I have been meaning to post about this for awhile, and figured today was a good enough day as any! There has been a lot of talk swirling around about what being healthy really means. Is it a split percentage between eating healthy and exercising? What about mental health, or healthy hygiene habits? I honestly think this is a PERSONAL decision, and not an “across the board” blanket statement you can make about someone.
If someone has emotional issues, then mental health is going to be more important and beneficial to their current well being, because we all know how stress can take years off your life!
If someone else never brushes their teeth or flosses, it is going to be VERY important that they start doing that to be healthy, more so important than an exercise or healthy eating plan.
Then you have someone like me, who would RATHER workout more than eat salads everyday. It is more important to me to be active than more restrictive on my eating. Of course I try to eat healthy, but I also have chocolate everyday and bread and sugar. If I were to take those things out of my life to be more healthy, then my mental health would suffer, which would probably make me depressed and angry, and that isn’t very healthy now is it? Everyone handles things differently, and all decisions have varying effects on people. Of course I think you should try to eat healthy AND have healthy habits AND exercise AND be mentally healthy, but you can’t juggle all of those plates perfectly at the same time without one coming crashing down in my opinion.
The key is BALANCE. And guess what? it’s ok if your balance is different from your sisters, your friends, or the bloggers blog that you read religiously. You were made to be unique, there is no one else like you! Take pride in the fact that you are a one of a kind masterpiece!
You are not healthy because some magazine says you have to do this or that to be so.
You are not healthy just because you run a marathon.
You are not healthy because you do all the “right” things other people expect you to do.
You have to personally define healthy for yourself, and be that. If you try to be someone else’s healthy, you will probably fall short and never be happy with yourself. Is it ok to read articles, get input and help on healthy habits? of course! But be your own person! Take all those little bits of advice and form health for yourself.
I used to think healthy was fitting every health article and piece of advice to a T. It became an impossible chore and made me miserable! I have since found a balance that works for me. There is always room for improvement, but I want to actually live my life, and not look back and realize I wasted all my time trying to reach some impossible perfect goal of health according to someone else’s standards. Advice will always conflict, people will always disagree, and that’s ok!
Look for a follow up post coming soon about my thoughts on being beautiful!
Two Questions of the day today:
What are your thoughts on what health means? What is it to you? Do you strive to be someone else’s standard of healthy or do you have your own?
I am working on pieces for my blog..what are some things you want to see more of, don’t want to see etc? More workout related posts, pictures, food, family life, dogs, Disney, etc? if you don’t want to leave anything in the comments you can e mail me at runningwithsass AT gmail DOT com.
I was hoping to escape the summer heat, guess that won’t be happening! Anyway, We are getting a YMCA, a market and café, a pool, and an amphitheater on the lake and a village green to hold things like a farmer’s Market and neighborhood events. FUN! There are more commercial/retail places coming later as well. I am hoping this will bring even more residents into our new little community. I am so stoked about being able to walk to the gym, I have never been able to do anything like that before! Oh, they also are making a boardwalk around the lake that will tie into the existing nature trail (which Bobby and I ran on last night.) Fun! Oh, and the cardio equipment will look out over the lake, and there will be places to sit outside the café on the lake. Good times! I THINK they are putting a dry cleaning drop off and post office in the market as well, but I could be wrong on that. 
