A Culture of Healthier Living

In my estimation, part of developing a healthier lifestyle is to change your personal culture to reflect the behavioral/activity changes you want to see in your life.

What do I mean by that? Well, Merriam-Webster defines culture as “the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic."

 

There IS a culture of healthy living. Magazines write articles with “5 tips for this…" and “The Secret to that…" and most of those things are tips on how to acclimate you to the culture of healthier living.

 

In short, there are things that people who live healthfully simply do or do not do (there is no try! sayeth Yoda). There are things they simply believe. There are ways they behave that are inherently and INTRINSICALLY tied to their desire to live a healthful life.

 

Are you doing that?

 

I asked myself that question this past week. I did something this week that I characteristically don’t do. I got some DVDs to watch with the children. It was an odd thing for me. I don’t usually watch many movies (in a theater or at home). In fact, I don’****ch a lot of television in general.

 

And I learned this week why. By virtue of the fact that I was paying, daily, for these movies, I felt moved to watch them. From there I had to make TIME in my already busy schedule TO watch them. And I did. I sacrificed church and the gym and I watched those movies! (Please note: I don’t feel guilt. I don’t DO guilt.)

 

This taught me something. The reason I don’t usually do movies, television, etc. is because my priorities these days are my kids, my fitness and my blog. Anything else is just not as important. So in buying into that culture of prioritizing my family and my health, I released certain behaviors that didn’t really fit into that culture (for me…we are all different and this shakes out differently for all of us).

 

So in a way, yes, I believe I have made many cultural shifts due to my quest to be healthy. For instance, I don’t tend to buy rice anymore or pasta. Not because I don’t like them or my kids don’t like them. They just don’t fit very well into the foods associated with the culture I now subscribe to.

 

And if you look at my closet, you’ll see that active wear outpaces regular clothing two to one. Why? Because active wear is what is required to engage in many of the activities associated with the culture of health I now subscribe to.

I hope this is making sense. My larger point here is that WHATEVER a healthier lifestyle means for you, if you subscribe to it culturally, I truly believe you’ll keep it up long term. Simply inserting new behaviors into your life? Not as sustainable. Especially if you are still subscribing to an old cultural way of life. Your new, healthier habits will be the foreign invader and may be the very first ones you “kick to the curb" in an effort to bring harmony to your life.

 

So…Nik…all this existential crap is great but what does this MEAN to my life? Good question!

 

Here are some ways, in my humble opinion, that one could begin to subscribe to a culture of healthier living:

 

1.      Hang out with more people who believe what you believe. (Don’t kick everyone else in your life out, but if you are the only person you know who believes in eating healthier, exercising, etc. you’ve got a problem on your hands.)

2.      Invest in what you’re trying to live: whether it be a gym membership, better quality food, a Britta water bottle, whatever. You should invest in how you want to live to whatever extent that is possible.

3.      Don’t apologize for practicing a culture of healthier living. People in your life who do not subscribe to that culture may treat you as if you are strange for doing what you do. Know that you are not and stand up for that.

4.      REMEMBER that you do what you do out of a culture of healthier living. This sounds simple but it’s really important. I have an example. There is a lady at my job named Vicky. She’s a health nut. Whenever we have staff meetings with food, she brings her own food. She’s a tiny little thing so it’s not a weight loss thing. It’s just the food our company serves doesn’t fit in with the culture and lifestyle she lives. So she makes accommodations. She doesn’t complain, she just does it. I, on the other hand, usually end up relenting and going with the flow. I wasn’t practicing my culture. Nowadays I know to ask if the food will fit in with how I’m trying to live and if it doesn’t I, too, make accomodations.

 

Just some thoughts this Friday. Are you building a culture of healthier living? In what ways? And think beyond behaviors. What beliefs are you embracing and how? What are some of the customs of your new culture? How has this changed the way you move through life?

