Valentine’s Day: Why It’s Important to Love Yourself First
•Posted on February 12 2018
The day of love is fast approaching and, as all the focus seems to be on making your other half happy or being showered with acts of affection, we think it’s time to turn the attention to ourselves, and ensure that, in a world that puts everything everyone does under the spotlight, we invest time in loving and being kind to ourselves – and we think you should, too.
Self-Love
Self-love is not an easy thing to get on board with, we admit. It is, however, imperative that you invest some time working on this – learning the value of self-acceptance and being kind to oneself will open the doorway to a happier and healthier life.
We’ve found that trying to be perfect usually ends up meaning we act – and feel – far from perfect. And in the world of trying to get the perfect week of workouts in and eating ‘clean’, it can be a bit of a rabbit hole to fall down, if you’re not putting yourself first.
Effective Workouts
Striking the right balance between working out to hit your goals and challenge yourself and working out to punish yourself may be hard to start with, but it’s really important that you invest time in staying on the right side of the line.
Make working out part of your lifestyle – ‘work out to live; don’t live to work out’ is a mantra that we live our lives by.
Hitting the gym hard is good – it really is – as long as you’re not sacrificing something to be living there.
As you know, working out releases endorphins that gives a post-workout high, so trying to harness that feeling will give you greater rewards than pounding the pavements every day just to try to look a certain way.
Living an active life is one way to beat the feeling of being chained to the gym, but if you’re still struggling to break free from a poor relationship with working out, you’ll need to invest some time into a mindset shift.
Learn to respect your body and appreciate the care it takes to fine-tune your muscles, mobility, strength and flexibility.
Eating Well
We’re sure you know the benefits of eating well by now, but if you find yourself being a little too restricted, then it’s time to invest in some self-love. Instead of restricting your energy sources, fuel your body for your workout with a plethora of nutrient-dense food.
Eating a poor diet, or not eating enough, will see you deplete your energy sources, which can impact your day-to-day mood and your get-up-and-go.
Ensure that you get a well-balanced diet of protein, carbohydrates and fats to keep your body moving as vibrantly as it should, to keep diseases at bay and to give yourself the energy levels you should have.
We’re big on treating yourself (in moderation), but we are dead set against restrictive eating to reduce body fat. Eat nutritiously and your body will soon be jumping for joy, which will definitely have a positive impact on the way you see yourself.
Rest and Rehabilitation
Take a step back in order to move forward. If you’re going to the gym five times a week and giving everything you’ve got in each session, perhaps try cutting it back to four sessions and spend the fifth working on deep stretches, yoga or Pilates, or perhaps just mindful meditation. As well as this switch, you should really be dedicating a session a week to stretching and mobility, to strengthen your body and help with structural balance and injury prevention.
Working on rehabilitation and mobility can help with posture, joint alignment, chronic pain in muscles and joints, and strengthening weaker, lesser-used muscles, so you’ll definitely get more out of a session like this in the long-term than you would by breaking your body in the gym.
For more information on working out and eating well, check out our blog – we regularly post practical content to help you get the most out of our active life.
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