Getting Physically Healthy

Originally, this blog was more about emotional or healthy communication. However, recently I have begun to work on my physical health and that balance is just as important to emotional balance.

I started this journey approximately 3 months ago now. I started by walking for 30 minutes 3x/week and making healthier food choices like eating fresh vegetables and more salads and looking at portion sizes. I eventually also cut out soda and upped my water intake to over 64 ounces per day. I lost the first 10 pounds very easily during this time.

Then, I started the 21 Day Fix but did not follow the eating plan and adjusted the exercising to 5 days per week for the 30 minute workout. I continued to eat as I was. I fluctuated daily in my weight for about 5 days before stopping and con't to walk 4-5 days per week for 30 minutes. My best guess is that my eating was not ideal while doing the 21 Day Fix workouts. I did lose another 10 pounds when going back to walking

I again started the 21 Day Fix but did the 7 days a week for the 30 minute workouts. Today I finished day 21. Again though, I con't to eat as I had been and I have lost only 1 pound. My biggest accomplishment though was gaining more strength and endurance and I increased my flexibility! I also lowered my resting heart rate (calculated by my Fitbit!).

Still, I'm only down about 20lbs and I have another 20lbs to go. So now what. That is the ultimate question. I've been recently (as in since last night) researching about food. I'm trying to figure out what food I should be eating and what I should be avoiding.

Last night, I watched Fed Up on Netflix. It's all about added sugar in our diets/foods. This has really gotten me thinking about how much sugar I eat throughout the day. I mean, the 21 Day Fix meal plan is about clean eating - taking out processed foods from our diet. I hear about that all the time - 'Processed foods are bad for you,' 'Eat clean,' 'stop eating from packages,' 'eat fresh.' Sure I hear it, but what does it all mean really?

Does it really mean healthier to take out this sugar. I'm going to try. There already changes I know I need to make. My goal is to get down to 9 tsp of sugar per day which is actually the American Health Association's daily recommended dosage for males, not females, but I have to start somewhere. This is equal to about 36g of sugar per day (CBS news article).

After vacation, it's time to cut out more food...

Mind, Body, Spirit Impact on Relationships

If we aren’t balanced and in harmony with our selves, it can bring chaos into our interpersonal relationships. When we feel unbalanced due to past pain that has not been resolved, this impacts our mental health which influences our communication with others. This can cause us to not be living up to our own expectations of morals in how to treat others and can cause us shame and embarrassment which again impacts our mental health and becomes a vicious cycle. 

In communicating with others, it’s important to view the interaction in the present. This means to view the interaction without having feelings from past events – whether with that person or from other experiences. This does not mean that if that person significantly hurt you in the past that you forgive them and allow them access to your vulnerability again. But it does mean that within a relationship, you aren’t keeping ‘score’ or ‘going back in the file’ to past events and using them to win an argument in the present. View the interaction for solely what it is in the present.

Our spirit and morals impact how we interact with others. Our mind and body can influence that interaction by impacting tone, expressions, wording, etc. It does this because if we are in pain and someone that we are communicating with doesn’t know that, we may be making a facial expression due to the pain and the other person may interpret that as a negative emotions toward themselves.

We like to think that we aren’t wrapped up in ourselves but most people really are – whether our of a grandiose ego or whether out of fear that others are judging them. We will talk about the best way to make this clear to others though.

Mind, Body, & Spirit

In the last post, I talked about what spirit is. But what about how it connects to Mind & Body? Simple. 

If you aren’t in agreement with another person’s spirit (belief system), this affects your relationship with them – whether you become angry or frustrated with them or they become hurt from your judgment on them. This is called an emotional reaction which is your mental health that in turn affects physical health.

If you don’t like your own belief system – maybe because of what you learned growing up led to a belief system in which looking back you disagree with your decisions – you may feel guilt (emotional reaction/mind) which can lead either to changes or to shame. Shame leads to more harmful and sometimes risk taking reactions to self and others leading in the end to even more guilt creating a vicious cycle.

You could also have a decreased self-esteem from regrets of past decisions and because of the guilt. This lack of self-esteem can lead to under or over eating that affects physical health.

With the full explanation, one can see how it's important to be healthy in all areas of one's person. It's never going to be a 100% perfect kind of day. However, developing ways of keeping that health in each area helps to get you back in balance more quickly.

Mind and Body

Our physical body and our mental health are directly connected to each other. When we are in physical pain such as being sick or having a broken body part, we do not feel like ‘ourselves.’ Everyone in a lesbian or heterosexual relationship experiences this during that ‘time of the month’ that the female has cramps. Don’t deny it – if your significant other is being a little bit more naggy you immediately ask her if it’s that time. And why you ask? Because her physical pain (not to mention hormones) makes her cranky – which is the mental health/emotional part of the body-mind connection. Nobody likes being in pain. We’re suffering and want others to participate in and/or acknowledge our suffering – it’s human nature. 

Furthermore, there has been much research that shows that people who suffer from mental health diagnoses such as depression or anxiety, develop physical symptoms that are sometimes mistaken for actual medical ailments. As a mild example, someone experiencing anxiety has physical symptoms such as sweating, breathing heavily, and a ‘fluttering’ heart. Those who struggle with anger or stress management, develop high blood pressure as a result – which in turn leads to heart disease. 

In the reverse, exercise has been shown to decrease depression and increase self-esteem. There are some research studies that say that diet can impact focus for those diagnoses with ADHD as well as improve self-esteem.

Without one being stable, the other part of us is at risk of being attacked so to say. If we maintain a healthy physicality, our emotional stability will increase. If we increase our emotional stability, our physicality will be at less risk for disease.

Body

Most people could probably describe to you their body – what it is, how it works for them, and what they hate about it. When I talk about body here, it’s really referring to all of the physical parts of a person – even to say the biological aspect of a person. This includes pain and medical concerns such as history of illness.

Keeping the biological/physical part of ourselves healthy includes watching our diet and participating in activities. When it comes to diet, it could be that you have to stay away from certain foods because you don’t like the effects of those foods whether it causes an allergic reaction or you gain weight.

Another part of keeping your physical body healthy is by activities. These activities could be exercise of any form.  Examples include walking, running, stair climbing, yoga, dancing, zumba, Pilates, lifting weights, bike riding, circuit training, crossfit, exercise videos, karate, the list goes on and on! This part can also be cleaning or just going and doing something – moving in general.

 
Why is this important to know this to help with wellness of living? It seems pretty basic right? It might be for some – but it’s important to have the basic description to go into more details about how it affects mind and spirit.

What do you do for your physical health? What are your favorite activities?