Last weekend, I decided that I really need to get healthy – I’m closer to 40 than 30 and it’s just going to get harder as time goes on. And my being out of shape is becoming increasingly obvious and annoying. Shane is also getting healthy, but I won’t tell his story here – it doesn’t feel right. I will say that we’ve both spent most of our lives trying to reach other goals – academic, career, mental health, etc. – and it now feels like our health goals are finally at the top of the list.

Medically, my family history is full of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and other not great things. Luckily, I haven’t really run into any of these problems, but I can see them in the offing. The last time I had bloodwork done everything was fine, but my insane level of sugar intake is only setting me up for failure on the diabetes front. I’m currently waiting on my latest bloodwork.

I wish I could say I was only doing this for health reasons, but I’ve gained a lot of weight over the years, and I don’t love the way it looks on me. I mean, losing the weight will make me healthier as well, but I really want to comfortably fit in the pants I already own.

So, what’s the plan? I haven’t figured it out completely, but the basics are all the same, aren’t they? Cutting out sugar, less fast food, calorie counting, cardio, weights, cooking at home. It’s so easy to type out and so hard to stick with.

I should post a before picture, but I don’t want to. I’ll take one, just in case I want to post it at the end, but it won’t be seeing the light of day until then, if ever. I’ll probably post pictures and videos on Instagram and Snapchat. I just deleted TikTok because of my complete inability to stop watching after a certain amount of time or I’d post there as well. Anything to keep myself accountable.

The day I started writing this, I got my latest bloodwork results back from my annual checkup. Most of it was fine – as normal – but there were some not normal results regarding kidney function and some other ones that may be due to dehydration. Those didn’t seem to bother the doctor – I say “seem” because the packet of paper I got didn’t have any information on those and I did my own Googling. Okay, Shane did the Googling.

You know what did bother the doctor? My LDL levels. You know, the bad cholesterol one. It’s not insanely high, but high enough for the doctor to say if I don’t get them under control in the next three months, I’ll be going on medication. I’m a huge fan of medication when it’s needed – but if changing my diet a bit and starting to exercise could solve the problem, then I want to try that first. The doctor sent along a sheet of foods – what to choose, what to “go easy” on, and what to avoid – and instructions to “comply with diet and exercise”. No word on how much exercise, but since I do none now, any amount is an improvement.

Well, there it is – the first entry in the Sarah Gets Healthy adventure. It’s going to be a very interesting journey – for me, anyway. Y’all might think it’s incredibly boring. I’m excited to see how everything shakes out.

-S

• Getting Healthy