What does Healthy Look like?
Have you ever thought, “what does healthy look like”?
Maybe you have never asked yourself this question ,because you instinctively know what healthy looks like.
Scroll through your social media feed, open a glossy magazine or watch your favourite telly shows and you will be bombarded by images of what a healthy woman looks like…. Or “should” look like.
Those images will probably be young and slim women, in figure hugging leggings and bra top, running though the park, doing downward dog by the sea or posing in her kitchen with her greens juice.
But you know what they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover.
You don’t need to be young or slim to have a positive and healthy relationship with your body and just because someone is overweight doesn’t mean their health is at risk.
Healthy can exist within a diverse spectrum of shapes and sizes. I know that it is possible to look ‘healthy’ while leading an unhealthy lifestyle, and vice versa.
Ultimately, I know that visual assessments of what health looks like are both inaccurate and unhelpful. I know its human nature to make initial judgements of people but you really cannot judge a person’s health by how they look.
So how do you measure health?
Is it the number on the scale?
We hear so much about being a Healthy Weight. There are charts that show you how you measure up. We are constantly told through media, news outlets and even the posters on our GP’s waiting room walls…. Being a healthy weight is important to help us avoid a whole host of conditions and disease.
Well actually the number on the scale may be a poor predictor of health as it fails to consider cardiovascular fitness, physical activity and diet and other lifestyle factors.
Health isn’t one single number.
A Healthy Weight isn’t…
- A number on a scale
- A category in the Body Mass Index (BMI)
- A specific shape
- Fitting into specific sizes of clothes
There is no one healthy magic number.
The quality of food that you eat, how you move your body and the exercise you take, not to mention your sleep habits, how stressed you are all have more impact on health than just weight.
Health is about happiness
Health is a feeling,
Health is about an inner glow
Health is about balance.
So what does Healthy Look like?
In truth, good health looks different for each person.
It is personal and unique to everyone. Mostly what healthy promises is that you will FEEL like the best version of yourself.
On the last day of our Weight Loss Retreats, after everyone has been weighed in, after they have had their inch loss confirmed, we sit down to close out the Retreat. One thing that I always say to our happy Retreaters is that it “isn’t what you lose…it’s what you gain”.
Everyone who joins us on our retreats loses weight… the clue is in the name LOL…for ten years now we have been showing our Retreaters not just how to shed the weight that is unnecessary for them, but more importantly, we show them how to create a lifestyle that makes them feel healthy.
What do you think?
What does Healthy Look or feel like for you?
I’d love to hear from you…so please take a moment to leave me a comment below xx
