Healthy is Happy
"Mens sana in corpore sano" is a Latin phrase that translates to "A healthy body is a healthy mind". A phrase that has been used for centuries to describe the act of maintaining a healthy lifestyle to maintain a healthy mentality. Furthermore, a healthy lifestyle will lead to a happier way of life!
I fully believe that being healthy is the first step to being happy with yourself. I'm not saying that the Big Mac meal I picked up didn't make me a little bit happier than the spinach salad I actually brought to eat for lunch would have but as a general rule, healthy body, healthy mind. For me, eating healthy makes me feel better. That's not to say I don't partake in the occasional Big Mac but, keyword: occasional. When I eat like crap, I feel like crap. When I continue to eat like crap, I start to, inevitably look like crap, which bums me out even more. So, picking a few healthy meals a week to work really hard on and even make it look extra pretty so that it's Instagram worthy makes a huge difference!
Exercise is always a weird topic to me since everyone has very different tastes in what they like to do and everyone has a different workout style and everyone else's is better than the other one. For me, jogging and lifting weights is painfully boring and I doubt I'll ever find it interesting enough to be able to stick with. Instead, I hike, kayak and practice yoga! I realized, me dreading my workout lead to going days or weeks at a time without doing them since it was that much easier to come up with excuses to avoid the place at all costs. Hiking is a crazy good form of cardio, I started hiking with my parents when I was a baby and they would stick in one of those kid carrying back packs and throw a sunhat on me and take pictures of me grinning like mad. Twenty two years later, I still love it! Hiking is super easy to take up, even if you've never been before. Do your research and start at an easy trail and move up to moderate and difficult trails.
I also love kayaking, which can go hand in hand with hiking but having experience with both makes for some pretty amazing camping trips. My boyfriend and I bought 2 Pelican kayaks, the most basic version, in the off season for a discount price and they are great! We love to go fishing with them as well as simply paddle around to explore new placed.
Since I also prefer to not lift weights since because I find it boring, I started practicing yoga about a year ago and fell in love! I began as someone who could not even touch their toes and now I'm working right into backbends and my first handstand! Anyone who has heard of or even tried yoga knows it's a lot about being in touch with yourself and being present in the moment that is, which for me is one of the main reasons I began practicing to begin with. Along with having so many health benefits and building muscle, yoga helped me focus on me for at least 1 hour, 3-4 days a week and gave me the opportunity to learn how to handle my anxiety and distractions like a boss!
No matter what kind of workout or exercise you enjoy, what really matters is that you are discovering ways to be healthy and happy. It doesn't matter how you are naturally shaped but that you're body is taken care of, being skinny or being curvy isn't your answer to being happy with yourself. I struggled with this idea daily, especially as a teenager, as I battled eating disorders, struggling through diet fads, constantly feeling like I was gaining weight and just general teenage girl, body image issues. It took me a long time to realize that it didn't really matter. I began hiking, yoga and kayaking as my major forms of exercise and make efforts to eat healthy and let the cards fall where they may and just be happy with it. Low and behold...it worked much better.
Happiness is a choice as well as being healthy. Both of these are difficult choices that I have always found to go hand in hand. Consider your own hobbies and whether or not they are good for you! Can you turn a hobby into a physical activity? What about turning a physical activity into a hobby?! Sounding better than hitting the gym with a bunch of buff dudes and sweating it out on a weird machine that you're never really sure that you're using right? Yeah, I thought so! If anyone is in North Carolina and wants to know good places to start hiking or kayaking make sure to let me know!
Always make sure you are choosing happiness, if you find that a very difficult choice to make start with your health and choose that over all! Good luck fellow hippie's in choosing your own happiness!
Exercise is always a weird topic to me since everyone has very different tastes in what they like to do and everyone has a different workout style and everyone else's is better than the other one. For me, jogging and lifting weights is painfully boring and I doubt I'll ever find it interesting enough to be able to stick with. Instead, I hike, kayak and practice yoga! I realized, me dreading my workout lead to going days or weeks at a time without doing them since it was that much easier to come up with excuses to avoid the place at all costs. Hiking is a crazy good form of cardio, I started hiking with my parents when I was a baby and they would stick in one of those kid carrying back packs and throw a sunhat on me and take pictures of me grinning like mad. Twenty two years later, I still love it! Hiking is super easy to take up, even if you've never been before. Do your research and start at an easy trail and move up to moderate and difficult trails.
I also love kayaking, which can go hand in hand with hiking but having experience with both makes for some pretty amazing camping trips. My boyfriend and I bought 2 Pelican kayaks, the most basic version, in the off season for a discount price and they are great! We love to go fishing with them as well as simply paddle around to explore new placed.
Since I also prefer to not lift weights since because I find it boring, I started practicing yoga about a year ago and fell in love! I began as someone who could not even touch their toes and now I'm working right into backbends and my first handstand! Anyone who has heard of or even tried yoga knows it's a lot about being in touch with yourself and being present in the moment that is, which for me is one of the main reasons I began practicing to begin with. Along with having so many health benefits and building muscle, yoga helped me focus on me for at least 1 hour, 3-4 days a week and gave me the opportunity to learn how to handle my anxiety and distractions like a boss!
No matter what kind of workout or exercise you enjoy, what really matters is that you are discovering ways to be healthy and happy. It doesn't matter how you are naturally shaped but that you're body is taken care of, being skinny or being curvy isn't your answer to being happy with yourself. I struggled with this idea daily, especially as a teenager, as I battled eating disorders, struggling through diet fads, constantly feeling like I was gaining weight and just general teenage girl, body image issues. It took me a long time to realize that it didn't really matter. I began hiking, yoga and kayaking as my major forms of exercise and make efforts to eat healthy and let the cards fall where they may and just be happy with it. Low and behold...it worked much better.
Happiness is a choice as well as being healthy. Both of these are difficult choices that I have always found to go hand in hand. Consider your own hobbies and whether or not they are good for you! Can you turn a hobby into a physical activity? What about turning a physical activity into a hobby?! Sounding better than hitting the gym with a bunch of buff dudes and sweating it out on a weird machine that you're never really sure that you're using right? Yeah, I thought so! If anyone is in North Carolina and wants to know good places to start hiking or kayaking make sure to let me know!
Always make sure you are choosing happiness, if you find that a very difficult choice to make start with your health and choose that over all! Good luck fellow hippie's in choosing your own happiness!
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