5 Tips to Better Your Life
17 January 2024
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Being “healthy” is so hard to maintain as it pertains to your overall wellbeing, which can be so overwhelming when you break it all down into physical fitness, mental wellness, and emotional health. It’s too hard to balance it all!
I’ve been there. Thinking that being a happy, healthy, mentally stable person is too much work. I got depressed, gained 50+ pounds, and I felt like I was going through the motions and not really happy. Until I learned all the tricks and tips to balancing all aspects of health and wellness, which I am going to share with you!
In this blog post, I will be going over the 5 habits that led to a happier, more physically fit, and mentally stable me! I will be talking about:
How I lost weight and became happier
The formula to wellness
How to change preexisting habits
How to pick exercises you will actually do
How to control cravings
How to treat and prevent a bout of depression
So if you have tried and tried and tried again to lose weight, promote mental and emotional wellbeing; all while going to work or school, maintaining relationships with the people in your life, etc, then this blog is for you!
How I Lost Weight and Became Happier
I’ve had mental health issues for a big portion of my life. In my early adult years, this led to some weight gain, which led to bad habits and more weight gain, which led to self-esteem issues that worsened my depression. It was a vicious cycle to be in. Fast forward about 8 years and I was in a bad way with my mental/emotional health as well as my physical health as I could not seem to get out of this rut. I thought to myself one day, “welp. This is it. I’m over it.” And after some googling and pinteresting, I found out what I needed to do to kick my depression back and get on track to having a healthier body. It took some time to figure out what worked for me to see progress but I am so happy, just unbelievably happy and relieved that I implemented those changes in my life because I feel so much better!
Now I have more energy from being more active. I have a better outlook on life to keep my mood stable. And all of this has actually led to betterment in more aspects of my life, like the relationships in my life and even bettering my personal finances.
So here are the things that I have learned through my wellness journey that you can implement in your life to be happy, healthy, and just the best you that you can be!
1. The formula to wellness
The subject of health tends to be more focused on the physical health, but I am here to remind you that there are two other categories to the subject of health to maintain: mental and emotional health.
Health class in high school is a blur but the things I remember most are about physical fitness and nutrition. This is what I focused on when initially trying to lose weight. I’ve done it all; keto, low carb and low fat diets, smoothies, fitness challenges and gym memberships, etc. I thought that this is how I will lose weight, like my body, be happier, and the rest would fall into place. No. Wrong. The formula to wellness includes taking care of your mental and emotional health because just like in health class when they introduce the triangle of health, physical, mental, and emotional health are ALL connected. You have to address how you feel and how you are doing mentally to be successful at your physical fitness goals.
So until I tweaked my everyday habits to address all aspects of health, I was not successful at getting fit. I would lose some weight and gain it all back, and some!
2. How to change preexisting habits
A common struggle with changing our habits to better ones is that we set our expectations too high and they the changes tend to be a drastic one. This is 100% why I couldn’t stick to a weight loss plan.
What I have learned and has been the most successful for me, is to implement small changes until I begin to do those changes on autopilot before changing anything else. There’s an idea that things take 21 days to become a habit, and to be honest, I have no idea is that is actually true or just something fitness people online used to motivate others. But I will say that it took me 2-3 weeks to autopilot weigh or measure my food to calorie count every time I put something in my mouth. So maybe there is some psychological truth to all the motivational fitness quotes on Pinterest telling me to do something for 21 days. It also took about the same amount of time to make a habit out of my skincare routine and the routine I use to maintain my mental health. So do what you have to stick it out, and don’t put a time frame on it. It is putting too much pressure on yourself to have a time limit. If you need extra time, and need like 6 weeks to get into the habit of something, that is totally fine. This is not a race. This is a lifestyle. Take your time. You will learn to appreciate the challenges you are faced with, and enjoy the feelings of victory when you overcome those challenges. Relish in the happy feelings and be proud of yourself.Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
If you are interested in learning ideas for the specific changes to implement into your daily life to have a more well-rounded wellness journey, check out my blog post, “10 Things I Changed To Lose Weight.”
