I’m not even going to pretend to know how to maintain good health, but I can tell you what I do.
I’m 72 years young and in those years I’ve been a nice slim thing with no need for diets or ways to maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle. It changed when I went to college at the age of 39 and my Psych instructor said, “If you’re going to sit in a classroom all day and drink Mountain Dew, you will gain weight.” My first thought was, ‘Now you tell me.’ I had gained a lot of weight and was an unhealthy 200 pounds. I didn’t drink Mountain Dew, but I did eat off the hot bar in the cafeteria. In nine months I gained an unsightly amount of weight. Weight I’ve been trying to get rid of since.
So, the question is “How do I maintain my health and well-being?” I weighed a gross 255 when I finally changed things up and started eating right. For a full year, I was on the Whole30 plan. I didn’t cheat, not once. No sweets passed these lips and I lost a total of 80 pounds and got my knees replaced. It was time. That was in 2020. In 2021 I moved and had also changed my diet plan. I went from Whole30 in 2016 to Paleo in 2017 and continued to lose weight. When I moved in 2021, I made a few concessions, I shouldn’t have and gained weight, 50 pounds. I was over 200 again and the doctor didn’t help. He told me to go on a fad diet plan – Mediterranean, and gained 10 pounds. Not the right diet for me. I changed to the Blood Type diet plan and started losing weight again. I’m usually under 200 but I just had a birthday, so I’m a little over.
I maintain a healthy lifestyle by eating sensibly for my blood type, and exercise. I walk every day. One of these days I’ll get back to the pool and then the weight will really come off.
The other half of that question deals with my well-being. The body is made up of three equal parts: Body, mind, and spirit. I’ve related how I go about a healthy lifestyle. The second part is the mind.
A healthy mind goes a long way with how you see yourself. They say what you feed your mind reflects on your attitude. Garbage in, garbage out. So, you need to feed your mind with a positive attitude. When I look at my life, I don’t see my life as a glass half empty. I see it as a glass half full. I don’t see the world as partly cloudy. I see it as partly sunny or entirely sunny. I try to inject a good word and smile in everything I do and say to others. When I do, I feed my mind with positive energy that makes people happy and smile when they see me. It also garners me lots of hugs, my favorite thing in the world. The recommended daily requirement on hugs is five a day. So, the more hugs I get the better. I fill up on hugs on Sunday. I don’t generally get hugs where I live, except from one or two people. I got two hugs today. I’m doing good.
The third part of the equation is the spirit. There’s only one way to feed my spirit and keep it healthy and that is to spend time daily with God. The first thing I do every day is Bible study. When I finish, I send it to an e-mail group who asked for it, and I post it here. I know I get a lot out of the Bible study because I do not rely on my understanding about God and Scripture, I rely on and give credit to the Holy Spirit who lives in me to direct me in the study. There are times when I think to myself that I really missed the mark and it wasn’t the Holy Spirit but me who did the study, and then I get an e-mail or someone tells me how that particular study really said something to them, blessed them in some way, or brought tears to their eyes. Then I know, it wasn’t me, it was God and it makes me feel good all over because God directed the study and the words of the study.
We are three parts: Body, Mind, and Spirit. When we feed each part and take care of each part, we will maintain a good healthy lifestyle.
How do you maintain your health and well-being? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading. The image belongs to me.
valerie writes 
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