I’m not gonna lie, I’ve never been a super healthy person. I never cared a ton about what I ate and I certainly didn’t exercise. I was pretty lucky to not have to work out or pay close attention to what I ate. I was given decent genes and a fast metabolism.
But does that mean that I should sit on my couch eating leftover pizza from my restaurant job and watch movies with my cat all the time?
No.
That’s super not okay. (Not all the time, at least. It’s totally okay to do occasionally 
)
I wasn’t very active back home- aside from being a server (which actually does require a ton of walking, so that’s good) and shopping at the mall with my best friend a lot (also, conveniently keeps my heart working more than sitting down.)
But is that enough?
I decided to give this whole cardio and healthy exercise a try on the race after hearing some of my squad mates discuss how beneficial it all really is to your health.
I always thought that I was the most non-athletic person I knew. I was convinced that I couldn’t run down the street without my chest hurting and normal breathing being near impossible to be regained. And I could barely do more than 2 push-ups. And yoga? No way. My flexibility was left in a box, buried with my high school cheerleading uniform.
So I was surprised when I started running with some teammates who run frequently and I could keep up with them for the most part. They were impressed with me and said that I was a natural!
ME? A NATURAL RUNNER?
Whoa. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but my running has really improved on the race. And I actually enjoy it a lot. And I enjoy breaking a sweat a few times a week. And I enjoy doing yoga when other squad mates do it (Julie D. is a yoga super genius).
I enjoy how my body feels now that I work out.
And as far as eating, I really eat healthier on the World Race than back home. I didn’t know how to cook pretty much anything aside from scrambled eggs and mac & cheese from a box. So I ate a ton of leftover food from Old Chicago (where I worked for the past four years.) It’s honestly not the healthiest to be an every day diet.
On the race, we can’t control a lot of what we eat. For example, in South America, we ate a TON of white rice. Occasionally, we ate things we reeaaaalllly didn’t want to like cow liver or black potatoes (trust me, you don't want to know).
So when we have the option of buying our own food, cooking for ourselves or having input in what we eat for the month, we jump on the healthy bandwagon. We are all about fruit, veggies and getting protein in.
It’s kind of fun eating healthy, learning to cook and incorporating it all into our diets.
And of course, being on an all-girls team and all, we love us some sweets! We don’t deprive ourselves at all. But we are learning and growing in the fruit of the spirit called ‘self-control.’ Self-Control is an important quality to be rooted in Jesus in and 'sweets' in a very applicable area to practice it.
Basically, I’ve learned a lot about living healthily, protecting the body that God’s blessed me with and creating good lifestyle choices.
When I get home from the race, I will use my new skills and knowledge. I will use my kitchen (that I will hopefully have and decorate lovely) to cook meals in and I will take advantage of beautiful, safe Wyoming and go on runs often and I would really love to go to LifeTime Gym and join their RedHot Yoga!
Oh, and I will hike Casper Mountain every chance I get. (Who knew that I would love hiking so much? It’s definitely my favorite form of working out. I’ve been hiking in every country so far, and it’s been totally amazing!)
Now, since all that serious talk is out of the way, I’d like to provide you with some entertainment, inspiration and mostly just a good laugh. Here, we made good use of a “work-out park” that we found last month in Romania. Enjoy.
