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By: CHARLIE
With spring break right around the corner, trying to find the balance between getting your body in shape while also being body positive can be tricky. Here’s a guide to how to have a happy and healthy body for spring break.
Set Your Intentions
Before starting this process, set your goals and intentions for wanting to improve your health. Whether it be short term like for spring break or long term like for summer.
Setting your intentions allows you a clearer path to properly focus on what you want to accomplish.
It also helps to provide accountability and allows you to take control of your personal choices and life.
Eat Healthy
When people hear the phrase “eat healthy,” they often think this means cutting out all your favorite sweets and treats. But that’s not the case. As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated, “Eating healthy means following a healthy eating pattern that includes a variety of nutritious foods and drinks. It also means getting the number of calories that’s right for you (not eating too much or too little).”
It is important to remember that the number of calories that each person’s body can sustain differs. What is beneficial for one person might not work for the next and that’s okay.
It can be easy to fall into the habit of calorie counting by using that as a way to determine how much your food intake. While this process works for some it can lead to obsessive behaviors that are not good for you.
Remembering to balance out the five major food groups and drinking plenty of water is what’s going to be key in getting your health on track. Instead of eating at McDonalds, you eat at Sweetgreen. Although there is a definite price difference, eating cleaner and unprocessed foods will help your digestive tract in the long run.
Exercise
Similarly to eating healthy, there are negative connotations surrounding exercising. Some people associate exercise with pushing your body to its absolute limit every day when that is not the case.
Exercise is what you make it. It doesn't have to be intense unless you want it to be.
You can partake in moderate activity, like going on a walk around the city; vigorous exercise, like going on a run; or muscle strengthening like lifting weights.
With all these forms of exercise, it’s important to be safe and have good technique. For those that are worried about not having enough knowledge on exercises, there are apps like Freeletics BodyWeight and Nike Training Club that assist you with workouts.
Buy That Outfit!
Whether it’s your dream shirt, pair of pants, dress, bathing — suit you name it! — and it’s within a reasonable price range for you, get it! This way you have something tangible to look forward to when you’re working toward your goals.
When the going gets tough and you don’t want to eat healthy anymore or go on that run, you can think of your dream outfit as a way to motivate you to keep going.
Clothing can be a confidence booster,so it can be a great way to support your mental health.
The outfit doesn’t even have to be new. It can also be an older piece of clothing that you love and know you look good in.
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