In this time and age, we want everything fast. The sooner, the better. We don’t treat our health any better. We have been abusing our health for decades and now we want to get healthier and we expect overnight results. This is impossible. Yes, you can go on a crash diet and you will lose weight quickly, but very rarely that weight will be gone forever. And depending on the diet you were on, you could even greatly harm yourself.
What I am trying to teach you with my health blogs is not a diet. It is a lifestyle change. You may think to yourself now “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. What else is new?”, but please, bear with me. I have tried and experienced it all. I have a personal library stuffed with health-themed books. I’m a knowledge junkie; if a topic interests me, I want to know all about it until I am satisfied. And then I take that knowledge and start to apply it on myself and my life.
Take the analogy of building a house, for example. You wouldn’t just tear down any old buildings and start building right on top of the old one, would you? You would first study all there is to know about building, then you would make a plan and then you would make sure you’d start with a blank state. When it comes to your health, this is no different.
For years, I’ve been building a house made out of cards without realizing it. I laid all the cards out carefully, stacking one on top of the other. I really reached great milestones in terms of my health, my running endurance greatly improved, I started eating a vegetarian and then a vegan diet, then I started mostly eating fruit and vegetables, fasting became a part of my everyday life; I experienced really great mental and physical benefits. But it was really frustrating, the least bit of turmoil blew it all away and I felt like I had to start again from scratch.
This was literally the case! I didn’t build a foundation; I didn’t even make a plan. I expected overnight results and I expected everything just to keep on progressing and improving.
So what was the problem for me? The mental aspect. Theoretically, I was doing everything right. I was exercising regularly and eating better. But whenever I didn’t feel good mentally, my perfect but fragile house of cards broke down and I would stop exercising and eating better. In my case, my foundation was to deal with my mental health first. Meditation and self-reflection.
Let my experience be a lesson for you, try to figure out what your foundation is and build a beautiful building for yourself. Don’t be afraid to fail, that is just part of the progress. Failure is better than not starting at all. If you keep at it, you will have a gorgeous temple that will last a lifetime!
Annelies Wetzelaer 