Follow Up on Yesterday's Post...

As I mentioned in my previous post, I personally strive to maintain healthy eating habits, and (as many of my family members and friends will tell you) I sometimes attempt to impose those habits on the people close to me. I won't bore you with a laundry list of items that are included in my diet, but here's a basic overview: I don't eat red meat. Instead, I get my protein from hummus and tofu. I am also overly obsessed (and willing to admit this fact) with strictly watching my intake of unnecessary fats. Pretty much everything I cook or bake (including desserts) is either low in fat content or fat-free. I enjoy trying new, healthy recipes and then testing them on my loved ones. For instance, one of my specials is Tofu Spinach Lasagna...but when I serve it, I fail to mention the tofu part until they've eaten it. (Cruel huh?)

Thinking back on it, I guess my awareness regarding the importance of a healthy diet came to full bloom during my senior year of high school. In my agro-ecology class at governor's school, we spent a decent amount of time focusing on nutrition and healthy eating. Assignments for this unit included reading Eric Schlosser's eye-opening novel, Fast Food Nation, and viewing Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me. Then, with a newfound interest in the subject, I chose to read Spurlock's book Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America. Let me just say that after being exposed to all of this disturbing information, I had never been happier to be a semi-vegetarian! Now, don't get me wrong, the occasional enjoyment of unhealthy food is okay as long as it is done in moderation. However, based on statistics, it seems that many Americans choose unhealthy foods more often than they opt for fruits and veggies.

So, I hope this gives you some background on why I choose to advocate healthy eating habits.

Thanks for reading!

Advocating a Healthy Lifestyle

Okay, so after thinking about my advocacy topic over the past week, I have decided to shift gears from my usual pro-environment concerns to another issue which I find to be incredibly important: maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Of course, there are many components involved in living a healthy life, including diet, exercise, proper ways of dealing with stress, and lifestyle behaviors (such as drinking or smoking), among other factors. Narrowing this down, I intend to focus on the importance of healthy eating and nutrition as part of every person's ongoing daily routine. This is a topic that I have been advocating informally for several years now, and I feel that society as a whole would greatly benefit if more Americans became more health conscious. Some individuals may argue that their personal eating habits are their own choice and do not affect anyone other than themselves, however, in a country where obesity rates continue to climb (and thus the number of people suffering from obesity related diseases like Type 2 Diabetes also increases), we will all eventually suffer from increased insurance rates in order to cover these costs. I feel that steps are being taken in the right direction in order to overcome these circumstances (i.e. schools replacing soda machines with bottled water), however, there is still a long way to go. This issue is really important to me, and I look forward to working with several classmates on an advocacy project that will promote healthy lifestyles.

I will post again later regarding my personal eating habits and the amazed reactions I sometimes receive when acquaintances first become informed of my non-mainstream diet. But alas, that post will have to wait until late tonight or tomorrow...class awaits. Have a wonderful Thursday everyone! :)

My First Semester as a....SENIOR!!!!

It hit me yesterday that this upcoming semester will (hopefully) be my last spring semester at JMU (thanks to transfer credits from governor's school and taking extra credit hours during several semesters...guess that stuff was worthwhile after all! Haha). I still can't completely grasp the fact that I'm set to graduate next December. Then I'll be forced to enter the real working world...which should prove to be interesting based on the current job market. Ah well, in the meantime, at least I have another year left to enjoy college! Speaking of which, the whole initial point of this post was to inform you all that for the third semester in a row, I again have Mike as a professor for political communication. This semester, I am taking his Argument and Advocacy class, and yet again, he is requiring that we maintain a blog. The difference is, this time we have to blog about a single topic that is important to us. This may come as a big shocker to most of you (insert sarcasm here :P), but I'm strongly leaning toward focusing on conservationism. I'm going to think about it a bit more before I make my final decision though. Another exciting, yet challenging component of this course is to complete an advocacy project concerning the issue that we blog about. So in other words, if I choose conservationism as my advocacy issue, then I will have to organize a campus or community-wide event that puts my advocacy into action (i.e. a park clean up day). I'm open to any ideas/suggestions about this, so please feel free to comment with any ideas that you may have.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week! :)

Happy New Year!!!!

I spent my final afternoon/evening of 2008 doing two things that I absolutely love: running and singing karaoke (not simultaneously though! lol). There's nothing quite like running a 5K in 31 degree temperatures with a bitter wind blowing and snow flurries flying! But once you run the first half-mile or so and the feeling returns to your toes, it's not so bad. After the race (and several hours of relaxing/warming up at home), it was off to Luray to ring in the new year by singing some Page County karaoke! It was certainly a fun-filled way to send out 2008 and bring in 2009!

It just hit me that I will (hopefully) be graduating at the very end of 2009, so I am looking forward to my senior year of college and the opportunities ahead. I wish you all a very happy and blessed new year!!!! Here's to 2009!!!