Hey Everyone
I finally read through the 11 pages of posts from this forumn, yay! I'm trying to read through, like, at least one entire thread a day, or so until I get more caught up, and have at least all the stickies read. Their is soo much info on here, I can't wait to soak it all up!
I've introduced myself once in the Women's Fitness Forum. I am a 17 year old high school student. Ever since childhood I have enjoyed a broad spectrum of foods, including almost every fruit and vegetable their is (except for peas--i can't stand them for some reason,!) so I'm extremely thankful to my parents for introducing me to these foods. I've been athletic since childhood, also. However it wasn't until the past few years that i've become interested in fitness, and for the past 1 or 2 years i've been oh-so
gradually learning more about it. My parents are both overweight, I think my mother may be obese. My mother is great about buying healthy foods, but she knows much less than I do about cooking right (one of my pet peeves is that she cooks things in butter,,...but I am changing that) and exercising (luckily I don't need my parents to motivate me to exercise because I love doing this)~this year i'm trying to sprad my knowledge to my parents, because the more they learn about food, especially, than the easier it will be for me to get myself in the shape i want to be. Plus, of course I want my parents to be more healthy! -- And they are

Often I go shopping by myself and introduce foods to my parents. I am glad that my about-to-graduate-from-college sister is healthy and fit because two voices are better than one.
The reasons I enjoy fitness-the thing that I, in a sence, choose to surround my life with (because their are so many things a person can excel at...) are endless. Besides making myself look and feel terrific, fitness is something that can be constantly improved throughout your life. It's not like speech team or drama club that ends for most people at high school. Not to say that these things are bad-I just get really excited about things when I join, and i'd hate to have to give up something that I love. Even worse for me would be to join the party crowd. I have partied a few times a while back and realize how addicting it is, so if I fell into that crowd it would be a bad bad thing. Yuck...I can do better things with my high school years. I can't wait to learn more and more about fitness, nutrition, and exercise, so I can continue to improve myself. In a big way fitness occupies free time that could be spent doing self-destructing habits, like sex and alcohal (at my age), or even worse, doing drugs.
I know a lot already but the more I practice it, the more ideas become ingrained in my habits and therefore freeing up more space in my head for more ideas!
now isn't that exciting?!
See you guys around
-Jessica-
PS. I love how friendly you all are! Isn't it interesting that healthy people tend to be the nicest?
