Showing Yourself Some Love

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Trisha Eleyae, One of Thousands of Health and Fitness Coaches on Noomii.

Loving yourself is a major requirement for self-improvement. Most people will do everything humanly possible to make sure their family, friends, and loved ones are safe, healthy and comfortable. However, many fail to realize that in order to be there for others, good physical and mental health is needed. This means that in order for you to live long and be around for your loved ones, you have to take care of yourself and live a healthy life. Nobody wishes to be ill, but a lifestyle of high-risk behaviors can cause chronic illnesses such as heart and lung diseases, morbid obesity, and diabetes etc.

What are high-risk behaviors?
High-risk behaviors can be defined as a lifestyle or activities that could adversely affect your health. The four main health risk behaviors people indulge in are inadequate nutrition, lack of exercise or physical activity, tobacco use, and excessive consumption of alcohol. These risk behaviors lead to chronic and debilitating illnesses, pain, and early death.

According to the CDC, about 47% of US adults have at least one of the following major risk factors for heart disease or stroke: uncontrolled high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and poor nutrition (unhealthy eating). Cigarette smoking accounts for more than 480,000 deaths every year. Excessive alcohol drinking is responsible for 88,000 deaths every year.
A friend of mine always says, “your genes load the gun, but your lifestyle may pull the trigger”. This means that, it is often possible in many cases to avoid or delay the manifestation of diseases that exit in your genetic makeup by living a healthy life style.

The good news is that high-risk behaviors can be changed; you can regain control of your health, and reduce your risk for developing a chronic illness. How can this be achieved, you may ask.
-The first step is to be honest with yourself and understand the reasons why you need to change your risk behaviors.
-Consult your physician or healthcare provider before you make a major decision that concerns your health.
-Start with improving your self-love skills by putting yourself and your health first.
-Gradually incorporate physical activity/exercise and healthy eating into your daily routine.
-Endeavor to quit smoking and keep quitting until you succeed.
-Stop drinking alcohol

4 Tips for making health risk behavior/ Lifestyle change
Making health risk behavior changes can be challenging at first. Many people struggle to make these changes. As a matter of fact few people succeed in changing their health risk behavior the first time they try. So don’t give up.
Here are some tips that are guaranteed to make the process less challenging.
1, Believe in yourself and in your abilities: you are capable of achieving whatever you set your mind to.
2, Hire a health coach. They provide the education, guidance, and support needed. They are also great at helping people set and achieve their health goals.
3, Inform your friends and family members of your intentions, then seek and honor their support.
4, Every once in a while, pause and take a deep breath, give yourself a pat in the back and remind yourself that you can do this because you are amazing and unique.
Guess what, its not too late to started showing yourself some love. You can definitely start today.

To better health!
Trisha Eleyae, RN, MSN, CHC.