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I have always been into health and fitness. I started with cardio, running, burpees, and jump ropes.
I was doing all that because I wanted to stay skinny.
In time I started researching more about exercising and fitness, I was always tired and needed to be more motivated to do the things I would do. Due to my obsession with my body, I started exploring more about nutrition and how macronutrients affect the body. I began to build muscle thanks to my knowledge of macronutrients.
As I did before, I went head-deep into strength training, obsessing over my macronutrients, water, and sleep. The same thing happened over time; my energy levels went down, I couldn’t exercise, not motivated to, and I was also found it difficult to sleep.
And the cycle continued for years until I couldn’t continue any longer.
I was restless, and I had severe anxiety; I didn’t get the body I wanted, and I was not energetic as promised by the fitness Influencer I read from
The underlying problem I later discovered was that I was doing all that to control what my body looked like, completely ignoring what my body was going through. I was burnt out.
I became obsessed with achieving a specific look that I didn’t care what was healthy and what was harmful.
On the outside, it seems healthy. I exercised, ate healthy food, ate vegetables, and took my supplement.
I was ticking all the right boxes.
To the outside eye, I was living a very healthy life.
I was doing what every other person said was right for me, except for what my body was saying; my body disagreed with me.
And my body always showed signs when something didn’t feel right.
My body didn’t feel right the first time I burnt out from exercising, My body didn’t feel right again and again, and every other time I fell ill, stressed out, anxious, or emotional, I still would completely ignore it.
Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
Burnout is a state of psychological, emotional, mental, and even spiritual exhaustion from chronic involvement in your work.
I wasn’t listening to my body, and I wasn’t taking care of my body, but all that changed after I realized I was working too hard to keep a particular body size that wasn’t my ideal size.
I gave up setting weight goals and decided to listen to my body.
It took a lot of practice and patience because I was not used to not watching my weight and trying to lose weight
I was not used to doing simpler of exercising. It felt like I was wasting my time.
Or wasting time on simple exercises, I felt like I should be doing more challenging exercises.
And finally, it all compounded; I started to feel more at ease in my body; I could look at myself in the mirror and not point out everything wrong; I could sleep through the night.
Falling asleep was easier.
The most exciting part of it all was that I started to explore and enjoy moving my body; I discovered that exercising felt good to me and my body, my body responded to movements effortlessly,
I realized I had stopped trying to fix my body, and then my body healed
I never gain excess weight anymore.
It led me to do the things I loved and was best for it,
Self-care gave me all that. I approach my fitness and health from a self-care perspective, and I am the happiest and the healthiest I have ever been in my body.
Self Care Is So Important
Life can get stressful just doing the day-to-day activities like work, hanging out with family, cleaning, etc., just the basic life skills, and then when you include other external activities, all this can take a toll on your body and
If you are on a fitness journey, exercising some hours a week could increase the stress your body has to go through daily ( more on this in another Newsletter.
Or You might argue that self-care comes after you have achieved a particular result you are looking for; for example, maybe after you starve yourself to lose weight or use exercise as a tool to lose weight, then you can start to maintain, and you can take care of your body, this mindset can be damaging to your body and overall health.
Also, the attitude that has kept you in a stressful state for years, and your body is only deteriorating as the days go by if you don’t start taking care of it.
You don’t have to wait till you are burnt out to take care of your body.
Signs that you need to take care of yourself
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- You are consistently tired all the time – if you are tired all the time, no matter how much you try to rest, you can’t seem to get your energy levels to come up,
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- You are slipping into a depressive mood.
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- You are less productive.
The Cure To Body Anxiety: Always Exercise And Eat With Self Care In Mind
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- self-care to better understand your body and your mind
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- Self-care would help you constructively manage your emotions.
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- It helps with boosting [positive emotions and improves your view of life
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- Self-care helps your body stay healthy now and in the future.
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- Self-care enables you to understand how your social and natural environment affects your body and well-being.
Another Importance Of Self-Care
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- Self-care will make you more productive.
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- Self-care will help you feel less anxious.
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- Self-care will help you lose weight.
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- Self-care will help you fall in love with living.
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- Self-care will take you out of fixing a Mindset to a sustainability mindset.
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- Self-care will Increase resilience.
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- Self-care will Increase motivation to act.
