Sacrifices To Stop To Stay Healthy While Trying To Succeed

People are always saying in order to succeed you must sacrifice. Personally, I agree with this, however there is a limit on what can and/or needs to be sacrificed. Partying all weekend? That can be skipped. Eating lunch? Why is that even a question? The answer is yes, of course. We tend to get so caught up in doing everything in our capability to manifest our dreams we find, to us, perfectly legit reasons to not properly take care of ourselves. Half-assing it is just not going to cut it when we’re talking about health. Well, it’ll function for a while, I’ll admit. But forever? I have sincere doubts. Being healthy is just not something that can be sacrificed. Ever. Not even while trying to succeed.

First of all this is not me pointing the finger at you. The finger points at me too, rest assured! I too am guilty of being sooo busy that I completely forget to eat. I say things like ‘’Let me just finish this and then I’ll go eat’’ or ‘’I’ll just have this not good for me at all bar, it’s fast and it’s food so it’ll do”. When we’re young, we’re getting away with this behavior easily. Really easily. However this behavior can and/or is wreaking havoc on our bodies. Yours, mine and everyone else who engages in this behavior.

Once again, I get it. I too have dreams I’d like to see manifested yesterday, but how great will I feel living my dream if I’m not healthy? How great would you feel? I’m going to take the liberty and answer this for you. I think it’s safe to say you wouldn’t feel so great. I know the rebuttal is ‘’I’ll see what I’ll do when the time comes. I’m perfectly healthy now! No need to worry.’’ Exactly no need to worry now. By starting to properly take care of yourself now, you’ll hopefully never have to worry. Here are some things I do to keep me feeling good and to stay healthy while trying to succeed.

Giving up the Sleep

Sacrificing sleep is just a terrible idea. I don’t know why or who said it is needed to achieve your goals but I’m sorry they are wrong. Did you know depriving people of sleep is used as a form of torture? Well now you do, so stop this practice immediately. You love yourself, people who love themselves treat themselves right.

There are all kinds of guidelines on how many hours of sleep a person needs according to their age. Look them up, perhaps try it, see if it works for you. However the amount of sleep someone needs is different per person. Some are okay with five hours, others, me, need seven hours in order to function the way they desire. There is no shame in how many hours you need. The better rested you are the better you feel and more able you are to do everything needed to manifest your dream.

Staying healthy without fuel for your body

Your body needs fuel to keep running. You need to eat in order for your body to have energy. Without energy you can’t do anything. I know, preparing a meal can take a very long time. Not to keen on that either, but as always I have hacks for you. Dinner meal prepping. This life hack is actually stolen from my dear mother, as long as I eat she’s fine with it. By the way I also use it for lunch as I mostly eat two hot meals a day. She prepares all meats in the weekend and then freezes them. The big haul of the work is already done. On weekdays all she needs to do is make the side dish and obviously cook the meat (don’t forget to take it out of the freezer..). From starting to cook to me starting to eat is half an hour maximum. That to me sounds reasonable for us busy bees.

Nope, haven’t forgotten about the snacks. Online there are half a zillion recipes on how to make healthy snacks that’ll get you through the week. Personally, they are not for me. I’m not a kitchen princess. I cook because I have to eat and stay healthy, pure functionality. I do recommend looking them up as they can be a real life hack. I just buy them during my weekly/monthly groceries. No shame.

Stay Healthy by Staying hydrated

You need to stay hydrated. For this I think you know the drill, but for those of you who don’t here it goes. Drink plenty of water, limit sugary drinks. Again you know the drill. I personally don’t drink coffee but don’t go crazy on that either. I have heard it’s not good for you, I refer you to the doctors for this one. I do have one thing that I do, purely because I like it. I infuse my water with different fruits. It tastes great and is a great way to stay healthy by getting some extra vitamins. You can also make fruit smoothies, which I do in the summer as the fruit just tastes better then. I don’t know why but in my life it’s considered a fact.

What helped me a lot with drinking a sufficient amount of water was buying a bigger water bottle. I currently am using one that is 800 ML. I did the math, for me, if I finish it twice during a day it means I am being hydrated enough. In my head it sounds like nothing, ”Just twice, I can do that easily”. The whole 8-10 glasses of water a day just sound like too much even though you get to the same amount of water as twice my water bottle. I basically successfully played a trick on my own mind, maybe yours will fall for it too?

You need downtime

Your brain needs a break every now and then. It seems like you need to keep going all the time, but eventually this will not help you. The more exhausted your brain gets the more mistakes are prone to happen, so take breaks. Watch a TEDtalk, have a Disney dance moment and/or take a nap. Anything that will make you feel all relaxed and zen again, plus doesn’t make your brain work so hard. Having a breather will give you a fresh state of mind to go back in and continue what you were doing more productively.

Your body needs a health shake

Have you already heard what the new smoking is? It’s something I think you might even be doing as you are reading this. It’s sitting. Sitting is the new smoking, apparently. It’s been seen that there is a trend of us moving less and less. The streaming is going up and the movement is going down, which of course is really bad. In order for you to stay healthy you need to some type of exercise. Technically you need to break your sedentary behavior every 30 minutes. At this time you should get up and move around, perhaps walk a flight of stairs, get some water, go to the bathroom just anything to get you moving.

Of course just moving around every 30 minutes is not enough, if only it were so simple. Exercise is also something that is needed to keep your body healthy. However you can do this in so many different ways it’s honestly amazing. You can for example go cycling, running, hiking and/or swimming and that those just the off the top of my head. If you’re really looking to make sure you move enough the Mayo Clinic has set some universal guidance for adults. They recommend 150 minutes or one hour and thirty minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week. If you are one to go intense they recommend 75 minutes or one hour and fifteen minutes of aerobic activity. You can also combine them of course.

Besides the physical benefits there also a bunch of mental health benefits. For example during a walk your brain can get some much needed and recommended downtime. Technically with moving around you can improve your health in all kinds of ways. Sometimes even with minimum effort.

Concluding words

As you can see, nowhere in the above can you find specific foods, drinks or anything like that. This is because every person is different. Every person has different personal health needs they need to cater to. All I’m pressing on is that the choices you make are in line with you being and staying healthy. What that is, is different for every person. I just want you to show yourself the love you deserve. Once again a healthy you is the most important thing. Yes, I know sacrifices have to made in order to realize the dream but your health can never be one of them!

I know it seems like having to do all this is such a big investment of your time, which you prefer to spend working on realizing your dreams, but here’s a totally not revolutionary thought for you. A healthy you can do far more than a you that is feeling under the weather, so the time you invest now you’ll be getting back when you’re feeling your best self ready, super able and willing to move mountains to make your dreams come true. Now really is that such a high price to pay? I think not.

Sacrificing your health is always a terrible idea. A healthy you is an able you, never forget that.

Love,

Share me!

DCPR.