Judging Or Too Accepting?

April 28, 2014 / ktbuchs87 / 2 Comments

Shocking to see me with a blog post on a Monday! It’s been awhile and life has been crazy, but I wanted to give you guys a regular post and not just a recipe this week.

Todays post will be more along the lines of me thinking out loud and asking for your opinion on a certain matter. Kind of a Monday musings if you will. Here is the question I have been wondering over the past few days: why do we feel more comfortable telling a skinny or thin person to go eat a cheeseburger than telling an overweight person that they need to eat less or go on a diet? I know that I am just as guilty of this as the next person. I am totally ok with telling someone (usually a friend or someone I know and in a joking manner) that they should go eat some food, but I would never dream of telling someone in that same way that they need to stop eating so much or go on a diet.

Let me clarify. In a totally professional realm where someone is coming to me to seek help and guidance about becoming healthier, I would have no problem steering them in the way of eating better and moving more. You know that I am a huge proponent of finding what works for you health wise and I am passionate about helping others find what that means to them. But to just walk up to someone who is overweight and tell them to go on a diet? No way. Not only would I think that’s rude, others would probably deem me as an awful or cruel person. But when you turn the tables and you’re telling someone they are too thin and need to eat more food? I feel like that is a whole different ball game. Suddenly, you are doing that person a favor. You are worried about their health and are only trying to help. Why does the size of the person make all the difference when it comes to what you say?

Now I understand that this feeling doesn’t apply to everyone. Maybe you are someone who has no problem telling anyone that they need to eat more or less. Maybe you feel like one isn’t taboo while the other is totally acceptable. Maybe I am making a much bigger deal out of this than I need to.

I think my biggest issue with this is that I know that comments like this can hurt the self esteem of the person in question, small, big, or medium size. Rather than telling someone what they need to do more or less of, we should be trying to find the best way to help or support them. We shouldn’t be judging people on their size any way, we have no idea where they are coming from. We don’t know if they have already lost 100 pounds and are in the middle of their weight loss journey. We don’t know if they are training for a competition and despite their small size could pick you up and throw you over their shoulder and carry you 200 feet. We can’t tell those things by just looking at someone. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, right?

A more controversial part of me thinks that perhaps we are too accepting of bad health and that’s why we feel more comfortable telling someone to eat more rather than less. There is no question that Americans are dealing with obesity and all the diseases and symptoms that come along with that. We are very good at treating the problems and issues that occur along with being unhealthy or overweight, but we for some reason can’t get to the root of the problem and stop it before it becomes a major issue. Maybe that’s because we all feel it isn’t ok to try and address people directly. I’m not talking about in a cruel, derogatory, or rude manner, but coming from a place of truly wanting to help someone live healthier and approaching them in a loving and compassionate way. I am in no way advocating that we just start walking up to random people and telling them they need to get healthier. I do advocate trying to get the message out that it is possible for everyone to be the healthiest version of themselves. I also advocate that we don’t all need to be the same size or shape to be healthy and we should celebrate the fact that we are all different and unique in our own ways.

I know that society dictates a lot of how we feel or think about certain things. Unfortunately as much as I try to avoid that and form my own opinions and feelings on certain issues, I am just as susceptible to the popular opinion. Fortunately, as I grow older and learn more and more about myself and what it means to be healthy, I am finding that I really want to try and help change the views of society when it comes to issues like this. Will I be able to do it all on my own? No. But one voice in the crowd is better than no voice at all.

Let’s hear from you guys. What are your thoughts and musings on this issue? Do you think it is as big a problem or do you feel I am making a mountain out of mole hill? I would love to hear from you on this one!

Have a great Monday everyone!

Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative

March 24, 2014 / ktbuchs87

So often when we make the decision to change our lifestyles, we tend to zero in on the bad habits. This is very true when it comes to changing our health for the better. We decide that we want to eat better, exercise more, and just be healthier in general. Then we start listing all the unhealthy habits we have. We snack too much, we count walking from the refrigerator to the couch as exercise, the only cooking we do is pressing the start button on the microwave, etc. etc…. In order to be healthy we have to get rid of all those habits, and the sooner the better. Right?

Not so much. When I first decided to be healthier, I had the same mindset. I took a look at my life and immediately saw all the “bad” things that I did. I was discouraged and felt the urgent need to change everything as fast as possible. I got rid of all the junk food in my kitchen, bought new exercise DVD’s, and completely overhauled my lifestyle. All of this sounds really good and is necessary when trying to be healthier, but it shouldn’t all happen at once. Sure I had gotten rid of all the “bad” stuff, but I had no idea what to do next. I had essentially changed my whole world over night and that led to more than a few slip-ups and feeling like being healthier was impossible.

