Think about an average day in your life. What does it look like? What do you typically do? Husband, kids, tasks, to-do lists, relaxation, recharging, unwinding.
Now think about an average day in the life of your health. What does that look like? Breakfast, lunch dinner. Snacks. Do you plan your food, do you eat out a lot? Do you exercise? Do you take supplements? Do you feel energized? Or do you feel worn out? Do you have good digestion? Or do you live with gas and bloating? Is your thinking sharp and clear? Or do you experience brain fog and forgetfulness? There’s a lot to unpack here, keep reading on!
When I ask you about a day in your health what do you think of? Do you feel satisfied and at peace with the health decisions you are making in your daily life? Or do you feel like you need some improvement? Please, don’t beat yourself up if you feel you need to make some changes. I asked the question so you could take an honest inventory of your own health. We need to do this sometimes so we can determine if changes need to be made and also know where we started and also know the progress that will be made the next time you evaluate.
The lifestyle we live is important. The day to day choices that we make are important. Health is like a marathon and not a sprint. If we are sprinting to health it would look like something like a 30 day exercise program that is way too intense for the average female body. Or an intense calorie restrictive diet for 30-90 days until you can’t keep going anymore for lack of calories and lack of nutrients. These type of labeled-as-healthy sprints don’t build long term health and often times leave you exhausted, disappointed and more unhealthy than you were before. The result is often total burn-out where you skip the diet and indulge any craving (equalling possibly gaining back the weight you lost) or finding yourself hating exercise because you did 90 minutes a day for 20 days and are so tired of working out you never want to do it again.
Now let’s think about our health like a marathon. To be totally honest, I don’t love marathons, but roll with me throughout this analogy because it’s a good one. Marathon health could also be called step-by-step health, little-by-little health, or consistency in the healthy decisions you make. Health is made and maintained through consistency. Don’t read perfection (there is no such thing as perfect). It is consistent healthy choices. Health is made in your daily life. Not in a 30 day shred or a lose-weight-quick program. It is in how you eat, think, move, de-stress, sleep, poop everyday. Day after day.
This should be good news to you. This is me telling you that you can avoid and ignore all of the get-healthy-quick schemes that you see all over the internet, magazines and TV. I do agree with the some of the programs out there in where you follow a certain eating plan or challenge your body to move gently on a do-able program or to do a program with different exercises improving your body image or relationship with food. Those are good. Those programs are made to change your habits so that you can live a healthier life for the weeks, months and years to come.
When I asked you for a honest answer about how a day in the life of your health is, you may be thinking you want to make changes. Guess what? You can. Make a decision to start today. When I say start that doesn’t mean by tomorrow you need to know everything and apply it all well. Nope. You can start learning today. You can start applying tomorrow. You can do that day after day and I promise you that in 6-12 months your life will look differently. You will look and feel differently.
Don’t think for a second that the healthy choice you are making on a day to day life don’t matter. They matter. Often times more than I even remember. When you make a healthy food choice for breakfast you are building a healthy gut and you are fighting inflammation. When you move your body in the morning you are building muscle and adding oxygen to the cells which is helping your longevity. When you put on your safer makeup and skincare you are preventing estrogen toxicity and liver issues because you’ve reduced your chemical load. When you clean your home with essential oils and other natural cleaning products you are keeping cancer causing carcinogens out of your air and ultimately your home. These little things are huge.
Keep working at the little things. Health changes in your daily lifestyle choices.
There are times where we need help in making healthy choices. You may be overwhelmed by the information. You may think you can’t do it. Or you don’t know where to start or what information to listen to and apply. You may need help in your lifestyle choices. The good news is my training, focus and specialty is the digestive system, nutrition and weight loss. I work with women to help improve the daily choices you make and work with healthy detoxification and supplementation to build healthy habits and ultimately build your health.
Get Dr. Meghan Mail
Don't miss out on anything! Join my healthy living community for encouragement delivered right to your inbox.