I am not as eloquent a writer as you but here are some of the things I do now that I didn't before....I feel like this is a new way of life for me:
1. I meal plan and cook at home 95% of the time. I love it. I get great satisfaction out of doing this - I spend Sundays cooking for the week. I feel like this contributes to my health by making it easier to make healthy choices. My family loves it too - they enjoy the recipes I make and they like trying the "new things". I believe this is the ticket to a healthy life - I used to eat out 5-7 days a week.
2. I workout 5 days a week - I do this in the morning before work so that I have time after work to hang with my family which is important to me. When it gets warmer I am going to start walking with my family in the evenings as well. I believe this is making me strong and contributing to my overall healthier mindset and self esteem.
3. I don't workout on the weekends - this may change but right now I give myself a break - this is also when I do all my laundry and house cleaning etc. so I am still active.
4. I just bought a book that deals with the mind aspect of obesity - I am hoping this will help me to make changes and create a healthy mindset that is aligned with my new "culture". It is important to me to do the work.....to make the changes and to do this for the rest of my life - I don't ever wanna feel as crappy as I did pre-op.

Good stuff! One thing that was pertinent that I heard was about the whole not working out on the weekend thing. Self-care. Part of YOUR culture of healthier living.

To me, the culture aspect is the anchor. Like if you are Muslim, you simply do not eat pork. No questions asked. You just don't do it. The Amish don't own cars. It's a cultural value that is non-negotiable. Even if everyone else in the world is eating pork or driving cars, most Muslim and Amish people would not. That's powerful.

I can't say I'm 100% there yet. Like I said, I sometimes go with the flow, but then I think about the above examples. If healthier living is truly my culture, then I simply cannot do the things I used to do that are part of an unhealthier culture.

And I think if we all begin to recognize a culture of living healthfully we'll start to develop some of those same non-negotiables.

Sounds like you are working at it!

I feel like I have a split personality on this one. At the office, totally living my healthy lifestyle. I hav e the appropriate food items easily available. We have a great gym in the building. Wellness habits are encouraged and I have a walking buddy. No one in the immediate area has a candy di****'s great.

At home, for a long time I would buy foods to prove I had the surgery, but not anyone else in the house. I would keep ice cream, chips, pasta and rice. My husband gave me a hug one day and told me I was a enabler. So now. I don't buy ice cream or chips. If he wants it, or the kids. He can go get it.

Rice has been replaced by quinoa. Pasta is reserved for the nights when I have support group or something else going on and I won't be home for dinner.

I am not as active at home as I would like to be. Hubby wants to sit and watch TV as together time. And while I do have a few favorite shows I like to watch, I get antsy. But I have some level of guilt if I don't meet him in the middle on this. So I sit through on or two, and then get up and do things while the TV is on. We have an open kitchen family room area so I can be in the kitchen chopping veggies, or portionng out stuff from Costco and still see the TV.

The kids. They are 17. We do some things together. My daughter is going to do a 5k snowshoe with me this weekend. It's called Romp to Stomp. Think of it as Race for the Cure in the snow. We will do some other hiking. They do not have weight or activity issues. And they are pretty set in their ways that going to a zumba class with mom isn't exactly fun. I am really ok with that, as long as they stay active.

I guess I am working on creating my culture. It's still in progress.

And that's absolutely fine. I should also say I have studied culture in general before. For most people it isn't either/or. It's fluid. You belong to many different cultures.

I belong to my office culture, I am a Lutheran, I'm African-American, I am a WLSer, I'm American. All those are cultural values to which I subscribe. Integrating new ones is NOT easy or fast.

But we work at it, ya know?

I totally get what you're saying.  Being a vegetarian has become like that for me.  It is like a cultural thing.  I don't eat meat, it's not a big deal to me that I don't, but it's not negotiable.  I'm not going to have just a few bites of hamburger because everyone else is eating it or because there is nothing else to eat.  And I think of it that way, that I DON'T eat it, rather than that I CAN"T eat it.  I think the words make a difference.

I definitely need to make some other things part of my culture.  I hadn't really thought of it that way before.

Another significant thing is in the face of a WLS culture that is telling you that meat is the best way to get protein, because vegetarianism is a cultural value for you, you still don't do it.

YES!

That's exactly what I'm talking about.

 Great topic Nik!