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- Self-care will increase your ability to cope with stress.
The Real Virus That Is Keeping You From Getting To Your Fitness Goal (lack of self-care)
You might have repeated years of setting fitness goals, the number on the scale has gone down, you are leaner, and the before and after pictures are a given, only to be back where you started months later.
New years is when you start with a cleanse or a detox, ready to start the year with a new kind of energy, this year is the year it sticks,
Who knows, it could, but I can tell you one thing for free if you keep doing the same thing you have been doing, you will be back where you started.
Try a different method this time
Be kinder to yourself.
Take care of your body instead
Listen to it
Lack of self-care can lead to many outcomes on your fitness journey, weight gain and weight loss can be part of them, and the context they could happen to depend, but they come as the least.
When you don’t take care of your body over time, it breaks down and can cause a lot of this, and some are mentioned in the list below.
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- Anxiety and stress that comes from mindlessly living in the body
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- burnout as a result of lack of self-care
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- lack of sleep
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- You do not know what your body needs because you are not listening.
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- You can only take care of what you understand.
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- How you think about your body affects your stress levels.
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- fatigue
I will expand on this in another blog post,
Sit with these and see what is crucial right now.
I know a lot of social media accounts are promising to bring you back to shape, especially after the holidays; some might be promising a detox, others a program to get you back to shape, or something, but it scares you into signing up for the same things you have been doing all these years.
That’s fine when we act with what we know at every point in our lives,
there is no one approach to taking care of your body; it is figuring out what works best for you and not what the media says is correct, and trying to follow exactly what others say is right for you might be the reason you don’t practice self that and also our belief and mindset
Below are reasons you might neglect self-care
Reasons You Might Neglect Self-Care
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- You were raised in an environment where you have to work a lot to have the necessities of life (Survival mechanism);
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- you hear words like no pain,
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- no gain, sleep is for the weak, work hard play; these tend to play a significant role in how we approach our health; as stated above, you postpone self-care until you have made a certain amount of money or have to push yourself through a demanding project.
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- You do not have enough compassion for yourself; if you were raised in an environment where you have to take care of others first before you think about yourself, then it is likely to be that way, as the people to care for never runs out.
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- It is expensive
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- It is not important
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- You see self-care as a waste of time.
These are just a few other reasons why you might neglect self-care
what you can do for self care( how you can best take care of your self )
Ten Things To Do For Self-Care
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- Go on short works.
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- Practice deep breathing.
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- Sit still.
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- Practice exercising or movements that feel good (explore these).
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- Eating random and colorful vegetables.
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- Reading books you enjoy.
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- Wearing comfortable clothes.
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- Smelling good.
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- Journal.
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- Paying attention to what your constant thought around your body says.
The list above is the fundamental basis of self-care; start with one or two of the above.
They may not work for everyone, but what is most important is finding what works for you; it is essential to ask yourself what activities make you feel better and be your best self.
I like to go on a walk, especially at dawn or late at night when the world is quiet; I love meditative walks or walks that allow me to stay with my thoughts.
I also love to take hot cups of tea and try new tea; I am still looking for a favorite. I will let you know when I see one.
Not that I enjoy eating vegetables, but I have noticed they make me feel good; whenever I consistently reach for vegetables, I feel more relaxed, my mood is stable, my mind is more focused, my skin feels great, and so much more.
Lastly, I love a neat workspace, which makes me creative and relaxed enough to do good work.
While learning your daily routines, take a few minutes to sit down with yourself. Identify what calms you down as you get through your tasks.
You should notice how there are things that you do that make you feel comfortable without requiring much energy input from you.
It would be best if you repeated them as often as you could. It may seem like a lot of work when you start practicing but make sure you stick with it and enjoy the results.
Among the biggest lies in the fitness industry is the concept that self-care comes after you have become more assertive or lost weight, as opposed to the belief that self-care comes before any of the above can occur.
take care of your body, and your body will, in turn, take care of you.
One of my favorite things I like to do on my daily walks is Meditation. It’s fun to contract, expand your focus, and help visualise how your body is really doing.
Maybe I’ll create a true process, even a guided meditation, for this one day to solidify it even further.
This blog was fun to write.
I hope you enjoyed it — — which I would see as a good thing for breaking more people out of their surface-level existence.
Until next week,
Chisom Obidike.