10 Things That Can Happen When You Focus on Your Whole Health
Before I share these, I want to make it clear that this is not to bash nor belittle anyone choosing to focus on weight loss of body change. What you choose to do with your own body is your own business.
What I make no apologies for being against however, is you believing that weight loss is the most important thing you can do for your health or that it equates to being healthy. It isn’t and it doesn’t.
For a long time I believed that it was and it did, and I can attest, as can the women I coach and interact with that, that a narrow minded focus on weight loss even when started with good intentions often created even more unhealthy habits.
As we worked to unlearn the harmful and misleading ideas about health, we realized just how much of a lie we’d been living.
The most obvious thing learnt is that WHOLE health is more than just your body. It’s an accumulation of behaviors that enable you to show up in your life in the most vibrant and powerful of ways. Weight loss is NOT a behavior.
That said, here are the 10 Things That Can Happen When You Focus On WHOLE HEALTH:
You learn to pay attention to and trust what your body is feeling
You have less anxiety around and about food
You see food as being available anytime you want so, it loses its charge and power over you.
You begin pursuing movement you enjoy
You experiment more with foods and are excited to try new ones
You learn to set boundaries around your time, space and energy
You pay more attention to sleep and become protective of your quality of sleep.
Rest becomes a non-negotiable act of abundance
You begin prioritizing connections that help you grow, learn and elevate your life.
Your body feels better with or without physical changes.
The interesting thing to all of this is that you kind of have to see big picture of health to zone in on it.
That means seeing all the things that can impact it but choosing just one thing to work on at any given time. Maybe that means tweaking your nutrition, getting better sleep, committing to downtime or family fun time etc. And as you make any one change it is likely that there will be some spillover i.e. a natural and simultaneous change in another.
For example you could tweak your nutrition and it positively impacts your workouts so you start going to bed earlier.
And while these behaviors can lead to weight loss and body change, that they do or don’t, isn’t a failing of your overall health.
That they are happening is a wonderful thing FOR your health, periodttt!
So, here’s a question to ask yourself: are you chasing whole health or are you seeking weight loss thinking that IS health?
As you sit with the answer, take note without judgement or berating yourself. Then use it as a data point; something to be aware of so you can call it what it is and see where you might need to adjust your behaviors so they better align.
If you do, let me know what you find out.
