Secrets to Maintaining A Healthy Lifestyle

Things I (and those I know & respect) DON’T do to maintain a healthy lifestyle:

1. Count calories, macros, carb cycling, or fast for most of the day.
2. Try out the latest diet that “so & so” lost 20# in 3 weeks
3. Pay for expensive supplements, shakes, or meal replacements that are advertised as “necessary” for health/ weight loss.
4. Follow a plan that makes certain foods off-limits
5. Restrict & binge
6. Exercise to pay for eating something, or overeat because I moved my body.
7. Stress over going out to eat, being in places where my meals can’t be planned or controlled.
8. Weigh myself or obsess over the number on the scale.

Things I (and those I know & respect) do:

1. Prioritize protein, water, fruits, & vegetables
2. Move my body in love, joy, & kindness
3. Enjoy sweets in freedom without guilt or shame
4. Acknowledge that the scale is just a measurement of mass & the number has no determination of worth or value.
5. Don’t feel shame or need to exercise if I overate. Am able to move on with my day & easily get back on track. 
6. Am able to go out to eat or go on vacation, make the best choices possible, & know that a few meals or days of eating differently are not going to have any long-lasting impact.
7. Understand that managing stress & sleep are just as important as movement & food. Weight loss is not solely dependent on calories out > calories in.
8. See a healthy lifestyle as a long-term journey of making permanent changes that will have a long-lasting impact. Weight loss may be a side effect but changes are not just measured on a scale.
9. View health as multi-dimensional, balancing physical with mental, emotional, & spiritual, knowing that each affects one another positively & negatively.

I have done all the things in the first group, & none of it felt like freedom. Even when I thought I was living in freedom or my motives were pure, I found myself obsessing over my body & food. So I’m going to ask you, what is your focus on? Do you think about food a lot? Do you analyze your body constantly? Do you feel shame if you eat sweets or miss a workout? 

We’re not meant to spend so much time thinking about ourselves. I invite you to take a step over into the 2nd group. While it’s nice to have a plan (once I received freedom, I was able to figure out what nutrition & types of movement served me well, but not until I got free was this helpful), freedom should always be the goal. Live free, dear one. It’s the only way to get off the train of self & return focus to your Maker, where all that can be held in perspective.

If you want to check out my own journey to freedom, you can do so here!