Why a Healthy Weight Isn't a Superficial Topic

While many of the messages we see around us, place lots of importance on looking good, and this is often connected with size and weight, maintaining a healthy weight isn’t a superficial topic.  Our mobility is directly impacted by our body composition.  Allowing ourselves to look directly at the connections between reaching and maintaining a healthy weight, and what this means to us in terms of our ability to move through life joyfully, is a great motivator. This is especially true when we are faced with making healthy choices on stressful days.  Let’s look at these connections together…  When we are a healthy weight, we are much more likely to:

Play.   Play is such an important part of life, yet it almost always involves some type of movement.  Getting down on the floor with our children or grandchildren, going to a sporting event, hosting or going to a party; all activities that are part of play.  Play is not just good for our bodies; it is good for our minds and our hearts.  Play can make the pressures of a hard day slip away. 

Spend time outside. When we struggle to move, our time spent outside becomes limited. Fresh air, open skies, sunlight on our faces, or raindrops on our heads, the chance to go for an invigorating walk; all of these experiences, which enrich our lives, happen less and less over time when we avoid movement. More time spent outside allows us to breathe and expand the richness of our daily lives. 

Travel. Despite the invention of wheels on luggage, travel requires movement and sometimes lots of it. Bending, lifting, standing, sitting for extended periods, all are naturally part of travel. Excess weight doesn’t just hurt our knees and feet, it also can result in limited adventures. We live in an interesting world filled with beautiful places that just can’t be fully experienced without travel. 

Sleep well. When life is sedentary and our movement is limited, we often don’t sleep as well.  Physical activity improves our sleep quality and increases our sleep duration. Exercise, which reduces stress and tires us out, also bolsters our sleep.  

The more we consider these four simple areas of our life (and there are clearly many more), the more we can see that maintaining a healthy weight isn’t a superficial topic at all.  At Gilboe, we often talk about moving well to live well and these examples really do serve as wonderful motivators to take good care of our bodies. 

As you make choices in your daily lives, we encourage you to contemplate this sensitive topic and use it to motivate you just like it does us!  

Your Care Team @ David Gilboe & Associates

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