Welcoem to posts!!
in the future - u will be able to do some more stuff here,,,!! like pat catgirl- i mean um yeah... for now u can only see others's posts :c
Since Iâve been taking a break from videos Iâve been catching up on non-screen activities.
One of those activities is to **attempt** to shave my dogs in order to save a little money, have a bonding experience with my pups, and try something new. So over the past couple days (yes, itâs taken days, and will take a couple moreâŚ) of doing this, Iâve learned a couple things:
1. Sure, âI can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,â buuuut sometimes delegating a task to more qualified people makes everyone more happy, and a better job done. đ
God made us as a cohesive body to work together, after all!
2. I didnât realize how much this grooming would calm Macie down. We usually put a bark collar on her at night, but havenât had to since she got her (mostly done) shave 3 days ago. It makes me wonder how many little things have built up in my life that cause background anxiety, and Iâm making time to take care of those things.
So, if you see my pups and they remind you of Dr. Suess characters go ahead and laugh. Itâs given me some good ones! Ledbetter Grooming, Iâll be calling you soon for you to fix my mistakes⌠đ¤Ł
đ¤ What can you delegate in your life to make yourself and others happier?
𧚠What backed up âclutterâ is making your life unnecessarily difficult? Then, make the time to take care of it!
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Part 9 - Health For Life
The journey of health is very much like constructing and living in a house.
You have your vision on a blueprint and start building. There are inevitable, unexpected problems and mishaps along the way to handle. When the house is finally built it may not look like your original blueprint, but itâs been built to face the challenges around it. As the years go on repairs and remodels will be needed, but as long as you take good care of your foundation, sill plate, and frame you can continue to make the necessary changes as you live your life in this home.
Similarly, our health never stays the same. Itâs in constant flux as we encounter new choices and challenges every second of our life. It can be incredibly frustrating when we encounter an injury or diagnosis that throws all our plans off. But you know what? As we face those challenges and learn how to overcome them we are building a life that best suites us and our situation.
Fall in love with the process of health. See the challenges youâre facing as opportunities to grow and become a better, wiser, stronger version of yourself. When you look back on all youâve done at the end of your life youâll not only look at the happy moments with fondness, but also feel pride in how you took on a challenge instead of faltered.
If you fell off your consistency and feel discouraged or lost in your health journey please message me! Iâd be so happy to sit down and talk with you about some real next steps to help you along the way to your High Caliber Life.
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Sharing this post is greatly appreciated!
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Part 8 - Sleep
You can have the best exercise program and be flawless in your water and food intake, but if you donât get enough rest youâll start to see diminishing returns. Your spiritual practice and relationships even suffer when you donât get the rest you need.
If your health goal is weight loss, you have sugar cravings, and your sleep isnât the greatest, getting good at this one principle can make all the difference in the world. When you donât get enough sleep food cravings can take over (especially sweets) to keep your deprived energy levels up. This leads to more eating throughout the day, and of course more fat gain. However, more sleep = less cravings = less fat gain (AND better metabolism)!
Sleep deprivation affects how you move throughout your day, too. It can contribute to a lack of balance. Youâre more likely to get winded as well, even with a great workout regimen. And of course with a tired body you canât lift as much or go as long as you would with plenty of sleep.
Probably the biggest tell of a lack of sleep is how you're doing mentally and emotionally. If youâre feeling discouraged, irritated, and anxious and you know youâre not getting enough sleep, getting that rest will help you have a whole new outlook on life. It may not solve all your problems, but it will make you MUCH more capable of tackling them with confidence.
Digging into better sleep can be just as difficult as nutrition since many of the same factors are in play, if not more (including food and drink itself!). The fix could be as simple as making it more of a priority, to more complicated solutions like balancing your hormones. No matter what your remedy is, itâs well worth your time to figure it out. There is no substitute for sleep!
What effects have you felt when you havenât gotten enough rest?
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Part 7 - Nutrition
The topic of nutrition is way too vast and complex to capture in this small post! But there will be many more future posts to help untangle all the conflicting information out there.
Plus, thereâs a pretty good chance you already know what youâre supposed to do when it comes to food (even if youâre not doing it!). So why donât we do what we know weâre supposed to? Because no matter how much someone can tell you âfood is fuel,â we know deep down itâs more complicated than that.
