We hear it every day, in the end our health is all we have. We cringe when we hear about a new case of cancer or any other terrible disease. We are bombarded by the media for telling us that we have to be healthier, eat healthier, think healthier. Healthy is the new happy. Mindfulness and green smoothies and juices and gluten free and paleo and meditation are all recent buzz words. Everyone is talking about it. Yet on the other hand we have even more powerful messages telling us to eat more chocolate, indulge. Eat burgers. Party hard. Make lots of money. The latter of these messages play with our emotions and press on our heart strings. The busier we are the more stressed we are, the less time we have to think about what we eat, the more we want to grab for that comfort, calorie filled and fast filling food and the less time we have to let our bodies move. This is the world that we live in. Unhealthy living seems inevitable. When you’re starving from working so much your body doesn’t want to grab a salad when it can chow down a burger much easier and quicker than picking apart pieces of lettuce. And then ring in those news articles about how we need to eat better, stress less, have a beautiful body and work less and we have a pretty schizophrenic society.
Living well in a time where we don’t know the first thing about balancing out our health with our indulgences is a really hard thing to do. When we are constantly being told two different things at once many of us just give up. When the images of an ideal body that are splattered all over beauty magazines are achieved through starvation, water deprivation and Photoshop we just can’t believe that those ideals can be obtained. And in truth, they can’t, because they don’t exist. So what are we left with when we have all of these outlets telling us how we should eat, look, dress, act and think when they all collide and contradict each other? Well, it’s been a part of my own journey to decode all of this and learn how to actually be healthy in a sea of health and beauty contradictions.
The truth is that we can’t do it all. Literally and figuratively speaking. we must learn to balance. Some of us can eat only super clean, organic healthy foods on a daily basis, others can do the exact same thing and feel stressed out and deprived. Our bodies and minds are different, but most importantly our stress levels are different. We can’t prioritize our health when we are too busy giving up all of our energy doing other things. We won’t find time for fitness if we would rather work 60+ hour work weeks and raise a family and volunteer in our communities. There just isn’t enough time in the day and we just don’t have enough energy for it. One thing will usually have to be sacrificed, and all too often our health is the first to go.
So how do we prioritize our health?
One of the most important things I’ve learned on my own journey to health is that one of the best things we can give ourselves is time. This is one of the most common excuses I hear when talking about health. We just don’t have the time because we are too busy doing other things. Well then, let me ask you this, what is more important than your health? And what exactly do we spend all of our time doing? We can’t just make time if we don’t have room for it. I encourage you, if you do want to start making your health a priority, to look into how you spend your time and how you can free up some of your time to make space for yourself. Write down everything you do from when you wake up in the morning to when you go to sleep, for each day of the week and weekend. What does your schedule look like? How much time do you spend scrolling through the internet, watching our favourite TV shows or shopping? Do you frequently spend late night hours out partying, only having to spend even more time nursing yourself to health during your hangover the next day? Could you limit some of these activities to find time to go for a walk or learn how to make a healthy home cooked meal? Are you willing to let go of at least one of your favourite TV shows in exchange for more time for your health? These are the questions that we need to start asking ourselves. And we need to start thinking seriously about these issues.
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And, apart from the somewhat less important things we spend time doing, we also need to look into those more important, non negotiables. Yes, your kids might be your world, but giving your body and mind some love and care is equally important for you as it is for them in the long run. Remember, your health is all you have, and when you no longer have your health who will look after your kids? Conversely, if you love giving back to your community and volunteering your time, could you cut back on your hours to start focusing on yourself and strengthening your own body, mind and soul? If you are working hard and long hours to give your family a life of monetary wealth, could you scale back those hours and give your family the gift of spending more time with you, even if it meant living with a bit less money?
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As a starting point we can set aside less than 30 minutes a day. There are countless ways that we can get our bodies moving like doing yoga, going for a run, cycling, walking, doing a youtube workout, the key here is finding out what works best for you. We can spend those 30 minutes one day prepping amazing meals to fuel our bodies or working out or relaxing our minds. We could use 20 minutes a day doing a short run or walk around our block and come back to do 10 minutes of meditation to relax our minds and bring space and clarity into our lives. We can use these 30 minutes at any time during the day. Do some yoga before your kids wake up or right after they go to sleep. Go for a walk on your lunch break. Go for a run the minute you get home from work. Make it a priority. We can space out those 30 minutes so that we find time for a 5 minute meditation during our lunch break or a 5 minute meditation before bed. Whatever works for you, as long as your focusing on your mind and body is putting your best foot forward.
Another issue that I constantly see when talking about health is the struggle for balance. It isn’t healthy to work out 6 days a week if by doing so we overtire our bodies and put more stress on our adrenal glands. If we are only focusing on getting physically fit and avoid any work on clearing our minds then we sacrifice our mental health. Conversely, if we spend too much time on making delicious healthy food and get stressed out because we don’t have time for our other non negotiable priorities then we are undoing much of the purpose of making that healthy food in the first place.
The beavers.net
Only when we combine time and balance can we begin the long journey towards prioritizing our health. Try to begin small, always focus on the bigger picture– your health, happiness and longevity. We’re all too often fixated on doing all or nothing. We start out by buying all the veggies of the rainbow but then have no idea what to do with them. We make incredible hearty meals but then we have one week of junk food and think that it’s over, that we just can’t do it. We go to the gym and work ourselves way too hard one day and are so tired and exhausted that we don’t visit the gym again for another week, only to do the same thing over again. When we don’t start to see the results that we wanted we think it isn’t worth it, so we stop this “fitness trend” and go back to our old habits.
Know this: even the most health conscious people have their downfalls, either they work themselves too hard and get injured or they spend a week eating the same foods that they warn you about. It happens. But we need to pick ourselves up and continue again and again. Lasting habits don’t happen over night. Forgive and start over. Every single time. Start with making a green smoothie for breakfast or having a kale salad with your cheeseburger if you need to. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Do what works for you. Start by getting rid of the late night snack foods and have a good healthy and satisfying dinner instead. We are all on different journeys here, so honour your own. If you don’t like running then don’t choose running as your fitness activity– find something you like and stick with that instead. If you started that 30 day meditation challenge and you fell off of the bandwagon the second week then just forgive yourself and start over. If you hate the thought of doing a meditation start with doing something to relax your mind instead– a hot bath, a massage, writing in a journal. Do whatever works for you. And remember that there is no instant gratification with health– you may never “see” your progress; you may need to reevaluate what you define as progress.
Prioritizing health is going to look different from person to person. One blog post cannot possibly summarize all of the reasons and all of the ways that we should and can prioritize our health. But it’s a start. And we need to start somewhere. Consider it a lifelong investment.
Stay Present,
xo Sara Lou
saralouyoga.wordpress.com 
Just do it! Really! #Thetrainer
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