A healthy outside starts from the inside.
I’m not normally one for sharing my innermost thoughts here, so forgive me if this is a bit out of character… 2020 has been an incredibly hard year for us all and as we approach 2021 I wanted to share some of my journey that has never really made it’s way onto the internet before. Sometimes I think people look at me and assume I’ve never made mistakes when it comes to being healthy but at the end of the day we’re all human!
It’s not that I am ashamed I’ve just never felt the need to speak about it but I have prompted by people talking about their quest to lose their ‘covid stone’ in the first 10 days of the year and feeling like they’ve ‘let themselves go’ this Christmas. Our bodies and minds have been through enough this year so please, please, please go easy on yourselves!
I have always been big believer in making small incremental changes that are sustainable. You should never let others define what you should or shouldn’t be doing. So, if you do want to make some changes this year, just make sure you do them on your terms. What being healthy is, is completely unique to you, don’t let others, or the scales, define you!!
Throughout my adult life I have been blessed to have a really healthy relationship with food and exercise. That all changed when I let social media get to me and decided to go after ‘the 6 pack’. I have always been fit, healthy and strong but I let the pressures of social media get to me and falsely believed that I couldn’t say I was into fitness without having visible abs on show. Now, anyone who knows me will know that I am extremely driven and goal orientated so when I decided that I wanted to go down this route there was no stopping me.
What I learned pretty quickly was the abs come with great sacrifice, I needed to move more and eat less. Moving more was not a problem, I truly love working out and adding some more sessions into my weekly routine was not a chore.
The main aspect of my life that this quest affected was my relationship with food. Suddenly I was weighing things up as good or bad – something that I had never done before. I could no longer go out and enjoy dinner and a glass of wine as it didn’t fit within my ‘fitness’ goals. I was insufferable in the name of abs!
Thankfully this didn’t last long, and I’ve since come out the other side, stronger with a more appreciation for living life to the full – which even includes eating pizza and chips when I feel like it – shock horror!! Don’t get me wrong it’s taken quite a long time but I now have a greater appreciation for my body and all that it can do. We’re all too quick to put ourselves down and place others on a pedestal.
I have always believed that food is there to be savoured and enjoyed but I let social pressures get in the way of this momentarily. One of my main goals here has always been to give you the tools that help you to enjoy all of the things you love, leaving you feeling energised, healthy and ready to take on anything that life throws at you.
In essence that’s why I wrote Cook Healthy, Live Happy this year – I want to help you navigate through real life.
The one piece of advice I hope you take away from this is to embrace your plate – no food groups should be feared or shied away from they are all there to help you build the most delicious meals possible and have your body functioning at its very best.
Carbs are there to be enjoyed (check out the smile in the pic above!), if you fancy a bacon sambo – have a bacon sambo and don’t sacrifice a good night out with friends! When you go to the gym enjoy the process, you’re not there to ‘earn’ your dinner or ‘burn off’ the night before.
If you feel like you would like to get a little healthier this year then make small incremental changes that are sustainable within your life and don’t leave you feeling as if you are missing out. Diets are unsustainable short-term fixes and you and your body deserve to be treated better than that!
Here’s to 2021 and giving our bodies the credit and love they deserve!
