I used to think that the only times I was ‘healthy’ were the days that I was:

📌 Following a diet plan to perfection

📌 Eating absolutely zero ‘unhealthy’, processed, or ‘fun’ foods

📌 Exercising to incorporate both resistance and cardio training

📌 Disciplined and sticking to my schedules, deadlines, and alllll my healthy habits

📌 Feeling energised and in a good mood

📌 Looking lean and absolutely not bloated

📌 Up early and in bed early with a perfect morning and night time routine

The list could go on. 🙃 But it would absolutely only include the elements of my body or my life that were in top form on any given day. If ANYTHING was out, I would not let myself believe that I was healthy.

At least not on the days where less-than-top-form showed up.

I would need to try again the next day and ‘re-start’ the process to get there again. As if I were chasing some impossible goal that was only achievable under the strictest of conditions.

And then I started to realise.. that this was absolutely not only not maintainable, it was also unrealistic and not fair on myself. I started to notice:

❌ The more I pushed for perfection, the more my body pushed back. I developed chronic fatigue and needed to learn to dial back from this need for ‘perfection’ or I was not going to recover.

❌ My hormones were going be doing their thing regardless of how much I tried to control them. In fact, the more I tried to do that, the more out of whack they would become.. and the more ‘out of balance’ I would feel.

❌ My gut health was not something that was black and white. The more I tried to ignore my chronic IBS (and hence the bloating), the worse it would get.

It has taken me years to learn these lessons. But over time I have gradually realised that my health is not a status symbol to brag about only in those moments where I have reached an arbitrary state of ‘perfection’.

My health is part of me - It is intrinsically tied in with who I am as a human REGARDLESS of how ‘perfect’ my body or my daily routine looks like.

🌻My health is the ever-shifting status of my emotional state, my physical state, my mental state, my spiritual state, my relationship to myself and to those around me.

🌻 My health is alllll the moments, alll the ups and downs, all the tiems I choose to LOVE myself, CHOOSE myself, HOLD myself and ALIGN myself with my values, my beliefs, and my best self.

🌻 My health is the moments I choose to show up for myself regardless of how I am feeling emotionally, physically, how bloated I am, how much I weigh on the scales, or how tired I am.

🌻 My health is the way I allow myself grace in the moments where my body wants to rest even though I would love to go to the gym 5 days that week.

🌻My health is the way I allow myself to indulge in foods that may potentially aggravate my IBS symptoms, but that allow for deeper connection in the moment with those around me.

🌻 Alternatively, my health is also the moments I stand up for my gut and avoid the foods that all those around me are eating, so I can protect my gut from inflammation.

➡️ I am a human, and some days are more challenging than others. What matters is that I hold myself through it all, and make the best choices for the context of each day. Not whether I achieved all 5/5 workouts in a given week, or didn’t eat a scrap of sugar for 10 days. To me, THAT is my health!

🧡 My health is a lifestyle, a continuum, and an inherent part of me I get to access at any moment!

📌 Share your thoughts on this in the comments below. I’d love to read them!!

Mon xx