Zest for Life NYC

Happy Valentines’ Day Everyone!

I hope your heart is full of  love for yourself too.

We can feel and get love in everything we do.

As I’ve written about in previous posts, Is your Body Image Holding you Back , learning to love my body has been a life long challenge and goal for me.

I am now at the point where I love and appreciate being healthy and fit but it wasn’t always like this.

I’ve always gotten a ‘natural high’ from things like dancing ballet and tai chi.  Movement has always been an important part of my life.  Still to this day, knowing and feeling my body move is awesome and I feel my best when I’m fit, lose, and flexible.  I’ve always been in tune with my body’s feelings which is which I decided to go into Nursing early in my career.

When we are young we tend to think that we are invincible.  When I was a nurse in my 20s I was in great shape (working out/movement wise) so you can imagine my surprise when I started to have heart palpitations.  It was discovered that I had a heart murmur.  It wasn’t immediately life threatening but it was scary and an eye opener!

It changed the way I looked at my life and current EATING habits.  I realized I only had half of the battle.  I needed to learn to love myself more and take care of my body through the food I was eating. (One can only survive on brownies for so long!)

It was then I decided to take my health into my own hands and show my body how much I loved and appreciated it.

Here are some of the changes I added into my Diet/Lifestyle:

1. I stop drinking coffee.   I know, you live off your coffee, but I promice you- you’ll survive without it!  Actually more than survive- you will feel much better without it!  Trust me- try it for a week or 2.  I replaced my daily coffee with a Shaklee Cinch shake and Shaklee Cinch Energy tea. 

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We all get into habits.  Many of us have a habit of sipping coffee and these wonderful Shaklee products can help us continue the sipping that we love.  Eliminating coffee from my life helped me become less anxious and sleep better at nights.

2.  I stopped having desserts for lunch and dinner.   It started out with my need to have a dessert after my meal (I blame my upbringing! haha) And a dessert after each meal (including breakfast) eventually led to only eating dessert.  I would survive on brownies at the hospital!  Dessert was also a way to reward myself.  Instead of grabbing for something sweet I changed my habit to eat a Shaklee Cinch Bar.  Instead of the sugar rush this bar provides vitamins and nutrients to help me have energy for the rest of the day- not to mention it also tasted delicious!

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3. I started to pay attention to when I was getting tired and began to pace myself better.  I learned to focus on breathing techniques and not get too stressed about anything particular thing.  Life will go on.

4.  In addition to my Ballet and Tai Chi I started going to yoga once a week.  Yoga was another great way for me to pace myself better with meditation and breath.

And the good new is……It worked!  The palpitations stopped and now that I am in my 50’s I continue to use the steps I started then.  These 4 Steps have helped me have a successful, healthy, and happy life.   It’s the simple things like learning to love and appreciate your body.

Loving yourself is  the best gift  you can ever give yourself (and others!)  My hubby sure appreciates my body and the love that I give it.

xo

Cheers!

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