A little over 2 months ago, my health was the worst it’s ever been.
Excessive weight gain, digestion issues, chronic migraines, extreme hormone imbalance, joint pain.. I was running on the hamster wheel frail and fed up.
My compromised health was starting to effect my job and relationships. It put distance between my family, unfamiliarity between my friends, anger toward my customers, and frustration between my co-workers.
Trying to go through life in pain is like grasping for oxygen in zero gravity. Impossible.
I was desperate for something to change. It had to; if I wanted any quality of life..
So I started FIRST by going to the doctor. I needed to know, for sanity’s sake, if there was an underlining ailment or if it was the bi-product of poor life choices.
- Migraines: went and saw the neurologist..he put me on a low-dose preventative.. told me to change my diet.
- Hormones: paid a visit to my OBGYN..started me on progesterone shots.. told me to change my diet.
- Digestion issues: got an x-ray of my stomach..nothing serious detected..told me to change my diet.
- Weight gain: went for a full body scan, got blood work, tested my cholesterol and visceral fat levels..told me to change my diet.
Well i’m no detective but I think I see the a pattern..
There’s a reason i’m sharing my personal information with you:
If your life is being negatively effected by your health, wether it’s pain from an injury or acid reflux, and you’re being forced to miss out on social and work engagements, or struggle working because of an ailment, it’s time you take control of the wheel again.
True happiness is really hard to achieve when you’re suffering.
But by both making adjustments to your diet and daily regime you can overcome that suffering and live the way you should.
Lifestyle correction is about doing just that: CORRECTING your lifestyle. Over different weeks of the month, we’re going to examine our health, both ourself AND from a doctor, correct our thoughts around food and living and what the 2 mean together, and making changes to our environment to best suit our needs.
Your health doesn’t have to be detrimentally compromised to participate in a lifestyle correction. This challenge is for anyone who wants to operate at their max to achieve optimally.
Let’s get into the challenge:
Day’s 1-10: Get Examined and do Examining
You know what one of my biggest pet peeves is? When people say: Anyone who doesn’t eat fries or chocolate isn’t happy. Life is too short to not eat what you want.”
And my response to that is: “What if those fries and chocolate are making you sick? They’re compromising your health and preventing you from doing certain things you wish you could do? Are you suggesting the only meaning to live is food indulgence?”
I’d rather have energy and be healthy then feel sick all the time.
FIRST, I want you to see a doctor. Even if nothing is bothering you, go for a physical. Get examined by a professional and have blood work ran to make sure everything checks out ✓
THEN, I want you to examine your diet and lifestyle ✓
Some questions I want you to ask yourself are:
- How many meals do I eat in a day?
- Do I eat sweets often?
- When I food shop, do I spend more time in the fresh produce or down the aisles?
- Am I active every day or is my lifestyle more sedentary?
- Do I take any supplements? Am I consistent with them?
- Do I consume alcohol or do any drugs? How often?
- Do I get tired quickly? Maybe even right when I wake up?
- Am I agitated often? How do I handle stress?
- Am I sleeping straight throughout the night? or am I waking up and toss & turn?
- Do I eat all my food in an 8 hour window? Or am I eating most hours of the day?
By brining conscious awareness to what you’re eating and doing on a daily basis will help you better change going forward
Now that we’ve done that, I want you to start making some changes to your diet. Don’t start too aggressive, because I find for me when I do, it doesn’t stick. Instead, ease into it. Don’t cut all your calories in one day. Don’t ban sugar entirely from your diet.
For a little more information on healthy eating, you can check out my post on intermittent fasting and some of health benefits I’ve gotten from it.
Here’s a few sources on fitness and nutrition I really like:
Caroline Deisler – nutrition expert & master of fitness
Kristina Carrillo-Bucaram – super healthy and creative recipe ideas
Days 11- 20: Changing our thoughts
We need to re-write the script of what we tell ourselves about health and nutrition. Remember what I said earlier about quality of life and french fries? Well if you’re someone who believes unhappiness lies on the same side of no fries.. we need to correct that.
Would you rather take that dream that lives inside of you and bring it to reality, become someone you and everyone around you never thought you could be?
OR..
Do you want to be someone that stays in dream mode. Never makes anything a reality because you let your health run your life and you’re not physically able to accomplish it.
The truth is, contentment, success, wealth, goals, aren’t all about mindset. A HUGE engine driving those things are what state of health you’re in.
So for the next 9 days.. lets re-wire our brains!
The bad thought: “Dammit! I just ate dessert and I was doing so good! I threw the day away then I guess. Might as well eat as much as I want tonight, i’ll start fresh tomorrow.”
Replaced good thought: “It’s okay that I ate a little dessert. My body needed the sugar. It was a healthy amount. I will wake up tomorrow and feel just as healthy as I did today.”
The bad thought: “Getting healthy means i’ll never get to eat the foods I love again. That means no ice cream, no chocolate, no burgers, no fries.. I can’t do that forever.”
Replaced good thought: “I can still eat the foods I love, I just have to modify and count my calories. I know the bacon and crispy onions sound good, but healthy feels way better than any burger will ever taste.”
The bad thought: “I’m not going to be able to go out to dinner and indulge with friends when I switch my lifestyle.”
Replaced good thought: “I can still go out to dinners with friends and family, I just have to be conscious of how much and what I eat. I’ll make an effort to order first, so I don’t get manipulated by what everyone else is ordering.”
See? It’s not so bad.
Day’s 21-31: Environmental changes
We’re here. You’ve done it! You’ve made a conscious effort at changing the foods you eat, you know what’s going on inside your body and how we can now fix it, you’ve started re-writing the code of your belief system, last.. we need to correct your environment.
It might be moving your cheat foods to another pantry, maybe on a high shelf so it’s hard to get, or waking up an hour earlier and being apart of the different world at 6AM, maybe you meet your friends for lunch or tea so you’re not tempted to overindulge and drink.
Any change, Small or Big, will have an effect on your life.
It’s up to you how much that effect will trickle into other areas and the degree of good that comes of it.
I hope you join me in this lifestyle correction challenge; Because every dream and action stem’s from good health.
Have a lovely week!
Ariana
