In my opinion, the sooner we move away from a “diet” mind set the better off we will be.
Our health is a direct reflection of lifestyle – how we move our bodies, how we nourish our bodies, how we think about things, the amount of stress we allow in.
Why would we just get to that healthy weight for an event? That’s the second mind set component – our weight is a reflection of lifestyle choices. If you don’t like your weight, the lack of energy, the pain when you move, then change your lifestyle.
We all love to complicate things – but healthy living doesn’t need to be all that complicated.
Let’s start with this statement I just read by Dr Libby.
“Your own weight loss cannot happen without you. The thing is, you have to care enough about yourself to take care of yourself. The way you feed yourself is the most basic form of self-care you can demonstrate. Bring awareness to this today, and make your food choices based on nourishment and self-care.”
Take a moment to reflect on that.
You don’t have to go full out to start. In fact, when I work with people I encourage small consistent steps, create the habit, strengthen the habit before moving to the next habits we want to break and create. You’re more likely to obtain the desired outcome that way, than going full out for two weeks deciding it’s just far too difficult and giving up all together.
So what does a healthy active lifestyle look like?
- Put yourself first. No excuses, people depend on you so you need to be the best you can be so you can give them the best of you.
2. Exercise your NO muscle. We do far too much of the things we don’t want to do to please others but forget that we aren’t happy in the process. This includes your children. You don’t have to say yes to everything and sacrifice who you are just to make them happy. Refer to #1.
3. Move your body. Have fun with it, choose an activity you love. If its connection that lights your fire, join in group fitness activities. If movement is a way to have some you time and clear your head, do solo activities. Get your heart rate up, get that blood pumping, and remember your resistance activities. Building and maintaining lean muscle boosts your metabolism and helps with healthy aging. Do you want to spend your retirement years not being able to do much or do you want to take that opportunity to really explore the world, be active with grandchildren, get involved in the community. Be able to move freely!!! I know what I choose.
4. Love yourself and nourish your body in a way that proves that. Remember, our bodies need vitamins, minerals, fibre, quality carbohydrates, healthy fats, proteins, amino acids, phytonutrients, and antioxidants NOT unhealthy fats, excess sugar, white flour, excess salt, preservatives, food coloring. And yet so many of us reflect our food choices with the state of our bodies and our health. Do you love yourself enough to put yourself first? If you struggle with that do you love your loved ones enough to take care of yourself so you can give them the best of you? Cut the processed crap, added sugars, focus on whole and real food. Support your whole and real foods with quality shakes and supplements to boost what the food supply lacks. If you want to go full out cut caffeine, gluten and dairy for 12 weeks as well. See what happens.
5. Stand guard to the door of your mind. Do you fill your mind with doom and gloom, negativity, drama, stress? This is how you’ll perceive the world. Through a dirty filter. Guard what information you allow yourself to consume. Trust me it makes a huge difference.
6. STRESS LESS! I can’t emphasise that enough. So many of us are in a state of PERCEIVED stress (yes, perceived) and prolonged stress effects your ability to lose weight. In fact I would go as far as to say it will make it damn near impossible. So where can you reduce stress? And what activities can you engage in that will help get you into a relaxed state. The goal is to spend less time in the Sympathetic Nervous System and move your body to be predominantly in the Parasympathetic Nervous System. Meditation, yoga, tai chi, just being. Whatever you chose the key is the deep diaphragmatic breathing. If you do nothing else, make it a habit at regular intervals throughout the day to take 20 deep breaths deep into your belly. While you’re waiting for the jug to boil, sitting at the traffic lights, set an alarm to do it every hour on the hour, whatever works for you. Just do it!! And not once or twice, every day.
7. And last but not least – MAKE SLEEP A PRIORITY – so many restorative processes happen while you are asleep and if you are sacrificing sleep you are cutting back on the time the body requires. 7.5 – 9 hours. If you are struggling to sleep ask your body what it is trying to tell you? Is there something on your mind? Have you not given your brain adequate time to unwind, the opportunity to start melatonin secretion or have you simply not been nourishing your body with what it needs to function optimally.
One of the most noticeable things that happened when I cleaned up my nutrition and added in the shakes was my sleep improved immensely. I have had many of my clients say the same thing. And that’s in the first few days to a week!!!
But don’t take my word for it. Try it out for yourself, see what happens for you in just 5 days with our low cost trial either at our Lower Hutt Based Smoothie Club or from the comfort of your own home.
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Email: helen@trilogynz.com
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