Your Body is Your Manual

Since January 1st, I see more and more commercials about “healthy food”, “new exercise tools” or “new fitness tracking equipment”.  Every company is hoping to get a piece from the “New Year’s Resolution” pie.  Perfect time to tell us what is best for our bodies, right?

Well…  It is our own bodies that are the best guides for “healthy” living, only if we know how to listen.  How often do you feel hungry or thirsty?  Do you rest when you feel tired? If you ever injure yourself, doesn’t your body tell you where the exact pain is?  It is much easier to pick on the easy messages that our bodies communicate to us.  What I learned over the years that the tougher messages like what my body doesn’t want to eat or do can easily get mixed with up what I would prefer not to eat or do – if that makes any sense.  For example: it is a Monday night, my regular weight lifting time, and I had a tough day at work.  I am mentally tired and I know that none of my lifting buddies will be able to make it to the gym.  Physically I am feeling okay but mentally I do not feel like going to the gym.  At this point, my body is actually ready to work out and those endorphins will probably help me in getting over my mental tiredness.  I just need to make sure that I hear what my body says while my brain is telling me to head home.

Last 9 months taught me even more about listening to my body.  The idea of pregnancy was discomforting because I didn’t know what to expect from my body.  Once I found out that I was pregnant, my husband and I decided not to read anything about pregnancy so that we wouldn’t set ourselves for any expectations.  Instead we left it to my body to dictate what needed to happen.  As far as my activities go, nothing changed in our regular routines.  At 38 weeks, I am still as active at the gym as I was prior to my pregnancy.  I continued windsurfing until the season was over in October.  And my mountain biking…  I was still on my bike at month 7.  Once my belly started to show around 7 months, I made the mental call of stop mountain biking but continue my city biking.  The potential risk of getting my belly too close to anything on the bike wasn’t worth it.

In my case, I realize that there is risk of overdoing things if I do not listen to my body carefully.  Therefore, I do take my time to stop and listen.  Even though from time to time, I still miss some of the directions, I strongly believe that my body is by far my best guide to healthy living.

Do you think you can have a workout and food journal for a week to track what your body says about your two basic activities?  Try not to listen to the generic “healthy must haves” and create your own map towards healthy living by listening to your own body.