Anniversary

Yesterday marked one year since my wife had her heart attack. She and I rang in the new year in her hospital room, toasting with sparkling pear juice after a dinner of home made chicken noodle soup (her favorite).

I’ve been ruminating about that, and how far we’ve come since then.

On the plus side, it precipitated some positive changes in our life.

We quit doing dessert every night: no more cream pies or ice cream. Instead, we have home made apple crisp from time to time.

We are eating more vegetables. Our dinners (and lunches) are more geared around the salad, choosing appropriate sides and proteins to go along with it. We’ve incorporated some new recipes into our regular dinner choice rotation, including ratatouille (made the way Remi the rat does in the Pixar movie of the same name). At least three times a week our breakfast is hot cereal consisting of toasted oatmeal, quinoa, flax seed and walnuts. And on those weekends we have pancakes or waffles, they’re made with whole wheat flour and flax seed meal.

We bought a series of books called “Eat This, Not That” which opened our eyes to the reality of nutrition, and how small changes can make a huge impact without forcing impossible expectations or unreasonable diet restrictions. For example, reading the nutrition labels on packaged foods can reveal how much high fructose corn syrup is in nearly every processed food you buy, including bread.

Still, there’s a lot of room for improvement.

One of the things my wife and I both struggle with is will power, and remaining fixed on our health goal.

We both are prone to “falling off the wagon” when it comes to food, particularly when that food is chocolate. Or at least partly chocolate. Carbohydrates are yummy, it’s an inescapable fact. We both like food, and don’t do well with portion control. Being hungry after eating the proper amount of calories means that at some point, we’re going to want to eat more calories.

And of course we need to get up and move more; get out and exercise. We have had spurts of activity, where we’ll go for a half-hour walk every night for a few weeks… but then we start slacking off, and pretty soon we’re not walking at all.

We now have a Wii Fit Plus, which is phenomenally motivating for getting us up and moving. It keeps track of your weight and body mass index, allows you to set goals and provides enough nagging to keep us going. I swear it said “oof” the first time I stood on that board. And I was very sad to see my little “Mii” character balloon up to walrus size once it calculated my BMI.

The games and training found in Wii Fit Plus are all aerobic activities, and they’re all very addictive – I find myself looking forward to practicing Kung Fu moves, jogging along with a kitty cat, throwing a Frisbee to a dog on the beach or doing the step aerobic dances. My wife is getting to be a grand champion hula-hooper.

We keep our eyes on the objective of being healthier, thinner, and more energetic in 2010. We’ll keep up with our diet changes and make further improvements. We’ll be moving more and eating less.

As I keep telling my wife: “We have to reach old age together. I’ve got plans for you.”