Improve Your Health Beyond Weight Loss

Written by Katie Jackson-Griffin, LCPC

Often, when thinking about health, it’s automatically assumed that this would be centered around weight and weight loss. However, this doesn’t consider the many dimensions of health. Cultivating a healthy lifestyle needs to ultimately allow for happiness and fulfillment in life. Instead of focusing solely on weight loss, a more effective approach to improving your health would be to consider making small improvements in a few areas that determine health: eating, movement, and mental health. Below are some tips to improve your health beyond weight loss in an individualized way!

Eating

Even though people are often told that there is only one way to “eat healthy,” this overlooks individualized factors when it comes to how bodies work. A great place to start if you’re wanting to improve your health through eating is to get to know your body’s cues. This is called mindful eating. Mindful eating asks you to pay attention to your hunger cues, fullness cues, and your digestion. Here are some mindful eating tips:

1. Listen to your hunger cues.

Our hunger exists on a spectrum from a little hungry to more extreme hunger. You will want to aim to eat a snack or meal somewhere in the middle of that spectrum when you notice some hunger, but not when you are ravenously hungry. So, this requires you to listen to when you start to feel hungry. When you wait too long, it’s much more difficult to be able to accurately assess what your body needs. Do you need a snack? A full meal? What type of food interests you?

2. Sit down to eat.

This seems simple, but it’s surprising how often we are eating “on the go.” However, sometimes life demands this, but do your best to make time and space to sit down to eat.

3. Eliminate all distractions.

It’s really common to want to do something else while eating. These activities might include watching TV, reading a book, or scrolling on your phone. This can be pleasurable, at times. However, when you’re getting to know your body and eating habits, it is important to make eating the only activity that you are doing. This allows you to focus on fully tasting the food, enjoying it, and noticing your other cues, such as fullness.

4. Listen to your fullness cues.

While eating, pay attention to when you are starting to feel satisfied. The goal is to reach a level in which you are satisfied, no longer hungry, and not overly full. In order to identify this, it is essential to take your time with eating and not be distracted. It is also important to acknowledge that you can always eat more if necessary. There is no need to rush through your eating or eat the entire portion of food in front of you.

5. Notice how food makes you feel.

After you have eaten, it is helpful to notice how certain foods make you feel. Did you have any nausea? How was your digestion? Bathroom habits? Energy levels? This can be essential to identify how certain foods affect you. There is no universal way to eat, as everyone has different needs. Having this knowledge will help you decide what to eat based on what your individual goals are. It’s okay for your goal to only be enjoyment of food sometimes, too!

Mindful eating can give you valuable knowledge about how to best nourish your body and give you freedom from anxiety about the many food rules that are prevalent in society.

Joyful movement

Joyful movement encompasses all types of movement that bring you pleasure! When thinking about moving your body for health, you might find that your immediate reaction is to think of exercise in a traditional sense. You may believe that you need to join a gym, start running, or do weight training. These are all excellent ways to move your body, but if you don’t enjoy them, they aren’t going to be sustainable. Also, traditional exercise provides a very narrow view on what movement is. Movement can also include dancing in your living room, doing household chores, stretching, going to the zoo, and going on a bike ride with a friend (just to name a few). It is important to consider what type of movement brings you joy so that you can find a routine that you’ll stick with!

A good place to start is to ask yourself what your goals are with movement. If the immediate response is “to be healthier,” that isn’t specific enough. What does “healthier” actually mean to you?

• Do you want to improve your stamina?
• Do you want to feel stronger?
• Do you want to spend more time outside?

Specific goals are going to make it easier to see your progress, which will help you stay motivated. Ultimately, combining what you enjoy with specific goals is going to set you up for success when it comes to improving your health through movement.

---

Improve your health through an individualized approach.

Get Started

---

Mental health

Mental health is a key factor when it comes to our overall health. You have probably heard about and even experienced the negative impacts of stress. A useful way to understand what areas in your life are bringing you stress is by doing a stress inventory. There are several inventories you can use including the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory and the Perceived Stress Scale. These can guide you to identify factors that are contributing to your overall stress and allow you to identify some potential solutions.

Some common patterns you might notice might be changes in your job, difficulty with sleep, difficulty with relationships, and lack of free time. These challenges may mean that it’s time to make some changes in your life. Possible changes could include working to improve your work/life balance, setting more boundaries, or exploring changing jobs. While change can be daunting to consider, it is also helpful to hone in on what specifically you may need to lower your stress level.

In addition to these longer-term changes, it is also helpful to find small moments of joy throughout your day. There is so much that needs to be done day-to-day that it is easy for self-care to get pushed aside. Self-care doesn’t need to be a huge time commitment. It can look like intentionally listening to an audio book on your commute instead of responding to emails. You can take 5 minutes to meditate. Spend a little extra time with your pets enjoying their company. These small steps are manageable and can make a big impact on lowering day-to-day stress.

Restorative Counseling can support your health journey!

The entire team at Restorative Counseling believes in taking an individualized approach to cultivating a healthy lifestyle. Our clinicians can support you in achieving your health goals. In order to get started, schedule an appointment with one of our clinicians today.