Happy is the First Step to Healthy

Hello again! Thank you all for having me back.

It’s confession time, Ladies. I don’t cook. At all.

Sometimes, I think about learning, watch Giada or the Ranch woman with red hair whose always making something yummy, and I think, I got this. And then reality by the name of the smoke alarm or food poisoning sets in and I go back to remembering that coffee is my one and only culinary quest. The rest, thankfully, is my husband’s.

And to answer your unasked question, yes, I look to the sky and give thanks for this amazing gift of a husband who cooks every day ;) But, while I have no crockpot recipes to give you (another confession? I cried the last time I tried to use my crockpot—I’m that scared of the kitchen), I do happen to have some health tips. Not because I’m a healthy person who has the golden ticket to health and happiness—the direct opposite actually: I understand what it’s like to want to be healthy and stand in my own way. Once I recognized what I was doing, everything changed.

1. Being healthy isn’t attached to a specific weight—it’s attached to how we feel about ourselves. The power of positive thinking is a real thing. Don’t just make goals, make affirmations and read them.
2. Try new things. I am a college athlete who thought running and lifting for hours a day was the only way to exercise. This was false. In fact, the more out-of-my-comfort zone I get, the happier I find myself, and the more charged my body. Right now, I’m doing the BeachBody Country Heat dance videos. I feel like an idiot each time, I still have no idea what a kick-ball-change is, and I often look like an uncoordinated colt learning to walk, but I sweat, and I smile at the end.
3. Do not keep a food diary. This is something a counselor recommended to me a long time ago when I was struggling with my weight—write down everything you eat so you can recognize what’s positive and what’s negative. All it ever did was make me feel like I was heavy, disgusting, a failure. I write nothing down and I do not weigh myself. I set steps, and I make goals: a healthy breakfast, a timed amount of physical activity, replace one meal a day with a salad, and one splurge item a week (it’s almost always pizza).
4. Do not attach your confidence to your image. What we look like is only part of our package; it’s the wrapping paper. We have to love who we are and what we can do more than we love that outer part of us. This takes time—more than dieting and working out does, but those results…they are the game changers.
   
5. Finally, don’t be afraid to find a friend who understands your journey, and ask them to take it with you. I found my supporting cast in an online happiness group—I’m now supported by and supporter to women I’ve never met before, but who understand what I’m doing. This is, perhaps, the greatest tip. Don’t rely on those you’ve always known—sometimes, it takes the support and understanding of a stranger to give you what you need. 

Emotional health is just as important as your physical health. Do something for you, without strings or expectations of weight loss or image building, and find the happy that will make your healthy. If you need a friend for your journey, find me on Facebook at Author Kristen Kehoe I would love to support you.

Until next time, here’s to finding happy.
xo

Kristen Kehoe is a wife, mother to a four-year-old girl and four-month-old puppy, teacher, romance author, and captain of the crazy train. Nice to meet you ;-)

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