What is healthy

Can margaritas and cupcakes be healthy or can six-pack abs and rigorous workouts be unhealthy? In this episode, we are breaking down some ideals of health and giving you tips on living a sustainable healthy diet.

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Transcript

When you think of healthy. Is it six pack abs thigh gaps, taking supplements and rigorous workouts. The crazy thing is, I think sometimes we get confused on what healthy really is today's episode we're gonna break down what healthy really looks like all the nutrition information out there today, everything's conflicting completely confusing, how are we supposed to be healthy if even the experts can agree this is outspoken nutrition on your host Laura Timbrook, and we're gonna break it all down. Moving forward, if I can take one misconception away. It's the thought that by looking at somebody we can determine if they're healthy. Now I'm not necessarily talking about some cultures, has a way of looking at people visually and determining what in their body is lacking. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about regular, everyday people looking at somebody and commenting on how healthy they are just by certain ways they look that habits they have, and determining somebody's health. Now, let's take a step back. A lot of times, we look at somebody with the thigh gap and six pack abs, who do rigorous workouts who post on Instagram and we think to ourselves, that is the epitome of healthy, that's healthy. But is it really, because when we actually pull back the covers a lot of times, those people are not in good health. They may be optimized to look really good for that time, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're healthy, and this goes back to the old question can you look at someone and determine if they are healthy, just by how they look, because we can seemingly be healthy on the outside, does not mean we are healthy on the inside. One of the biggest misconceptions I made when I got into nutrition is I always thought sports nutrition, was the epitome of healthy yet. I have seen athletes consistently have sleep issues digestive issues, you know they suffer from a lot of bloating and heartburn, just like everybody else, and a lot of times when you break down their diets, they're not necessarily healthy diets, they are diets they're serving a purpose to get them to a specific performance optimization, not necessarily healthy. So when we look at those magazine covers of the six pack, shredded abs and, you know the rippling muscles. A lot of times we don't see is the dehydration. The fact that they haven't drank water for the last two days so they can look like that for the cover sheet, or the fact that they have any carbs in the last six months to prepare for certain things. And this is what we really want to take a look at is what is healthy. And what is it for a lot of us, it's off on what is healthy, you know, so many times we get on these diets and we think the person that isn't eating the cupcakes or drinking the margarita is there the healthy person, and why they might be just as abs, and having a thigh gap does not determine health. I also don't think having a cupcake and a margarita with friends, doesn't determine that you're not healthy, our balance is off, we need to have some kind of balance. Now if you find yourself eating cupcakes of Margarita, every day is that healthy no it is not healthy, but going out and having a good time with friends and celebration that is healthy and why it might not be the healthiest for our bodies. At the time it is a healthy mindset, and I always get annoyed when people say you shouldn't eat out of emotion. That is the biggest bunch of bullshit, I've ever heard. Because since the beginning of modern day times let's say at least because I don't know when Paleolithic how they ate, but food was always celebration. There was always an emotion around food. Now is it really good if we're eating food to hide our emotions. No, but to say we should never eat out of emotions is really setting us up for failure because we're always going to eat out of emotion, that is kind of our nature, but again, balance is where things get out of control. And this is really where a healthy mindset comes into play. We need that healthy mindset so if a good night out with some friends, is what is going to make us better, then do it. You know one of the most amazing things is when I was working with Lynchian a from the metabolism plan and she's been on this podcast, a bunch, but one of the craziest things is, she'll even tell you in the data, it supports this, and I'm going to give you an example, when you go through the metabolism plan you are testing a variety of different foods and seeing your body's reaction to them, countless times, she has had somebody go out with friends have pizza wine, beer, and yet they get their results back the next day, and it's not the battery. They might even be down a pound. It makes no sense because taking those foods apart and eating them on, you know, just for lunch one day when it's not in that environment that you're out having friends, they react to those foods. So this just goes to show how much our mindset our environment, having fun, really matters, because if we can have a food that normally we don't do good with, but put in an environment where we're having fun and we're relaxed and we do good with it. It's amazing. And this isn't just one or two people that are having this actually she has a whole community where people will share all the time on their foods that they surprisingly passed when out in different locations, and actually it's gotten to the point where