What is the picture of health? Their muscles are toned, their stomach is flat, and every step they take draws another set of eyes towards their god-like form. They are puffed up with confidence, certain that everyone wants them. But, in reality, everyone is jealous. Every person in the room wishes they could look like that.
They shouldn’t.
Basic Biology
Understanding your metabolism is understanding you. From the womb, you have a low rate of metabolism. Babies’ bodies hold onto fat and calories. Throughout puberty, it shoots up. Teenage boys can eat five meals a day and still have the body of Gumby. When the human body stops growing, the metabolism evens out again.
Throughout all of the ups and downs of human growth, your metabolism remains unique to you. It can also fluctuate slightly throughout your adult life.
The reason knowing your metabolic rate is so important, is because many punish their bodies because of their metabolic rate. Some bodies hold onto fat more than others, while some bodies have trouble holding onto fat.
Many think food is the issue. That if they eat more or eat less it will bring them to their goal body type.
It’s not as simple as it seems.
The Dangers of Dieting
Most of us have done it:
Stare into the mirror for a little too long and decide to google diets or shop for weight loss pills. Few read about the side effects of choosing these tactics.
Like many drugs, weight loss pills are a temporary solution that may or may not work. Once you’re off the pills, you gain the weight back. Not to mention all the negative side effects you could have. Some even undergo withdrawal stages when they stop taking them.
Weight loss pills do not treat your metabolism well, and neither does dieting.
Ideally, you should have a balanced intake of foods daily. Sugars, fats, greens, and proteins are all necessary for a healthy eating structure. Cutting out any of them is more harmful than helpful.
Additionally, starving yourself, or going on a liquid diet, causes your metabolism to rocket upwards. Your body will hang on to fat more than it did before because it was deprived of healthy nutrition.
Do not fall to the illusions of the dieting world.
Making Attainable Health Goals
Think about your goal. Is it a number?
Is it the digits on the scale that degrade your sense of worth?
Replace those numbers with a word or a feeling.
Healthy, strong, powerful, worthy.
Quantity is meaningless, quality is everything. When you feel healthy, you are healthy. When you feel strong, you are strong. You become powerful and worthy when you do what it takes to feel at home in your body.
First, pick a word.
Then make your plan.
Baby Steps
Like dieting, physical activity could also harm you.
If you throw yourself into hardcore workouts after a long period of stagnancy, you will hurt your body. Ease yourself into activities as if it were a cold pool on the first day of summer.
Go on a walk, a slow one. For ten minutes the sun is rising and the birds start to chirp. Let your body relax into the activity, so it looks forward to its positive impact on your mind.
After doing it for a week, make the ten minutes twenty minutes. Push your boundaries gently. Do yoga, get a personal trainer, and turn those walks into runs. Self-defense classes, martial arts, dance, weight lifting, swimming. There are so many options out there that build your body without hurting it.
Your goal will take time. But reaching such a hard-earned goal gives you more strength for it.
Mental + Physical Health
Nothing is harder than obtaining a physical goal when you’re in an unhealthy headspace. How do you wake up early to go on a walk when you can barely wake up at all?
Baby steps do help. Rewarding yourself when you take baby steps is even better. If no one will sing praises at you when you take those steps, do it for yourself.
No one knows you better than you.
Self-care routines are the epitome of mental and physical health. Caring for yourself is difficult, but it is necessary. Every individual will have a different self-care routine, but they have the same elements. Splurging, cleansing, resting and affirmation. Splurging is going all out on your favorite things to buy or do. A day of shopping, hanging out with friends, doing your favorite hobby all day without checking your phone or interacting with others. It’s giving yourself free rein to have fun. Cleansing and resting go hand in hand. Rest your body and mind. Light candles and play wordless music. Put on a face mask and close your eyes.
Affirmation is one of the hardest routines. Some self-care books and cards help. But once you routinely practice affirming yourself, you start to feel empowered.
Perfect Is Already You
Remember this: if you feel strong and healthy. You are strong and healthy. Society can’t know the power in your bones, do not let them tell you that they do.
You are more important than a number.