How to Start a Healthy Lifestyle

​How can you start a healthy lifestyle?

Answers to this question fill up the internet. Everyone has their own take on what constitutes a healthy lifestyle and how to get started with it.

For me, I take a holistic approach to health. I am a Licensed MENTAL HEALTH Counselor, and I, of course, emphasize the importance of mental health.

Physical health is beyond important and critical for our well-being. However, too often, the mental health aspect of our overall health is overlooked and taken for granted.

Health is not just made up of one single thing. Not one thing can make you healthy just as not one thing, in and of itself, can cause you to become unhealthy. There are many facets of our overall health that we need to pay attention to if we want to be the best versions of ourselves and healthy overall.

My goal is to help as many people achieve a State of Balance in their life. To me, a State of Balance is a representation of health and wellness, that results from taking special care of both our physical and mental health.
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Here are some tips and food for thought (pun intended) to get you STARTED on your healthy lifestyle journey.

​Let’s start with some tips for your mental health:
- If you are struggling with any sort of mental health issue, seek out a therapist. There are many tips and therapeutic tools you can learn online, however, if you are struggling with a potential mental health disorder, a therapist is necessary to help you through that. Resources online are secondary to actual professional help and can be used in conjunction with actual therapy. If you are struggling with an Eating Disorder, check out this post on finding the proper help.
- Be Grateful: I talk about this so much, expressing gratitude is extremely powerful! It is very difficult to be feel gratitude and negative emotions at the same time. More on gratitude and beginning a gratitude journal here.
- Forgive Yourself: Feeling guilt and being hard on yourself often ends up becoming excessive and therefore, hurtful. Not forgiving yourself is detrimental to your overall health and will keep you stuck. You will make mistakes and you will not always be your best, and this is ok.

Now more on the physical health side taking into account mental health. Many people feel that if you are trying to get fit, you need to have nothing but kale smoothies and exercise multiple times a day (I’m exaggerating of course, but you get the picture). This almost always leads to it back-firing. The person doesn’t see results fast enough and gives up or they feel miserable in that type of lifestyle and then give up.

I’ve seen many people struggle with food from extreme/chronic dieting to full blown Eating Disorders. The answer if you want to become fit and healthier, regardless of where you’re at now, is to add in more nutritious foods to what you typically eat. Do this slowly and keep adding in different foods that nourish you, make you feel good and that you enjoy. If you are having more nutritious foods, by nature, a lot of foods that are not so nutritious tend to drop out of what you typically eat a bit more because it doesn’t make you feel as good physically. It’s about moderation, so don’t feel like you have to cut out your favorite foods, just try to be intuitive when eating them, as with any food.

If you are mostly sedentary, good news is you don’t have to automatically go to the gym’s stair master for an hour each day. Why not start with some simple stretching a few times during the day. Get your body used to warming up your muscles. Then consider going for a short walk each day. You may find that is enough for you, or you may decide that you’d rather try something more challenging, which is fine too. Just listening to your body is what’s most important.

I hope you found this post helpful! Please share with anyone who may be struggling with their readiness to begin their treatment journey. If you have any questions, concerns or requests for future posts, feel free to leave a comment or message me privately.

I wish you body gratitude on the way to finding your State of Balance!

You can also check out my YouTube channel for more inspiration!