First up – health

Physical health and emotional health are intertwined. As humans how we eat, how we exercise and how we feel are all connected. Most people know that having a sugar binge will lead to a sugar “high” and then you crash back down shortly afterwards.

For sustained energy you’re better off having a handful of nuts or a banana (yes there is sugar in fruit, however there’s lots of other nutrients and fiber too!!). 

Food can affect our emotions and our emotional well-being too. How many times have you overindulged on the weekend, either a junk food binge or too many wines out with the girls? (mmhmm hand up guilty on this one…) Then come Monday morning you drag yourself awake feeling terrible and promising to eat healthy, drink more water and haul your ass out the door for a walk/run/swim/hit the gym?

But what can I do?

Good question. What can you do? Everyone talks about “everything in moderation” and for sure that cliche has some merit. However, what does moderation actually mean? And how do you ensure you are being “moderate” in what you choose to consume? Here’s one simple tip:

Keep a food diary – it really does help keep track of everything you eat and drink on a daily basis (including that one, sorry two or was that three glasses of wine each night?) try it for a couple of weeks and you’ll surprise yourself for sure!!

Then you can use your food diary outcomes to change up what you eat and how you eat and you can easily spot things that you can swap out or cut down. For example, if you find you have a choc bar every arvo, swap it out a couple times/week for a small handful of nuts or piece of fresh fruit. If every morning you have a super large full-cream vanilla coffee latte – swap it out for low-fat coffee a couple of times/week. Glass or 3 of wine each night? Aim to have a couple of wine-free nights, swap it out for mineral water with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. Making small changes makes you feel less deprived and more likely to stick with them and maybe even increase the changes over time! And remember:

create the change you want to be!

Love and Emotional Health (for me)

ok, this one is surprisingly tricky. It’s all very well for me to say that you need love in your life to improve your emotional well-being. It’s a loaded concept and far too easy to criticise. Many of us have been or are alone without a significant other in our lives – so it’s always painful to hear that love is important and necessary to stay emotionally healthy, but it kinda is…

But you know and I know that love is not just from the husband/wife/partner in our life. It’s also our family, friends, child(ren), pets  whether that’s a dog, cat, goldfish, goanna (an Aussie lizard, go google it, I’ll wait…).

Animals and small children give us unconditional love and that’s the kind that makes us feel wonderful and that all is right with the world even when it really is not. My daughter is just as loving and adorable at 26 as she was as a tiny child, I look at her and am amazed at how awesome she is and how lucky I am. So, go hug your child/children or your fur-baby, whichever, whatever – it’s all good.

I also have my therapy dog George and I share his love with the students and staff at work, with dementia patients and with random strangers I meet out walking him (love and exercise – mmhmm, I’m in heaven!!) Here’s a pic of George for y’all to make you smile.

Get on over to his fb page Georgie-boy on fb for more joy and happy, then come back here for my final comments on love.

 

Love – that is all

So, now for my final comments on this blog post. Y’all know I’ve been in a relationship that has had some serious stops and starts and it’s caused me a fair amount of anguish and my living it all out in social media means everyone pretty much knows my business, so I have no secrets – not sure if that’s a good thing, but that is how it is for me.

Yes, we are back together. Yes, I know some of my friends worry about this. Yes, I know what I am doing. Yes, I know how the story may end (hey I’ve been living it for the last year!) and No, you don’t have the right to tell me how I should live my life. I love my friends, but you cannot make my decisions for me. You can choose to question my decisions, but I’d truly appreciate you keeping that to yourself and having respect for my choice, even if you think it is not the right one. 

And me? I always choose love and you know what? That is my happy. He asked me if I had put this photo on fb and I’m like nah, but it’s killing me and he laughed coz he knows I put it all out there – so here, this is us…