Last night I hung out with a dear old friend who called needing my help and advice as it relates to her health. On January 1 she decided to weigh herself and began to cry. She is at her all time heaviest weight. Our discussion had three main areas of focus that I feel are imperative to a healthy weight and healthy body image that I wanted to share with our Fit Communications community.
1. Fitness
If you want to be healthy, you MUST workout. There are tons of opinions on what type of workout is best, how often you should do it, and for how long. But there is ZERO question or debate that if you want to be healthy, a workout routine is a MUST. As adults we should be working out as much as we can – it leads to a healthy heart, bones, and blood. It keeps disease as bay including heart disease, diabetes, cancer – almost all disease prevention mentions exercise. Your body will be healthier. Your mind will be healthier. YOU will live a longer, healthier, happier life if you exercise frequently. This is not up for debate. Exercise is a must.
2. Nutrition
There is so much information out there to weed through about what it means to have a healthy diet. Each human being requires different supplements and diet requirements. The way you eat has direct correlation to how you look and how you feel. I remember years ago my brother called me and said he had been feeling down for the last few days. I asked him what he had been eating that may have something to do with it. As a high level athlete his concern is not focused on calories to say the least. But he noted he had eaten McDonald’s for three meals in the last three days. He stopped eating McDonald’s that week. You need to shoot for the 80/20 rule when it comes to your nutrition. 80% of the time it should be healthy, nutritious food. 20% of the time you can slack a bit. The way you eat directly relates to how your feel – physically and emotionally. This is so important.
3. Self Love
This is the part that everyone forgets. If you workout consistently and eat a healthy diet, what’s left? There is more to it. You need to start to love the body that is yours. Once you begin to love your body you will only want the very best for it. You won’t want to pack it with cola and potato chips. You won’t want to skip workouts for a week, a month, a year. You will want to feed yourself nutritious food and exercise frequently because that is what is best for your body and you can FEEL the difference. You can feel how much better your body and mind are when you treat your body like a temple rather than like a garbage dump. And you can try every single diet, every single workout fad, every pill, every shake, and every wrap. But until you LOVE YOUR BODY you will never be healthy. Because if you don’t think your body deserves nothing but the best, you are throwing it all away.
It doesn’t take a new year to make new promises to yourself – it takes courage and commitment. When you start to love your body you will start to see the change that you have yearned for. So try to make this year about this your want to DO, rather than things that you want to LOSE. You want to lose belly fat and weight and a few extra pounds. Instead, shift your thinking to bringing things INTO your life like exercise and nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. We need to shift our thinking about healthy lifestyle from being things we want to lose or get rid of into a mindset of things we want to gain like more years, more energy, more health.
Happy 2015!