Life is not merely to be alive, but to be well. ~Marcus Valerius Martial
Welcome back to Wellness Wednesday! If you've missed the other posts in the wellness wednesday series, you can catch up on all the posts here (and believe me, you don't want to miss out on them)!
Today I will continuing to move through the subtasks of Life Task 2. That means today we're talking about: Nutrition!
Myers & Sweeney define nutrition as:
| Eating breakfast regularly, daily variety in diet of healthful foods, maintaining one’s ideal weight. |
Pretty simple, right? Or, is it easier said then done? Myers & Sweeney state that the "eating and drinking habits of Americans have been implicated in 6 of the 10 leading causes of death, including the fact that two in three Americans are considered to be overweight" (p. 24). That alone signals that this might be an area of wellness that we need to be taking notice of and prioritizing in our lives. Beyond physical health, our nutrition plays a very strong role in our mental health as well.
I will not lay out for you here a perfect nutrition plan for your lives. I've included some links at the end of this post that give nutrition information, recipes, and help in setting some nutrition goals for yourself. Please check those out, and include any other links you have found to be helpful in your own journey. I do not have a degree in nutrition, and don't even pretend to be an expert on this. I'm simply sharing some thoughts and lessons I've learned in my personal journey.
I want to highlight this: NUTRITION DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ALL OR NOTHING. If you have identified something like "well I really messed up with this meal, so I'll just waste the rest of the day" then that's pretty black and white thinking. Just because you "messed something up" doesn't mean that the entire meal or the entire day has to be a complete waste. Nor do you have to go total "food nut". Something is always better then nothing, so just because you don't want to give up your daily piece of cake doesn't mean you can't make healthy and balanced choices throughout your meals.
I also think that people can get too caught up in labeling food as "good" and "bad". When doing that, guilt and shame can easily be ushered into your life. Shame and guilt don't produce healthy changes, but instead tend to chase you back into the very behavior that you are trying to avoid.
Here are a few helpful sites:
Next week I will do "part 2" to this post, including some of my tips for maintaining a balance in the nutrition aspect of my life.
Now it's your turn:
Do you have a hard time finding balance in this area of your life? What are your "go to" tips or rules for this component of wellness?
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