Welcome to a new year, seen by many as a chance for a fresh start, establishing healthier habits. It is important to realize that when it comes to experiencing true health and wellness, there is no pill or any other quick fix that will effectively help you reach your goals. Instead, achieving and maintaining health is a journey, full of ups and downs; twists and turns, and it involves a willingness to embrace physical, emotional, mental and spiritual challenges.
Traditionally, one of the most common New Year's health resolutions is to reach a healthy weight. Steps toward accomplishing this goal have been shrouded by misconceptions that have confused the issue. For example, GLP-1 drugs are flooding the public eye with advertisements claiming to balance blood sugar and enhance weight loss. Portrayed as creating joy and boundless energy, these drugs may actually cause further illness.
While this advertising presents a quick fix impression, the path to achieving a healthy weight is remarkably similar to the path for optimizing health in general.
Simply put:
* Eat real foods from the earth; from nature, not processed. These foods may seem expensive, less tasty or hard to make. They are really quite affordable and delicious.
* Move your body. Exercising feels great, energizes cardiovascular and pulmonary endurance, boosts mood, increases energy and improves sleep.
* Challenge your mind, learning new hobbies, reading books, playing trivia games, and more.
* Explore your spiritual beliefs and develop a sense of community with like-minded people and Mother Nature.
* Calm your nervous system. Healing best occurs within a state of relaxation.
* Establish restorative sleep habits away from all electronics, eat 3-4 hours before bedtime, and relax your mind with prayer, meditation, or reading.
* Live with purpose, spending time delivering gifts and passions to others in your community.
* Live by your own value system.
The plan is simple, not necessarily easy. Challenging as the above may seem, it is easier than relying on pharmaceuticals. One GLP-1 website lists these potential side effects: thyroid cancer, gastroparesis (stomach paralysis), nausea, constipation, pancreatitis, blurred vision, gallstones and many more. This often means if you lose weight, you lose weight because you are sicker than before use of the drug.
Many patients considering a weight loss drug, also have high cholesterol, plaque on the arteries, hypertension, depression, anxiety, insomnia and maybe even have an autoimmune disease or worse. Some patients end up taking a bunch of medications including: statins, high blood pressure medications, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications and a sleeping pill. If you have an autoimmune disease, you may even be on drugs to suppress your immune system, leaving you highly susceptible to other disease processes.
Metabolic
When we feel empowered to take our health into our own hands, we tend to make healthier choices for ourselves. This leads to our metabolism responding accordingly and thereby accomplishing a more steady blood sugar, increased energy, and more balanced-hormones. In this way, establishing a healthy weight is completely achievable.
You are a powerful human being with the ability to make self-loving decisions to reach your health goals. It is simply a matter of you realizing you are worth living life to its fullest and believing in yourself enough to know you can do it. Guidance from a functional wellness provider can help in this personal quest. Happy New Year to Healthy New You!
"When we feel empowered to take our health into our own hands, we tend to make healthier choices for ourselves."
"You are a powerful human being with the ability to make self-loving decisions to reach your health goals."