she has numerously said, If you pass a food in a certain environment, like you're out with friends, don't think you'll pass that food at home in a different environment, because it could react differently. So a lot of us we just laugh when this happens because we know it is just how we are we're relaxed we're having fun we're laughing, but it is hysterical when you look at that and I think that's one of the things that diets take away, is they take away that aspect of fun I can't tell you how many times I have reached out to friends that have been on diets I'm to go out for coffee or something, and they respond, I can't, I'm on a diet. And to be honest I have personally done this myself. And that's sad, the fact that you're not allowing yourself to interact with friends, because you're afraid of the food. Now I'm not saying that you should go out and totally derail yourself that's not it, but the fact that we have given ourselves such stringent rules, that's not sustainable. It might be okay you might willpower it I'm using my air quotes here willpower it through that time. But we really want, when we look at health, creating a sustainable future of sustainability, that we can keep up a diet we can keep up and I'm not talking about the diet, we're going to be off for three months and then off. I'm talking about the type of diet that we could live the rest of our life on because you know the crazy thing is I keep hearing time and time again when someone gets sick, some member of the family will say I don't understand it they ate excellent they worked out, they, they didn't do this, they didn't do that, and yet they still got sick. So we want to create a life that we don't feel like we're missing out and that we're including and that we feel good. How many times do we eat food that doesn't make us feel good because we think we're supposed to eat it. We need to stop that. So let's talk about some simple tips to help us live our healthiest selves. First thing is I want you to eat foods that make you feel good. Now this is key, because a lot of times the foods that we want to eat, necessarily don't make us feel good, let's take, pizza, for example, a lot of us love pizza, but honestly ask yourself after pizza. How do you feel for a lot of us we're not going to feel real good. But I can tell you for a lot of people that don't feel good eating regular pizza. Maybe there is a pizza that still makes them feel good and they feel good eating. Then eat that pizza, occasionally or however it fits into your diet I want you to eat foods that you enjoy, and make you feel good. I want you to find activities that you enjoy and make you feel good, if that rigorous boot camp style class is really wearing you down but you think you're doing it for health stop, because if it's wearing you down. It's not good for you. Try something else, what else do you like do you love kickboxing is Kickboxing your thing and that makes you feel good, then do the kickboxing, do something that makes you feel good and that you enjoy, because that's what life's all about, it's about enjoying. So we want to follow healthy habits that we enjoy. And when we look at the core principles of wellness. It says a lot of what I talk about in my seminars with employee wellness as we talk about movement, nourishment, sleep, relationships, and purpose. These are the core principles of well being. And really what we want to do with that is include each of this in our deck so movement, doesn't have to be exercise movement because a lot of us exercise can be a negative thought, Oh, I gotta go to the gym and workout, but maybe you love hiking hey you know what I'd really like to do today is go for a hike your hike can be your movement. Anything you enjoy and everyone's going to enjoy something a little bit different. Maybe you enjoy yoga, pilates, hiking, help maybe you just enjoy playing basketball with your kids. This is all considered movement. Do what you like. We talked about it with food. Eat foods that make you feel good that you enjoy, we shouldn't be eating foods that we don't want to eat if we're trying to choke down, chicken and broccoli for dinner, stop. I am sure there is another lean type of protein that you can find that you enjoy a little bit more, or maybe a vegetable that you enjoy a little bit more, we don't need to choke down food because some book has told us, this is the way to help you know why there are hundreds of diet books out there, it's because everybody, everyone works for someone at some type of level, and as much as I don't like the snake diet, apparently it is worked for somebody, but this is what I'm saying we have to find something that works for us that we enjoy doing that make us feel good. So if it's cupcakes and Margarita is occasionally with friends, that can be healthy, our diets don't have to be full of restriction and no and telling our friends, we can't go out with them. So next time you look at a magazine cover. And you see that really hot athlete with the six pack abs, and you think that is healthy, that is what I want to be, I want you to look at it to see what they've had to sacrifice to get there, and understand most of those pictures. I'm not saying everybody, but most of them are done, because they haven't eaten the carbon six months so if you feel good, not eating a car but makes you feel good makes you feel happy, go for it. A lot of those pictures are dehydrated and dehydration is not good for any body. This is what we want to look at, we want to see what true healthy really is. So, we can have a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode I will talk to you all next week and as always don't forget to eat your effing veggies.