Thatâs because food and drink ARE more than fuel. Itâs connection! They have been linked to culture and social gatherings since the dawn of time. This strong influence dictates many of the diet choices we make, for better or worse. So when we start to make changes in how we eat it inevitably impacts our relationships, too.
Not only that, food and drink give us âhappy chemicalsâ that can keep us hooked on especially tasty options, like sugar and heavily processed foods. Thereâs a reason why stress eating is so common and difficult to stop! Food addiction is a very real thing.
Thereâs a LOT to unpack when it comes to what we eat and drink, and oddly enough it usually begins long before we put anything in our mouths. The environment in which we surround ourselves has a bigger effect on our diet than anything else. Some of these things are out of our control, while many others are. Iâll be breaking down these factors in future posts. But for nowâŚ
Whatâs your favorite memory around food?
I met my best friends because of it!
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Part 6 - Hydration
Water not only makes up most of our body but itâs crucial for digestion, blood supply and viscosity, oral health, nutrition delivery, and most importantlyânerve function.
When our nerves arenât firing well that means our actions become sluggish and twitchy. Everything in the system slows down, even if youâre getting great exercise and food. This can result in some very common ailments in todayâs society like:
â˘Chronic fatigue
â˘Headaches
â˘Anxiety
â˘Short term memory loss
â˘Joint pain
Simply becoming hydrated can help resolve or at least reduce all these things, which means you can show up to life fully and unhindered.
So how much water should you drink?
If youâre not drinking any water at all, start by drinking one water bottle a day. Do this for a week, then increase it to 2 water bottles/day. Increase how many water bottles you drink per day until you hit 4 per day (about 64oz). Doing this progressively will help prevent you from running to the bathroom every 5 minutes. :D Then if you need more or less water you can adjust from there! You know youâre getting enough when your pee is clear.
One more thingâŚ
Water by itself will solve a lot of problems, but when you pair it with electrolytes you will reap further neurological benefits. Electrolytes help your nerves send their signals throughout the body. The simplest way to add electrolytes is to dissolve a tiny pinch of sea salt or pink Himalayan sea salt to your water every day (NOT table salt!).
How much water are you drinking a day currently?
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Part 4 - Fitness
I call fitness the âacceleratorâ.
Proper exercise on its own can resolve multiple problems from chronic joint pain to losing weight to managing diabetes more effectively. It also reduces common mental struggles like anxiety and depression.
But when fitness is paired with another principle of health it massively improves that effect, too!
Youâre more likely to drink enough water, eat healthier food, and improve sleep. Your relationships are happier and your spiritual practice will pack more punch. You end up feeling better in every area of life at some level.
When your body is trained to move effectively you gain confidence in yourself and your abilities. You feel less like a victim and feel empowered to take on your challenges rather than hide from them. And yesâyou look great, too!
We all need three forms of fitness training to be well-rounded for life:
â˘Mobility/Flexibility
â˘Cardio
â˘Resistance Training
This can look like starting with some joint mobility as a warm-up, a 10-minute brisk walk for cardio, followed by a workout of 3-5 resistance exercises (like squats). This is just one of many examples, but workouts can be adjusted for your fitness level and performance goals.
If you have chronic joint pain and donât know what safe exercise looks like for you, give me a call. I can help you find workouts that will make you stronger for life without injury!
For those of you that have been working out encourage others on this post by telling them how exercise has helped your life!
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Part 3 - Relationships
The people in your life have a strong influence over you. We tend to gravitate toward those with similar values and tastes. We can even influence other areas of peopleâs lives from a variety of preferences.
This is a beautiful thing, and strong, healthy relationships are one of the best determining factors for long-term health.
Sometimes though, you get placed around people that donât share your values and preferencesâwith no way out. Even these peopleâs choices can tempt you to break away from your own values and put you on a path you never intended.
If you find yourself in this position what do you do? Instead of complaining about the person (as tempting as that is) use it as a way to clarify and strengthen your own resolve on your individual path to health. In order to do that go to great lengths to surround yourself with people that do these three things:
1. Encourage - They remind you of who you are and believe in your potential.
2. Empower - They remind you that making a good choice is ALWAYS in your power, even when you donât feel like it.
3. Enlighten - They teach you what you need to know for the task at handâand they lead by example.
The choices that lead to health might look different for each one of us, and thatâs ok. But whatever you do, donât do it alone! Who you surround yourself with can encourage you to make those good choices in the other 5 principles of health.
