Healthcare Series: Making Time for Health with a Growing Family

By: Laura Proctor

Write a blog post centered on health?

That seems ironic right now considering my 9 month old daughter has an ear infection and my husband and I both just got over pink eye. Did I mention I got it twice? No joke – you’ll rediscover a whole slew of long forgotten illnesses once you have a baby in daycare. Sigh… But, this too shall pass and our family will get back to it.

Before I get too far in I’m supposed to write a bio so let me introduce myself.

I’m Laura. Wife to Eric, Mom to Crosby, and general lover of life. I’m a Louisville transplant from the mitten state (hint: Michigan) that landed at Doe-Anderson, recently named one of the “coolest work places in Louisville” (see: http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/print-edition/2014/06/20/coolest-office-spaces-doe-anderson-offers.html). No that was not a shameless plug, I really wanted you to see how cool it is. So by day I’m an Account Supervisor and by night, I serve on the Session at Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church. I also enjoy running, traveling, vegetarian cooking, and long walks on the beach (I seriously could not stop myself…). Long story short – I have a lot of commitments.

Totally related to that, I signed up to write a blog for YPAL (hi!). I’m hoping that contributing to this blog will help me stay focused on my wellness journey. I’m generally a healthy person. I eat well. I’m active. Even with a new baby, I make time for me. But what I’ve learned is that it takes a lot of effort and support. And when I don’t have time and haven’t made the effort, I waiver – and as we all know, ain’t nobody got time for that. I don’t know how many YPAL’ers have families but I would put money on the fact that the majority of you are overbooked. I hope this is where we start to connect and you find something here that helps support your journey.

Since I’ve spent my first three paragraphs on fluff, I guess I have to leave you with something valuable. Here’s my advice: set a goal and follow through. As professionals, we do this every day in our business lives as we strive for success. So shouldn’t we give ourselves the same attention? In support of one of our clients, I, along with 20+ other Doe-Anderson employees have registered to run the Bluegrass Cellular fivek in August. Having not run for the past 2 years of baby transition, this was a big commitment for me. While training, I’ve struggled to find time and energy on multiple occasions (I’m skipping a run right now to write this blog). But I’ve also felt huge satisfaction and enjoyment in taking on a new challenge. You should too.

I’ll see you next month, assuming I survive the race…

Health & Wellness Q & A 

Favorite Workout: Running ($), YMCA Body Pump ($$), Pure Barre ($$$)
Healthy Lifestyle Goal: What a difficult question… Live an active lifestyle? Eat more whole foods? Meditate daily? Hmm… I guess my ultimate goal would be to find the perfect work/life balance and prioritize accordingly. If you’re going to put the most and best effort you can into your work, you have to give yourself time to recover. Work hard. Play hard. Right?
Proudest Fitness Achievement: I ran the Kentucky Derby Festival Mini Marathon a few years ago. It was a great experience but I will NEVER do it again.
The reason I work out: Would it be wrong to say M&M’s?
Favorite way to fight stress: Walking or Running.

About the Series

The YPAL Healthcare Blog Series, sponsored by Norton Healthcare, is part of the new Healthy YP Initiative, which will focus on the health and well-being of our Louisville Young Professionals. This blog series will feature various young professional bloggers in our community sharing their stories on health, wellness, nutrition, fitness and healthy lifestyles.