If you're in college or a recent post-grad like me, you've probably heard variations of the following:
"Eat all the bad food you want now because you won't be able to when you're my age."
"You're so lucky, when you get older you won't be able to get away with eating bad and staying thin."
Does any of this sound familiar? I was told these things time and time again, and I believed them myself. When I was in college, my daily food intake went something like this: skip breakfast, eat a sandwich (or bbq chicken quesadilla if it was Tuesday) for lunch, snack on hot cheetos in the afternoon, eat way too much for dinner, reward myself with ice cream, then get street tacos around midnight.
I would wake up in the morning with terrible stomach pains, feel sluggish, and often times was bloated from the previous day's food. My roommates can attest that I often complained about my stomach so much that I could barely walk around and usually laid on the couch or on my bed for hours. My eating habits not only affected my weight, but also my skin, self-image, and energy levels. I would vow to myself to never eat tacos that late again, to eat less oily food so my skin wouldn't break out, and to exercise more so I would feel energized. And then the next day would come along and I'd fall into the same bad patterns again. If you've nodded your head at any point up until now, please stay and listen to what I have to say because I'd rather not tell you "I told you so" later on.
I belong to a family with a long history of type II diabetes and high cholesterol. We love our food, but we often times don't take care of our bodies and that's the big problem. Just because I'm young doesn't mean I'm immune to chronic diseases like diabetes, especially when it's such a big part of my family history. Over the past two years, I've been told multiple times by my doctor that my blood sugar levels are getting too high and that I'm at high-risk for diabetes. A large part of it is because of my family history. It's both scary and discouraging news because 1. I'm 22, how can I possibly get diabetes and; 2. how do I miss out on all the food and drinks my friends are consuming. After my doctor's news, I had weeks in which I avoided carbs all together, ate plain Greek yogurt and only meats and vegetables, and then I went through weeks in which I ate pizza more than once and drank boba too many times to count and felt guilty.
It was a rollercoaster with a lot of highs and lows, but the hardest part was trying to find the compromise between choosing to be healthy by protecting my body from diabetes and indulging in the same foods and drinks my friends seemed to enjoy on the daily. It felt so unfair that I had to say no to the foods I loved when my friends could eat it all and have no dire consequences for it. It was especially hard because I generally ate pretty healthy with a few uh-oh choices during the week, but my family history of diabetes was so strong every bad choice I made had effects. How do you tell your friends you're at high risk for diabetes when you're only 21? How do you not give in to peer pressure when your friends ask you to get pizza, or ice cream, or tacos, or boba with them?
Maybe I'll have one boba. One more won't make my sugar levels worse.
Okay, fine, maybe one more. I haven't had one all week.
Alright, if I get less sugar each time it won't be that bad.
Do you see my dilemma? As a young adult in college, it was hard to say no. And then over the summer, my numbers rose so high I scared myself by googling how to deal with diabetes and in what ways one can prevent or delay it. Does WebMD ever scare you too?
Sometimes, I misdiagnose myself based on symptoms I read on WebMD (like the time I convinced myself I had prostate cancer, big oops). But sometimes, in this case, WebMD can scare me enough to actually change my health habits. Because why live in fear of diabetes when you can do something about it now, even in your 20s.
So I'm pledging to take better care of my body. I'm pledging to eat more natural ingredients instead of frozen or super processed foods. I'm pledging to exercise at least 30 minutes a day every day. I'm pledging to sleep earlier and wake up earlier. And I'm pledging to educate the young people and friends around me so that we all can choose to live healthier lives with accountability.
Will you join me in this pledge? Comment below with one way you'll pledge to live healthier :)
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