Funny but a big part of my day-time job is about changing culture.  Culture of government.  Now I'm trying to change my personal culture.  

It's funny I can put new changes in my life and they seem relatively easy.  I quit smoking one year ago yesterday and it is now my new culture.  I don't allow smoking in my house, I don't generally go out 'with smokers' on their breaks (so now I actually don't take breaks other than walking at lunch)  

Food is something while I can abstain from 'something' changing my whole culture of food is something I'm working on.  I have a great opportunity now to do so as my only child moved out last August so I am only responsibly day to day for myself and my own cooking.

Some of the positive changes I have made:
1.  Packing meals for the work day.  Do it almost 100% consistently now.  This allows for positive impacts on my life, such as not hitting the vending machine or getting take out.  It allows that I have consumed at least 1/2 of the needed protein in a day.  Saves me $$$ a lot of it - if you think one meal out is about 10 bucks, X5 is 50 plus snacks in a week - used to be 10 or 15 bucks a week so that's 65 bucks a week - $260 a month in savings.

2.  Walking.  I go for lunch time walks.  I have an hour, I take 20 to eat, then go for a stroll, even in mostly crappy weather.  IT seems to give me a boost for the rest of the day.

3.  Hitting the gym - I'm still working on consistency in this but I do try to go at least 3 times a week.  I would like to make that more but sometimes life gets in the way.  I need to build a routine that leaves no excuses for gym time.  Cause once I'm there..I'm a bit of an addict and spent upwards of an hour and a half working out. 

4.  Getting out.  I had slowly started to become a hermit.  I had changed some things about me about 3- 4 years ago which eliminated a large part of the community of friends that I associated with.  I had turned to the internet and was 'hanging out' with mostly people there, some very good people but it wasn't outside my house.  I realized that I missed human companionship in the 'real world' and touch as well.  So I have joined up with some groups and have started to make new friendships and now I'm sometimes out of the house and away from the computer 3 to 4 evenings a week, that's huge for me.

5.  Getting back in touch - Sort of related to 4, I have started to reach out to some long ago friends, people that were always postitive influences in my life, but because of growing, moving away, we lost touch, I'm trying to rectify that where I can.

6.  Healthy choices, I'm early out but I'm trying to always make healthy food choices and only have the food that benefits me in a positive way in my house.  I'm not always 100% successful but I'm 1000X more successful at eating healthy than I was even 6 months ago. 

There are more I need to include but this is the base for my culture change in my own life.  

Gypsy

I think by building a culture of healthy leaving we are also building it for those around us.  One of my hopes is that my kids will pick up on my new habits and live a healthier lifestyle.

1.  We have stopped eating out as much.  This allows me to control healthier meals at home.  I know how much sodium and fat a meal has when I cook it myself.  It also keeps my children from eating an unhealthy meal at Micky D's or Pizza Hut.  (It also saves money)

2.I am eating more fish and less red meat.  Some weeks don't eat any red meat at all.

3.  Water is a priority these days.  I don't have room to drink diet coke and coffee if I am to get all my water in.

4.  I plan my day around going to the gym.  I am there up to three hours some days.  I schedule appointments so they don't conflict.  I enjoy buying work out clothes.  First thing in the morning I put them on.  I try to avoid the gym on weekends because it is family time.  (Sunday is God time.)  If I miss a day of exercise during the week I add a few minutes onto other days or go in for a short time on Saturday.

5.  We try to do active things as a family on weekend like hikes on the beach, playing kickball, runs with the dog, and bike rides. 

6.  My money is spent on healthy foods, protein drinks, vitamins, workout clothes, work out gear, and sessions with a personal trainer.  I would rather spend money on that than waste it on a coke from sonic or a $5.00 cup of coffee with a ton of sugar.

In some ways this is very inconvenient.  It would be so much easier to grab a pizza on nights I don't want to cook.  I could even eat a salad instead.  I don't because it would be  compromising the health of my family.  A few weeks ago I passed on a party because I had a session scheduled with my personal trainer.  I knew that this group meets several times a month and I will have other opportunities.  To me these lifestyle changes are worth a few inconveniences.