The way you live your life very much translates into your physical health and wellbeing. The choices you make impact how you live, and they can go on to impact your mind and body for years to come. If your choices are unhealthy, they’ll create a cycle that can turn detrimental, and that can wreak havoc on your confidence, body image, and overall physical capability. Fortunately, there are a lot of options on your plate to make changes for the better, and with the points below, we’re hoping to shed some light on how your lifestyle choices affect your health!
The Sedentary Modern Life
Modern life has a lot of conveniences for us. We don’t have to walk everywhere, as we can drive or take public transport to most places. We can get things delivered to us, including food, meaning we don’t even need to run down to a corner store anymore either! We can just order everything we need online. And unfortunately, many people work desk jobs these days, and that means they’re not really moving very much.
But while this all sounds like an absolute luxury – after all, there’s no heavy lifting or back-breaking labor needed – it can be extremely detrimental to your health in the long term. If you’re not really moving much or even standing, your body is deteriorating. If you’re not including workouts in your regular routine, you are not burning calories and you are not staying supple and flexible. On the contrary, you’re definitely harming your musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and pulmonary systems, which can lead to numerous chronic conditions.
The Battle to Lose Weight
Because you’re so often sitting at a desk, or lounging on the sofa, or you simply don’t have enough energy to get a 30-minute workout in, you can really struggle to lose weight. You don’t have the time in your normal schedule to work out or hit the gym, and when you get home, you simply don’t want to!
You’re tired, and all you want to do is rest, or watch some TV. And honestly? No one can blame you for that. But these kinds of habits can lead you to feel down and bad about your body. This is especially a problem if you already have a condition that means it’s much harder for you to lose weight. For people living with long-term illnesses such as diabetes or PCOS, unexplained weight gain can a part of life. And not only can this make treating these conditions harder, but it can also knock your confidence, and make you feel like a stranger in your own body. Nothing seems to work, no matter how hard you try.
Choices that Help
However, you don’t need to panic! If you’re working 8 hours at a desk, or you’re standing behind a counter for even longer, there’s a lot you can do to make small structural changes to your lifestyle.
- If you’re worried about weight gain, or muscle mass loss, even just tweaking your diet to include more protein-rich foods is a good way to get started.
- It’s necessary to exercise. If you don’t have a gym membership, you can always do home workouts or outdoor workouts.
- Similarly, it’s a good idea to also think about taking up a gentle form of exercise, such as Yoga, to help you feel more flexible in your body again and center you. You can do a few yoga poses first thing in the morning.
- Some heavy traditional stretching can help to wake you up, make you feel limber, a lot stronger, and help relieve pain. You can stretch your upper back, hamstrings, shoulders, arms, and most muscle in the body. The following are some great lower back stretches to help you.
- Sometimes, when you have accumulate extra weight and haven’t been able to get the results you want after much work, outside interventions are necessary. Then, you can achieve weight loss with gastric sleeve revision; as a medical procedure that makes your stomach smaller, it can be a very productive way to lose weight if nothing else has worked out for you. You can hit your goals in a timely manner, in the way you see other people doing, and it can be great for your overall health.
How do you feel about the way your lifestyle affects your health? It’s so important to think about the way you live your life and how your lifestyle choices affect your health so you can implement a lot of positive changes that can make you feel so much better. From just exercising for 10 minutes a day, to getting a bit more sleep, to stretching more, to eating more nutrient-rich foods – it’s all about baby steps.
To a Fitter Healthier You,
The Fitness Wellness Mentor
