healthy living through a healthy breakfast

Essence of healthy lifestyle and how you can practice it right

 

healthy living through a healthy breakfast
Photo by Viktor Hanacek

What is actually the essence of healthy lifestyle practice?

This sounds like a question in a beauty pageant, but instead of showing off bikini-clad bodies, you’re bragging here your healthy body.

But wait, is it really about having a healthy body?

If you hear the word “health”, what comes into your mind?

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Is it a diet?

Counting how many calories did you already consume?

Or sweating off till your tongue stuck out while you try to reach that weight loss goal?

Is it a really healthy lifestyle you’re practicing?

Or you’re pining for The Biggest Loser’s first prize? 

If you think healthy living only deals with keeping your body in shape or trying to lose that pounds of belly fat, you thought it wrong.

The true essence of healthy living deals with your actions on how to make your health to its optimal and holistic level. We’re not only talking about your body in this context, but also your mental well-being, and other dimensions of health like emotional, social and spiritual.

When one of these dimensions of health is disrupted, your body can’t function properly like it supposed to be. 

It is not bad if you’re doing these losing weight methods to achieve that ideal definition of physical health. We may admit it or not, we’re getting dependent on that trend idea of being healthy.

We’re browsing our Facebook homepage or Instagram, then we see one of our friends, lifting that a hundred kilos or God knows, how much that barbell weighs. We often think, bet he’s living a healthy life.

Yes. And No.

Why?

If you’re going to the gym, it doesn’t mean you’re healthy or let’s say, going to be healthy. No dude. I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s not that simple as you think. Being in a gym doesn’t sound so simple at all, heck, that word ‘‘gym” alone makes me tired already.

I guess I was in my third year of studying nursing when I went to a gym with my friends. Yeah, there’s something cool on that idea alone of going to a gym. So I was there with my friends, trying everything we could see.

 It felt good really. That idea alone, that I sweat. I thought for a moment, wow, I might have lost a few calories. It’s really exhilarating, but afterward, no, the day after, I have muscle cramps, I thought I was going to have a fever. And I decided, I won’t go anymore to the gym.

But I am not discouraging you from going to the gym, I was just explaining what I have experienced.

And some people go to the gym nowadays, just to have that feeling of being ‘‘in”, like, ‘‘I’m going to post it on my IG..” Well, yeah…admit it.

But if you really like to be healthy, you should know first what is health in the first place.

Health, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Health may be defined as the ability to adapt and manage physical, mental and social challenges throughout life.

So if we’re thinking, maintaining a balanced diet, counting calories and minimizing sugar in our diet, and going to the gym makes us healthy, we’re committing a huge mistake when we base the definition from the World Health Organization.

If you want to achieve that true essence of healthy living, it should come from within. Nutrition plays a huge role in getting that optimal health, but we should not only rely on what we eat or what we don’t eat.

Like I mentioned above, being healthy doesn’t only mean being physically fit, but we should be healthy in all aspects-emotionally, socially, spiritually, and mentally healthy. If one of them is interrupted, it also hinders a person from achieving that goal of becoming totally healthy.

But why we put so much importance on a healthy lifestyle?

You’re watching on YouTube, you don’t have a premium account, so ads bother you now and then. You’re not just watching, but you’re also gobbling pizza and cheeseburger from McDonald’s, with your feet propped on the couch table. 

A health coach or guru is promoting his live webinar and is urging the viewers to take part in it. You snort, press that ”skip ad” and murmur, what total baloney that is. You think we all die soon from something.

Yes, I agree. We all die someday, but we don’t even have to die young and early. Who would want that by the way?

As a matter of fact, the most common preventable causes of deaths in the USA are smoking, high blood pressure and obesity. 

When you stop smoking, watch your weight and plan what you eat now and then, you’re doing yourself a favor for the coming years. You’re not just adding years to your life, but you’re upgrading your life to have more healthy years to live. 

The absence of health complaints and reduced visits to clinics play a significant role in your mental and social health. Some people who think they are weaker than the others tend to feel dejected, and this has an impact on one’s mental well-being. 

Living a healthy lifestyle is even much cheaper.

When you don’t spend your money on a pack of cigarettes every day, or drive to McDonald’s, you’re living healthier and even wiser, financially. There’s a study in Australia that shows eating healthy foods is more affordable than in an unhealthy way. 

Since we have tackled the importance of having a healthy lifestyle, why don’t we touch the points on how we get benefits from healthy living?

  • Healthy long years

There are people who still live in their 90s, or even over a decade. Don’t you ever wonder how do they manage it? I often hear it, they choose what they eat or drink, they don’t let problems sway them, or simply have a positive mindset in life. 

  • Absence of diseases

With healthy years to come, the absence of illnesses will also adorn your life if you choose to live a healthy lifestyle. From avoiding being obese alone, you also stay clear from having the risks of acquiring diabetes, hypertension and heart problems. 

  • Healthy is cheaper

As mentioned above, eating healthy foods is more affordable than eating unhealthy foods like fast-food takeouts. 20-euros worth of order from McDonald’s doesn’t even satiate your hunger. In fact, it feels like eating plastic afterward and having a bloated feeling in your stomach. Your 20-euros grocery may feed a family for a day or two already. 

  • It boosts energy and mood

When you’re doing something good for your body, it has also a positive effect on your mind. 

After physical activity, you’ll feel good afterward due to chemicals called endorphins, which make you feel more relaxed and happy. 

Surround yourself with positive influence in your life, travel and explore the world. Traveling helps you optimize your health as well. Read my article on how travel makes your life better. 

How can you maintain living healthy?

If you wish to be healthy, you have to work on it. Going to the gym and sweating doesn’t help you achieve that optimum health. It doesn’t end and work like that.

A healthy lifestyle is parallel to optimal well-being and soul. It may sound hard for some, but changing your bad habits will help you achieve being healthy. Sounds easy, but in reality, it is not. 

Think health as one of the precious gems in the world, you have to treasure and take care of it, then changing lifestyle wouldn’t sound so hard as you think. If your current lifestyle causes bad effects on your life, you don’t have to think twice and ask why, instead, do something modify your lifestyle.

Sometimes, it’s our own lifestyle which is the disease, not the disease itself. 

Did you ever ask yourself, where diseases come from? Did you do something that worsens your situation or your body condition? Come to think of it before it’s too late. Live while you are young sounds good, but you shouldn’t wait for a time when you say, live while you still can.

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