Drive Thrus or Dinner Tables

I sat in my room, typing my paper that was due in two hours. I am only 200 words away from completing my essay. It won’t take me too long to finish this. I can type over 50 words a minute. Just as I neared finishing my paper my stomach growled loudly. I thought I could resist moving but it growled a lot and distracted me. Instead of finishing my paper, I chose to get in my car and go to McDonalds. It’s one of the most popular fast food restaurants on Milton Road in Flagstaff. It’s actually one of the most popular fast food restaurants. On average one in 16 people frequent it daily.

I returned home and finished my food and paper quickly. It took all of 30 minutes. I ate my food and did my homework at the same time. I wouldn’t be able to say the same if I made food at home. For me, cooking at home is a pain because I have to take out fish or chicken out of the freezer and wait until it defrosts. After it defrosts, I have to go through the process of making food which can take from 30 minutes until an hour. This is why fast food has become a convenience for me and 50 million other Americans. My priority is my midterm first and then dinner.

My last doctor visit was a wake-up call. My 150 pound and six feet frame can be deceiving to most people. I went to the doctor because I was feeling sick. I went to the Health and Learning Center on Northern Arizona University’s campus because it was the closest doctor to me. There weren’t many people in the waiting room so I didn’t think it would take that long but it did and due to the rules I couldn’t play on my phone to past the time. My name was called and I was taken to the back of the facility where I had all my vitals taken. When Dr. Krueger finally came to see me, she told me that I didn’t have strep throat as I suspected but I needed to watch my blood pressure. I wasn’t sure of what to make of her words. She told me that it could be a symptom of having a cold but I needed to be cautious of it despite this. I nodded my head and hopped off of the seat and left.

A regular blood pressure diagnosis is when the systolic number is less than 20 and the diastolic number is less than 80. My blood pressure at the time was in pre-hypertension levels. 67 million American adults have high blood pressure. High blood pressure increases the risk for heart disease and stroke, the first and third leading causes of death in the United States respectively.

I walked to the store to pick up my medicine and thought of the reasons why my blood pressure could be high. Dr. Krueger said it could be the cold but I knew that wasn’t the only reason. I ate fast food a lot. My friends and I have cars so isn’t that hard to jump in one and get some food quickly. I’ve never been one to eat out usually so I knew that was the reason my blood pressure was high.

I made it home and looked through my refrigerator and realized that there was a lot of food in there. There was chicken, fish, turkey ground all waiting to be eaten. That night I made tilapia, rice and spinach. The next I ate leftovers instead of going out. For the rest of the week I ate my leftovers. The weeks following were the same. I made a huge meal like shrimp tacos for myself and ate of it for the whole week following.

Everything I made was really delicious and helped me realized how much I love cooking when I actually take time to do it. Store trips are a lot of fun when I knew my money wasn’t going to go to waste. I tried Boca instead of getting a burger from Burger King. Boca are veggie burgers that I heard of when I watched the Lavigne Life video logs on YouTube. I wanted to try them. They tasted really good to my surprise. I don’t like tofu or other vegetarian foods so I didn’t think they would taste good. My new roommates are health fanatics so it inspired me a bit to watch what I eat.

One of my friends invited me to hang out. I didn’t think too much of it so I decided to go. She picked me up in her car and asked if I would like something to eat. I ate before I left the house so I wasn’t hungry. I sat in the passenger seat as she ordered Wendy’s. She ordered a ten piece chicken nugget meal. Half of them were spicy and the other half was regular chicken nuggets. She didn’t order a large drink because she thinks they are really huge. She ordered large fries. We went back to her house and I watched as she ate. I was a bit jealous that she could eat whatever she wanted when I all I ate for lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I could eat whatever I want but I realized that my need to change my health was greater. Hypertension also known as high blood pressure runs in my family. Both of my maternal and paternal grandmothers suffered from high blood pressure. My maternal grandmother had two strokes over the course of her lifetime because of clogged arteries. When she was younger she had a very high metabolism but as she got older it slowed down and she started to suffer from health problems due to her eating habits. 1993 was the year I was born and the year she suffered from her first stroke and had to learn to walk and talk again.

“I was stressed,” said my mom and her daughter, Theresa Rogers. “It made me question my health too because I watched all of the energy drain out of her.”

My grandmother eventually passed in 2011 due to a cardiac arrest. By this time my mom changed the way she ate and how much she worked out. She worked out six days a week because her mother’s health was a major issue my whole life.

We used to take her to the doctor once every month. She held onto my arm as we walked into Kaiser. We sat in the waiting room until she was called back to do her blood pressure. They wrapped it around her arm before sticking a needle in it and taking her blood. It was a bit scary to me when I was little. She also took seven pills daily. She changed her eating habits drastically. My mom brought her sun chips and she didn’t eat fast food after that. The last 20 years of her life all she worried about was her health. It was her life.

I didn’t want that to become me.

My paternal grandmother has had to watch her blood pressure as well but it seemed to go much smoother for her. She was raised on unhealthy food and it ran in her family. As soon as she found out that her blood pressure was high, she immediately worked on changing it and she’s been fine since.

This is why it scared me a bit when the doctor said my blood pressure was high. Hypertension is hereditary and it hasn’t affected my mom. I wanted to change my eating habits first. My meals throughout the day consisted of either oatmeal or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches depending on the day. During the day I eat sandwiches which are typically turkey and cheese. Dinner is the only time where I get a chance to switch up a bit. Depending on how hungry I am I will make a full course meal like chicken with a side and some vegetables or something like tacos. Recently I made homemade burritos with all the fixings inside.

I went back to the doctor recently to find out if my blood pressure had dropped any and it is now at normal levels. Just by me changing my eating habits and cutting out fast food is paying off.