Love Your Body From the Inside Out

As many of you reading this are aware, March is National Nutrition Month, and as such I have put many plans into motion to help my clients define and achieve good nutrition that will last a lifetime. Some of this comes down to the nuts and bolts of what to eat, how much and how often. However, as I sat down to summarize my thoughts in a blog, I kept coming back to the question “how can I make it sustainable?

​As many of you know, I hosted a seminar earlier this month called “Love Your Body.” This workshop focused less on nutrition and more on what I’m going to call the “why.” Why do we set these healthcare goals in the first place? Why do we oftentimes fail? And what’s the why that can motivate each of us to be consistent? The answer I keep coming to is remarkably simple: we all want to feel our best. Our bodies are amazing machines. Every day you wake up and are able to face the world because your body is working hard behind the scenes to keep you alive and well. If you think about it, how we treat our bodies is not all that different from how we treat a car. If you don’t change out the fluids and put gas in the tank it’s going to get gunky and shut down. And yet, how many of us have been through a yo-yo pattern of dieting and exercise? If we know what we need to do to keep our bodies feeling good, why aren’t we able to consistently do it? The answer again I think is remarkably simple: we don’t love ourselves the way we ought to, and because of that we don’t treat our bodies the way they deserve to be treated. One of my favorite quotes sums up where we go wrong “it is hard to feel good about anything else until you first feel good about yourself.” How often is the conversation “if I could just lose weight, I’d be happier,” or “if I just looked this way, I’d feel better about myself?” What if instead the conversation were “I’m eating these vegetables because my body is amazing and I want it to feel good” or “I’m exercising because I love myself and I deserve to be healthy and strong for a long time”? How different would our health and wellness goals look if they were framed as an expression of love rather than hate for our bodies and ourselves? Most of us know what healthy habits look like- get enough sleep, drink plenty of water, workout regularly, reduce stress, eat right, etc., etc. But how do we break the cycle from focusing on these goals consistently rather than occasionally? 

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DEFINE Your Own Version of Wellness

​All too often we are inundated with images- whether it be from commercials, TV shows, social media that tells us what we should be doing. Whether it’s cutting out whole food groups, denying ourselves simple pleasures or working out until our bodies can literally carry us no more. There’s likely some glimmer of good in all of these approaches to wellness, but the one flaw that they all have in common: they are not YOURS. We are each unique in our genetic makeup, our personality, our preferences and our past experiences. Therefore what will work for YOU is also unique. My advice to anyone who is trying to “get healthier” is to come up with a 1-2 sentence summary of what exactly that means for YOU. Once you have your definition you can proceed to achieving it. 

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UTILIZE Your Senses

​We have 5 senses for a reason- in order to make any though a reality, we typically have to utilize multiple. Achieving your health and wellness goals is no different. Start by taking some time each day to visualize yourself in your most perfect health. Try to go beyond the size and shape here. What would your skin look like, what kind of expression would you have on your face, what would you be wearing, how would you be moving?  Next take a moment to envision what it would feel like to be the person in that body. Even if it looks the same on the outside, how would it feel on the inside? Jot down any thoughts that come to mind, this is what you are working towards. This is your WHY.

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USE Your Why

​Once you have your “why,” write it down and stick it somewhere where you will see it every day. It can be the fridge, the bathroom mirror, your computer, an alarm clock or next to your bedside. Someplace where you will see it in the moments of “I don’t feel like doing (insert wellness goal here).”  Your why will override your reason to not complete whatever task it is you’ve set for yourself. I promise. Because it was designed with YOUR goals in mind, and every task on your list is a step towards that goal. 

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AIM for ​Progress, NOT Perfection

SO often I see clients fail because they get down on themselves over one little slip. Next thing you know “I didn’t” becomes “I can’t” and the whole train runs off of the tracks. But let me ask you this- if you had a friend who indulged in a not-so-nutritious food or skipped a workout, would you berate them like you do yourself? My guess is probably not. You’d encourage them to get back on the horse and try again tomorrow. So my final tip is use positive language only when talking to yourself.  Talking down to yourself or comparing your accomplishments to impossible standards will do absolutely nothing in terms of helping you reach your goals. Every time you have a conversation with yourself ask yourself: is this thought process building me up? Or tearing me down? Use comparisons and past failures to improve  the you you are today. Not to condemn him/her or change into something you’re not. Progress. NOT perfection.