3. How to pick exercises you will actually do
There are so many exercise programs and types of workouts out there claiming to be the best for weight loss but I have a secret for you…
The best exercise is:
One that is okay for you (please consult your doctor before starting any exercise programs)
And it is one that you actually like doing or don’t mind doing
That’s it. Don’t make it hard on yourself. Implementing the habit is already work enough initially, so do yourself a favor and do something you enjoy or think you will come to enjoy. For me, this was running and strength training with machines at the gym. I know running sounds terrible because I thought the same thing but someone in my life truly enjoys it and how it makes them feel afterwards and so I gave it a trial run. I did not like it at first but I forced myself to go out running, at least running for a song, walking for a song, running for a song, then walking again, until I could buildup stamina to complete a run without stopping. I even did a 10k for fun!
The takeaway is that you are more likely to make a habit out of exercising regularly if you like what you’re doing. So try that!
4. How to control cravings
Now this is going to sound counterintuitive but the best way to control your cravings is by indulging in them. During my weight loss journey, I gave into a lot of my cravings so that I didn’t feel deprived and possibly burn out and end up gaining the weight back, plus some, when I finally gave up. Being super strict is a recipe for weight loss disaster.
How I personally dealt with my cravings is moderation and that is the key to keep eating the things you love. I have tried eating diet desserts like Halo Top ice cream and keto bagels and things like that but to be honest… They. Are not. That. Good. I wanted the real deal! So I encourage you to use moderation and still eat that ice cream cone or chick fil a, or whatever you want. Just try to plan your day around that because likely you will need to cut calories somewhere else to stay in a caloric deficit. For example, if I know I’m going out to eat with my friends, or I’m going to a birthday party the following day, I will plan my meals for that whole day to see how I can fit that piece of birthday cake or those Texas Roadhouse dinner rolls in. Plan ahead and if you are unable to, don’t beat yourself up. One day will not set you back as much as you think!\
If you want to keep yourself accountable to lose weight and feel great like I did, then start counting calories by checking out the food scale from Amazon to weigh my food. Click here!
5. How to treat a bout of depression
Let’s circle back to health being a triangle that is more than physical fitness. It is also taking care of yourself mentally/emotionally. I talked earlier in the post about how each aspect of being healthy matters. I also mentioned being in a vicious cycle of being depressed, overeating and gained weight, which worsened my depression and then I didn’t want to do anything. So I stayed in bed a lot, did not exercise, ate too much. I stayed in this unhappy state of mind for a long time until I learned a few tips on getting out of that cycle of depression. These are the things that I have compiled over the years that I recommend you trying if you find yourself in a similar situation:
Exercise shortly after waking up in the morning
Write out a to-do list at the start of the day
Start your day out with a well-balanced breakfast
Go outside
Create a nightly routine to relax and unwind from the day
Consulting your health care team (i.e. your primary care provider, psychiatrist, therapist, etc) is very important before implementing anything as I am not an expert, I am just a person who has learned what has worked for me over the years. These tips led to a daily routine that helped me and this is what my day typically looks like: wake up, immediately exercise before I can convince myself I’m too tired to do it that day, write a to-do list while eating a healthy breakfast, get ready for the day, either go to work and then complete said to-do list tasks or vice versa, go for a walk after dinner, drink an herbal tea while chatting to my sister about my day, start my evening getting-ready-for-bed routine, and lights out.
These tips really helped me. It was very hard to do in the beginning but as the days went by, it got easier because it became a habit. I started feeling amazing over time and lost 25lbs over in just a few months!
Once I learned these tips and implemented them into my life, I lost 25lbs that I had been struggling to get rid of for years! I finally had a routine that was achievable, I stopped binge eating junk food, I felt like my energy level was amazing, I was happy, and I felt like I could accomplish anything!
I want this for you too! If you’re ready to put the past in the past and focus on working on being the best version of you, I urge you to get started with weighing your food with this easy to use kitchen scale from Amazon! Click here to get yours today!
Being successful at weight loss goes hand-in-hand with a good mindset and attitude. If you’re not ready to go all in on your weight loss goals, I encourage you to at least keep some record or food log. I use MyFitnessPal to help me keep track of my food, and I started just forming the habit of tracking. I reminded myself that this is not a time to be judgmental or a time to make changes to my diet, it is merely to form the habit of keeping track of what I eat. That helped me form my habit before I implemented weighing my food and actively trying to stay in a calorie deficit. I want to thank Cassie Scroggins for that piece of advice. She is a health and mom blogger that I love! Check out her post on how she lost 70lbs here!
Thinking of you all. Have a great day!
-Jen
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