Touchstone for Health

Saturday I go on vacation. I am going to visit my grandmother, some college friends and then other college friends. As I go through this MF journey, I find myself wondering certain things: why is it so hard for me to keep an exercise routine? Why do I eat healthily for a while and then stop? When and why do I start letting my portion sizes creep? How come I can't just naturally make good choices? Why is it ALWAYS so much work? And always when these questions pass through my brain I think of my grandmother and wonder, Why can't I have been more like she is/was?

Until about 10 years ago, my grandmother had the same routines. She got up at dawn (in Southern California that generally was between 6 and 6:30), brushed her teeth, combed her hair and got dressed in her walking clothes. She would then walk the dog(s) from her house down to the beach, down the beach and back to the house. All told about 5 or 6 miles. She would then cut up about a cup and a half of the fruit that she purchased at the Farmers Market and make herself a weakish cup of tea (four dunks of a Lipton's bag if it was the first time, let it sit for 2 minutes if it was the second use), add about half a teaspoon of sugar and then sit down to eat her fruit and drink her tea while she read the paper(s) cover to cover. She has read the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, The San Diego Union Tribune for ever and recently she added the New York Times. If she was feeling particularly peckish, she would scramble AN egg. Then she would get dressed and begin the rest of her day.

During the day, she would do some sort of community work (not important towards eating/exercising, but was huge for her mental health). If she had my brother and I visiting, she might take us out to lunch, where she would order a salad, eat half and then apologetically tell the waiters, "I just can't eat it all." If we weren't there, or even most of the time when we were, she would eat half a sandwich or some of the protein left over from the previous night's meal. She'd probably spend an hour weeding or swimming in the afternoon as well, especially if we were there and she had to be outside keeping an eye on us.

She would shower and change just before starting dinner. Dinner ALWAYS had a protein, a red or yellow vegetable, a green vegetable and often a starch. She would have one drink before dinner but it was mostly water with a splash of scotch for color - she called them empty calories. When serving dinner, she would make sure she got only half a serving of the starch, and the smallest portion of the protein. She might load up on the veggies though, especially the bottom of the salad bowl. And she didn't approve of double types of fat on things - butter OR sour cream, but not both. 

So, when I think of all this, I wonder: WHY DIDN'T I END UP LIKE MY GRANDMOTHER? I had this person who exemplified healthy living - fruits and veggies, limited alcohols and fats, hardly any real sugars, lean proteins and lots of exercise. The recipes she gave me on my 25th birthday hardly need to be modified at all for MF. Why did I choose someone else as my role model? Why not her?

At least I am learning to use her now. It is my mantra, "What would Tutu do?"