A little more than two years ago I made a full conversion to vegetarianism - as in I don't eat meat or meat by-products. This is different than being a dietary vegan wherein one doesn't eat anything produced by an animal (i.e. no honey, no dairy, etc.); similar but different dietary philosophies. At the time of my conversion, I'd been dabbling with going "no kill" (as some of my employees like to refer to my dietary decision) for a little over 18 months in large part thanks to a number of documentaries focused on the food industry that were a part of the curriculum in a college class I was teaching at the time. Combine those films with the birth of our first daughter and a general sense of wanting to be healthier and the decision (and sticking with it) was generally easy. I lost some weight, started to feel more energetic, and as a whole felt like a healthier person. But over time, some bad habits started to creep in.
When I first became a vegetarian I also cut out a lot of other things like sugar and dairy and eggs - I was living lean and clean, but after about 15 months some of those things started to find their way back into my diet, sometimes in their most deliciously fried forms, sometimes with a side of another fried dish of delicious. And while my weight didn't shift up, it certainly didn't continue to shift down, and I started to feel less like the new me.
Fast forward, we have two-and-a-half years old and one year old daughters - they're tiny and dangerous and quick. I want to keep up with them, I want to be an example for my children, and I know the unspoken but true corollary about the husky guy advancing or not through the ranks of the workplace (and I want to continue to have a long, awesome career). So, I'm looking at how can I be better at home, at work, and in general - and in the name of this looking, I'm going to use the occasional Tuesday post here to talk about my successes, failures, and more often than not share news from the wellness front; a topic that's becoming increasingly more important as a result of PPACA rules along with arguments like the one I made a while back around "well employees are engaged employees." Plus, wellness has become a critically engrained component of my day-to-day when I moved from a campus HR office to a University System Wide Total Rewards team.
So, if you're inclined to such things, I invite you to join me for the next 12 months (at least) - in A Year of Living Less Dangeroulsy (#YLLD) - as we explore ways to become better, stronger, faster, healthier, and more awesome in all the aspects of our lives both at work and at home.
Header Photo Credit: Jo sé via Compfight cc
