# 58 - Living in Fear or Living in Hope

When you buy a new car, you seem to talk to folks about new cars. When you buy a baby stroller, that's what's on your mind in every conversation. So it has been lately with health and fitness. Folks seem to talk to me a lot about dieting, eating healthy, and eating unhealthy.
Some folks seem somber. "I will always be fighting the battle of the bulge." "I will always have to be on guard every day, from meal to meal, or I will fall."
I can't think that way. I can't live in fear of tumbling out of the Health Zone. The fear itself will push me over the edge. I have to live in hope that I'll be able to remember everything (or most everything) I learned at the Efrat Women's Health Center. I prefer to live in hope that I'll be able to keep healthy eating and exercise a part of my life forever. That is the way the folks at the EWHC taught us to live. I love healthy habits (yes, I'm brainwashed - hooray). I love healthy food. I love salad. I love exercise (except "three squats and a jump"). I love walking. I love zumba. 
And that's all so amazing, because when I started at the EWHC, I told our nutritionist Judy Kizer that I couldn't stand salad, unless it was drowning in salad dress to give it taste. Now I can't wait to eat a great salad. And I remember telling Alizah Shapiro, our social worker, that I just could not find any time to any exercise. And she told me, "At least walk up and down the steps in your house a few times." Well, now I don't want to start my day without time on the treadmill. And now that we only have one session of exercise a week at the EWHC, I am beside myself.
Sometimes I get a flinch of fear. "Don't let me fall out of the zone." But then I catch myself and smile. Yes, I make it my business to go to the mirror and crack a big smile. And then I say, "I love being healthy. I hope I can stay this way." I wink and I go about my life - living in hope for a healthy always.