I want to hear from youâ
Who has shown you encouragement, empowerment, and enlightenment?
How are you influencing others in the same way?
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Part 2 - Spiritual Practice
Itâs critical for the foundation of a house to be solid in order for the building to weather both the good and bad days. Having a crumbling and neglected foundation spells doom to the rest of the structure if itâs not addressed.
Before I go any further, let me define what I mean by a spiritual practice. Itâs generally when an individual believes they are part of something much bigger than themselves and they align their thought patterns, words, and actions according to that belief. This is an inward experience that flows outward to the external world around themâconsciously and unconsciously.
With this definition we can very quickly see how a spiritual practice can affect other areas of our life. It can determine how you treat yourself, your relationships, and the activities you choose to participate in. Our choices in all these areas affect our health, and much of it stems from our belief system.
Itâs important to note that a spiritual practice that results in growth is both fluid and structured. It requires the admission of faults and the need to learn, but also the boldness to hang onto what is right and true.
My spiritual practice has aligned with Jesus Christ for 20 years and counting. During this walk Iâve noticed 3 repeating phases in order for me to continue to grow in my faith in Him:
1. Humility - the absence of pride and pretensions; submissiveness to an ultimate authority (willingness to change)
2. Awareness - the ability to accurately evaluate oneâs thoughts, words, and actions and seek a better way
3. Discipline - realignment of thoughts, words, and actions to this newly learned way.
As I continue to practice these things God is helping me fill in the cracks of the foundation of my life so that the other 5 principles can become stronger and stronger as well.
How do you start a spiritual practice?
A quick and easy way is to start reading Scripture every day. No matter what faith you may be a part of, I highly suggest the book of Proverbs in the Bible (the NLT version is easier to understand). Itâs very applicable to all walks of life, and even talks about health often!
Read one chapter a day, and ask the Lord to help you understand it. If thereâs a proverb that sticks out to you, memorize it and meditate on it. See how you can apply it into your everyday life, and ask God for guidance in how.
If you do start this, I want to hear what proverb stands out to you!
(Proverbs 22:4 is one of my favorites!)
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The 6 principles of health are:
â˘Spiritual Practice
â˘Relationships
â˘Fitness
â˘Hydration
â˘Nutrition
â˘Sleep
If you want to do well in these 6 principles, you need one thing: CONSISTENCY.
Being consistent in a good habit is easier said than done in a world thatâs constantly throwing roadblocks in your way:
â˘Time runs out before you can get a workout in.
â˘Your spouse suggests eating out instead of eating the healthy food you already bought.
â˘The cookies sitting on your counter are constantly calling your name.
â˘The demands of work keep you up late at night to meet yet another deadline.
Before you know it your good intentions remain just that: Intended, but never fulfilled.
Hereâs a phrase thatâs been helpful for me when it comes to being consistent:
âLittle things make big things.â
We see this all the time around us. Trillions of cells make a whole human being. Countless grains of sand make up a beautiful beachfront. Unfathomably tiny atoms are in literally every physical bit of matter in the whole universeâfrom the tallest mountains to the deepest seas, to the air we breathe to the planets that are lightyears away in another galaxy. Itâs even reflected in ancient proverbs like, âA journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.â
When it comes to building your skills in any of these 6 principles, remember this: Your tiny, everyday/week/month/year actions OVER TIME will grow you into the person you want to become. As you continue to prioritize your good habits and turn those good intentions into good choices, you will see the fruits of your labor.
So next time life wants to throw a roadblock in your way, remember: Little things make big things. Your good choice may mean saying an uncomfortable ânoâ in the moment, but your future, healthier self will thank you.
Here are some tools to help you stay consistent:
â˘Tracking:
Whether itâs a check list or a tracking app, seeing those boxes ticked off is so satisfying and builds momentum to stay on the course.
â˘Accountability Partner:
Have a trusted friend/family member ask if youâve stayed consistent in your desired principle, or even do it together! This social aspect is very powerful.
â˘Habit Batching:
Pair a desired habit with a habit youâre already doing automatically. For example, if you want to work on your balance, try balancing on one foot while your coffeeâs brewing.
â˘Environment Control:
If tempting food in the house/office is the culprit, either donât buy it at all, or move it so itâs hidden out of sight. Bring a healthy alternative you can default to if youâre away from home.
What âlittle thingâ can you do this week to build into something bigger?
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