Luckily I learned from my mistakes and found a much better approach to changing my lifestyle. I slowly began to change things. I started adding healthier recipes to my weekly rotation. I experimented with a few new exercise routines to see what I liked best and I could stick with. This gradual change made it much easier to stick with a healthier lifestyle. The other thing that really helped me was to focus on the good habits that I already had before I decided to live healthier. Once I saw that I had already had some good habits, it made it feel like I could actually change for good.

If you have recently made the choice to change your lifestyle, try this approach. Instead of immediately changing every single bad habit in your life, take a look and find the good things. Maybe you’re really good at drinking a lot of water, or you have a fairly solid workout routine. Once you find your good habits, find ways to build on them. If you’re a really good cook, start incorporating healthier ingredients and recipe into your repertoire. Soon you’ll have a healthy menu and you’ll feel really accomplished and motivated to keep going. The important thing to remember is to take it slow. This increases your chances of sticking to your goal of living a healthier lifestyle. Once you see all the good things you already do and find ways to expand upon them, being healthy won’t seem like such a daunting and unattainable task. Each positive thing you do will be another step towards living and feeling great!

Playing the Blame Game

March 3, 2014 / ktbuchs87

Often times in life, it is so easy to blame anything and everything for things that go wrong. We are all quick to point the finger at situations, circumstances, and even other people that might have caused our problems. Very rarely ,at least for me, do we blame ourselves for our hardships. I feel that bad health is one area of life that we are very quick to play the blame game. So often it is fast food, poor medical care, various diseases and ailments, environmental factors, or a myriad of other factors that take the rap for our poor health. I am totally aware that in some cases, these factors can be totally true and can be a big contributor to bad health. However, so many times it is our own fault, we just don’t want to admit it.

I get it. Believe me. I don’t like to take the blame for things just as much as the next guy. Is there anyone that really enjoys saying they’re wrong and it’s all their fault? I don’t think so. But more and more, we are not taking responsibility for our actions when it comes to health and that is hurting us more than helping us. By constantly passing the buck, we can feel less motivated to step up and make a change. It can get easier and easier to feel like we have no power over the food we put in our mouths, the lack of movement we make throughout our day, or way to change our current circumstance. Our health no longer becomes our problem; it’s somebody else’s issue to deal with. If someone could get rid of all the fast food restaurants, then you could be healthy. If someone made fresh and organic food affordable and easily available, then you could be healthy. If someone could make getting access to health professionals easier and less expensive, then you could be healthier. If someone could get an inexpensive fitness center in your neighborhood, then you could be healthier.

That someone? It’s you. All the excuses need to stop. They waste time and they accomplish nothing. I don’t expect you to revolutionize the health world and make a change for everyone. I do expect you to revolutionize YOUR health and make a change for YOU. Accept responsibility for your actions and your choices. Will all fast food restaurants ever disappear? Not likely. Can you make the choice to eat something else? Absolutely. Will organic food become cheaper than conventional and pop up in every single grocery store across America? Maybe some day. Can you make the best possible decisions while grocery shopping and still eat a nutritious and healthy diet? Of course you can. Will you be able to workout and train like all the A-list celebrities? Perhaps if you win the lottery. Can you find free and simple ways to workout? Definitely. There are ways to make a healthy lifestyle work for every person, you just have to be willing to do the work and stop passing the blame to someone else.

Like I said before, I know that there are some situations where there is no way you can take responsibility for health problems. I don’t want to make anyone feel bad or guilty. I just believe that the more you try and take control of your health, the better off you will be. When you take charge of your actions and health decisions, then your health starts to become a priority. I don’t expect you to do it all on your own either. Ask for help and guidance along the way! Find people who have successfully changed their health for the better and see how they did it. Read health blogs, articles, magazines, or books and start implementing their tips or advice. If it works, keep it. If it doesn’t, move on and try something new. The more ownership you start to take of your health, the more you want it to keep improving. Don’t get discouraged, get empowered to start taking steps in a healthier direction!

You’re a Bully

February 17, 2014February 17, 2014 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

Battle the bulge. Fight flab. Annihilate your arms. Crush your core. These are all fairly common phrases when looking at articles and websites on how to lose weight or exercise your body. You’ve heard or read these numerous times whether you realized it or not. You probably don’t pay much attention to them, but could they be affecting you anyway?

In the past few weeks and months, I have been working hard on learning to love my body. I have shared before some of my insecurities and past issues with my self image. It’s tough to try to retrain your brain to actually see what’s in the mirror and not what you think you see. It has taken me a lot of practice to be proud of what my body can do, rather than trying to change my body into what I think it needs to look like. Amongst all this working on my self image, I have come across a lot of tips, articles, workouts, and diets that use words and phrases like those above. At first, I really didn’t think much of it. As I kept seeing these things and kept working on my own issues, I felt like maybe these things were affecting me more than I realized. I have a tendency to be very harsh and critical of my body. I know that many other people struggle with this as well. We all think that we can be better, we can do more, and we believe, for whatever reason, we aren’t good enough or think we look the way we should. To be blunt, we’re bullies. We’re bullies to our own bodies.

