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How to Slow Down for Wellness

by Mary Gannon Kaufmann
Women walking on a trail

Have you ever felt frustrated with yourself when it comes to maintaining a healthy routine with your eating and lifestyle? You wonder why don’t I just eat what I know is healthy more often or stop myself when I’m over or under eating or sitting idle on the sofa? Human beings are complicated! You are dynamic! If you take a moment to consider, many aspects of life hit you on the inside: your job, your experiences growing up, how others are treating you, what you do for fun, your finances, anything you’ve lost and may be grieving. We each react uniquely to having feelings, needs, hopes and a drive for meaning/purpose which is all something more than we bargained for sometimes.

What you eat and how you care for yourself can be hampered when you are unaware of the whole picture of yourself and situation. Food can be entangled in an unreflected life. 

Taking a “run through” of yourself or pausing for some moments of reflection before you try to adjust your lifestyle by meeting with a Registered Dietitian can help set the stage for success and growth.  In fact, working in some daily moments of reprieve can be really helpful to managing your life, reducing stress and achieving your goals. You want to bring your whole self to the lifestyle session with a dietitian so you can bring to the surface new energy to motivate yourself to cultivate health. You are simply not a person with simple compartments, one your health, another your feelings, another your job and commitments but a working whole, something you don’t always come to if you rush into things. You are more than what you do!

Dietitians are trained to listen, to assist you to figure out what motivates you in making changes and caring for your own human body and life essence. Dietitians offer holistic care that helps you achieve wellness with your healthy habits. They want to get to know you personally so in your daily life you can cultivate flexible routines to care for your whole self and cultivate a quality of life that helps you appreciate your body and the process of nourishing it. You get to set the tempo for this.

When you prepare yourself for the day, and for your session with your Registered Dietitian ask yourself 4 simple questions. These are designed to bring your whole self into this moment of living!

  • What am I feeling right now about my day? What am I needing or hoping for today?
  • What is significant to me today? Am I feeling down or grieving something or distressed about something, even something small?
  • What matters to me today and how am I going to be intentional to address this? 
  • What might get in the way of this? What do I need to let go of or consider later or with someone else’s help?

This kind of reflection isn’t selfish or a waste of time even though some of the questions may seem repetitive or a lot to consider prior to starting the day. Most of us, however, learn that how we care for ourselves really impacts how we care for others. Dietitians will encourage you be kind to yourself, to take change in chunks and as a process motivated by energies from within you.  When you stop and consider the day, you often liberate something greater than yourself that will move you over the hump of your difficulties. You can then follow through with your goals that you set with the dietitian and live more fully aware of the moment. Dietitians can be key! Wellness creates movement forward to a well lived life and fulfillment beyond what you often consider!

Mary Gannon Kaufman is a registered dietitian located in Elizabeth, Colorado. She provides nutrition counselling on diabetes, allergies and intolerances, digestive health, heart health, kidney disease, mental health, weight loss. Mary can be found at https://healthyrisenutrition.com/ for further information.

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Images: From Unsplash and Pexels

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