#3 Do you treat your body like a sacred vessel? What changes can you make?

This is one area where I’ve always done pretty well. If I were to give myself a grade, it would be a B: above average, but room for improvement.

I’m good to my body. I’ve never been a smoker or much of a drinker, I have annual physicals, and always wear a seatbelt. I’ve been an outdoor kind of girl from the time I was a kid. I amused myself for hours by turning endless cartwheels across the grass, riding my bike (I could circle the entire block with no hands), hitting a tennis ball against the brick wall on the back patio, and playing basketball in the driveway or baseball in the backyard with the neighborhood kids.

When I was in college, I worked in Glacier and Rocky Mountain National Parks for three summers, where we spent our days off hiking, backpacking, and mountain climbing. I also took several college physical education classes just for the fun of it—tennis, gymnastics, dance, even skiing. I joined my first gym in 1979 and have obtained gym memberships steadily ever since. When we lived in California, we spent many enjoyable weekends and vacations water skiing on the Colorado River. Thanks to my friend Sue, I also got into road biking six years ago and I’ve done a number of state rides and put several thousand miles on my bike. I’m blessed by the fact that exercise and physical activity are never chores for me—I truly enjoy them.

However, there’s still room for lots of improvement in my diet. I used to think that I could exercise away my food choices. But as I got older, I found that didn’t work anymore. Almost before I realized it, I had gained 20 pounds after we moved to Georgia. In 2003, I joined Weight Watchers and lost all I had gained. A few pounds have crept back on since then, and I’m constantly challenging myself to make healthier food choices, eat more vegetables, drink more water. Sometimes I’m successful and sometimes not. I’m thankful that food was never used as a reward when I was a child, so I usually don’t think of it in that manner.  When I slip up, I don’t chastise myself or dwell on it too much, but just decide to do better next time.

People usually think I'm younger than I really am. Just this past weekend, six of us were eating dinner at a sidewalk cafe and my 21-year-old daughter and I were the only ones carded when we ordered beers! OK, granted, it was dark outside and the outdoor lights were dim. But it still made my evening, and I'm very thankful for having "youthful" genes!