That may sound kind of ridiculous. I mean, you aren’t knocking your own books out of your hand and demanding lunch money from yourself. But think about your inner monologue when it comes to your body. Would you say those words out loud to someone else? Would you want to hear those things coming from your friends or family members? Is what you’re telling yourself helping you achieve anything positive? For me, I can tell you it wasn’t true.

Wednesday’s I have my long run day. Lately, I have been getting in a little over 10 miles, which is really exciting for me because I have never run in the double digits before. A few weeks ago, I had just finished my run and was about to get in the shower and I started to do my normal nitpicking of all the body parts and areas that I didn’t like. Is my lower stomach as flat as I think it should be, is my butt a little too big from all my kettlebell work, are my arms as defined as they were two weeks ago…. then I stopped mid-thought. My body, the one I was bashing with negative thoughts, had just finished carrying me over TEN MILES. It had just done a 7 minute plank workout. It had popped up into a headstand with ease (and might I boast a little grace) and held it for over a minute. And here I was beating it up and telling it that it wasn’t good enough. It dawned on me how crazy I was acting. As weird as it may sound, I apologized (out loud) and thanked my body for all it had done just that morning. That day was my a-ha moment, and it really helped me turn a corner in truly appreciating my body and all that it does for me.

Do I think that the people who use phrases and words like “battle the bulge” or “fight flab” are deliberately trying to be mean? Not at all. They want to motivate their audience and give you the power to change your health and your life. I am all for motivating everyone to make the healthiest decisions possible, but I am also for being kind to our bodies. How much better and easier would getting healthier be if we all loved ourselves just a little bit more? Instead of fighting our bodies, let’s work with them and listen to what they need to live healthier. When you really start to think about all the things you ask your body to do day in and day out, it’s amazing. As cheesy or silly as it may seem, I’m going to ask you to talk to your body just a little bit nicer than normal. Thank your body for carrying you through this life and give yourself props for making choices and taking steps to be healthier each and every day. That little extra kindness can stretch a long way and give you the tools to see how truly awesome you really are!

Fear

February 3, 2014 / ktbuchs87

On my new Jillian Michaels yoga DVD, she gives a little pep talk at the end of the work out while you’re lying there in a pool of your own sweat. She is pretty much just motivating you and telling you that you can do this. Most of the time I am not really listening, I know I can do it, I just finished the workout didn’t I? There is one thing she says though that always catches my attention. She says, “I never expect you to be fearless, but I do expect you to live without regret as much as possible.”

The first part of that line got me thinking about fear. I’m of two minds on this one. On one hand, I totally agree with Jillian. It isn’t realistic to never have any fear. In fact, sometimes fear is a good thing. It can motivate you or keep you safe. On the other hand, we know that fear can be debilitating. It can keep us from being great and doing amazing things. It can also keep us from being healthy.

When it comes to health, the good side of fear can be motivation. Maybe you are afraid of disease or illness that can come with bad health, so your fear motivates you to fight that outcome. But the fear of bad health can be a double-edged sword and can even cause you to be unhealthy despite your best efforts. This is the kind of fear I want to talk about today because it is the kind of fear I have.

I am scared that everything I have worked so hard to accomplish health wise will somehow go away. I know that this is an unrealistic fear because I won’t just suddenly gain all of my weight back overnight. I know that barring an injury, I won’t be able to run 10 miles anymore or be unable to do a forearm stand. Those things typically just don’t go away instantly, but I have this fear nagging in the back of my mind that they will. This fear doesn’t motivate me to do my best like it used to, but rather feels like it is keeping me back from being truly great. I tend to over analyze decisions when it comes to my health, because what if this one choice will be the undoing to my good health? That is no way to live a healthy or happy life.

I don’t expect all of you to totally understand this fear, but I know that for some of you this is an all too real scenario. You live in this constant fear of being your former unhealthy self. It doesn’t seem that long ago that you were eating cheetos on the couch instead of doing a new challenging workout or making a delicious healthy meal. What if that former self starts clawing it’s way back into your life? What if you can’t fight it this time? Will you always have to struggle? Will it always have to feel this hard?

No, you won’t always have to struggle. I have decided that I won’t let this fear rule my life or choices any longer. I am going to start trusting myself. I have maintained a healthy lifestyle for over three years now. I have made such amazing strides in my physical abilities. I have done things that I never thought I would do. I have made goals that I will never be able to reach if I keep living in fear of failing and going back to my former self. You can make that decision too. Fear does not have to rule your life or make you miserable. Whether you are just starting out on your healthy journey, in the middle, or have been at this for a long time don’t let your fear sideline you. Believe in yourself and your abilities. I know that you can do this and I bet that deep down inside you know it too. Like Jillian says, I don’t expect you to be fearless. It’s ok to have a little fear, but don’t let that fear consume you. Instead take control of that fear and show it that you mean business and you can overcome what ever may come your way.