This post brought to you by American Heart Association. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Simple Acres.
Everyone has a reason to want to live a healthier and longer life. How to lead a healthy lifestyle can be challenging at times, especially in motherhood. As a mother of three, I can relate to the struggle of juggling caring for my family and life’s long list of “to-do’s!” As a Registered Dietitian, I am here to tell you that to lead a healthy lifestyle is less about rigidity in diet and unrealistic goal setting and more about YOUR “why.” What is YOUR “why” for choosing health? Life Is Why. Pinterest
Your “why” is the foundation of what drives your choices, dreams and actions! When your “why” comes from a deep genuine place your actions will simply fall into place.This is because YOU VALUE health from something you are INTERNALLY passionate about. This friends is the key to SUCCESS!
My “why” for leading a healthy lifestyle as a means to live a longer life is LOVE. Allow me to explain deeper. What drives me to honor my heart and mind with healthy choices is my yearning to leave as many imprints of love as I can in this life! My prayer most every night is to be able to live a long healthy life so I can love my family and children as long as I possibly can. It brings me nearly to tears writing this and reflecting on how important it is to me to leave “love imprints” on the hearts of my children. I want to savor every moment and be PRESENT as long as possible! This, LOVE, friends is my hearts cry, passion and “why!”
Making healthy choices is our most powerful tool for living a healthier and longer life.
How to Lead a Healthy Lifestyle
- Find YOUR “why.” Identify what motivates and drives your life toward self-care. Is it a loved one, memories you would like to make or dreams you would like to achieve?
- Unite. Join with other mothers as a means to encourage, support and empower healthy changes. This could be a Facebook group where you share goals, inspirational quotes and healthy recipes or a monthly hiking club that encourages your exercise to be fun! The options are endless of how we as woman can unite. Our healthy lifestyle creates the way for a future of healthy change in our loved ones and children. Learn more about joining the American Heart Association’s HEALTHY MOTIVATION group of real moms, here at Life Is Why.
- Simplify Nutrition. Getting back to the basics of whole food eating is one of the easiest ways to have a healthy diet. What is whole food eating? It is focusing on eating unprocessed REAL foods, increasing our produce intake to 5-10 servings per day, using fresh herbs to season our food instead of added salt, decreasing concentrated sweets, especially in beverages, and choosing whole grains and lean proteins. I often tell my clients, eat like your great grandmother ate! Plant a garden if you can and experience the reward of the physical labor delicious produce calls for all the while living more active. Simple nutrition protects the heart and mind, decreases blood pressure naturally and prevents disease.
- Get moving. Physical activity benefits the heart by decreasing total cholesterol and keeping your HDL and LDL in healthy ratios. It also promotes a healthy weight that reduces the risk of developing disease. Lastly, activity has been shown to increase the release of hormones that encourage an uplifted mood and sense of well-being while reducing brain function decline.
It is so important to cherish LIFE and honor our bodies with a healthy lifestyle! For it is the heart that savors and feels the moments of our life and it is our mind that allows us to relive our beautiful memories. Friends, here at Simple Acres my encouraging voice to you is to SAVOR life, be PRESENT and LOVE with all you have because it’s truly the simple moments and ones we love that matter most. Choose health. What is YOUR “why?” Life Is Why
Celebrate your health this month as February is American Heart month.
I really need to workout more than I do. I am trying to make more time for it.
That’s where everything starts, your reason for doing what it is you need to do. Our family is enough reason to live a healthy life. Enough with the excuses and just go for it.
This is an awesome perspective on living a healthy life. Staying healthy is very important and it’s easier when you have solid reasons for doing so.
Such a great post. I and my hubby were planning to go for the Healthy Lifestyle. Thanks for making me Inspired
Good luck!
Family is my why. I want to be here for a very long time to be with my family. Sometimes, it’s easier not to think about, but we need to take care of ourselves.
Such great insight
Great tips! I love what you said about simplifying nutrition. I think we get so caught up in labels and what we read in the media, but we just need to focus on the basics.
It’s important to stay active, exercise, eat well and take care of mental health. I find it much more challenging to do so in the winter months… Need warmer weather stat!
I so agree Maria I am ready for Spring! 🙂
What a sweet pics! Healthy lifestyle is great, so glad to know about it
I want to leave love imprints on my children too. Those are things that never go away. 🙂
I love healthy lifestyle, now I encourage my wife to do a daily exercise and a healthy meal
I love the first reason. Find your “why”. My “why” is the love of my three boys. I want to be healthy for them. I live for them. I also do it for me but they are my motivation.
I relate to that statement so much! God bless.XO
I love this post! I always try to explain a healthy lifestyle isn’t just about diet, but balance all around.
love this blogpost! my family decided to have a walk in the morning or before dinner as a family time and a healthy lifestyle. and on weekends we joined events as well
So awesome to hear! Good job, keep it up.
This post is such a wake up call for us to take better care of ourselves. For the past years, I have been slaving myself to run a household, a full time job, and care for my husband and kids. I’ve been lacking sleep and eating poorly. I am diabetic and went into a downward spiral. Thankfully, I have bounced back and eliminated the biggest stress generator in my life – my full time, stressful, graveyard shift job. My blood sugar readings have since then shown a decrease. Honestly, I always thought that living a long, healthy life for my family is better than having money and dying early.
I am so glad to hear that you have made the changes needed to take care of yourself. As a diabetic educator by day I understand the challenges that condition can bring. Prayers and positive thoughts your way. Good job! XO