How to live a sustainable healthy lifestyle

I’m not going to tell you in this post to restrict your food, go on a diet, eat as little as possible and go to the gym 2x a day. I’m going to tell you everything you can do to live a SUSTAINABLE healthy lifestyle, that is easily maintainable and will benefit your life in the long run.

I am not here for diets, long term restricting or torturing yourself through intense workouts twice a day. If that doesn’t sound appealing to you either, but you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then keep reading.

The three categories:

• External (fitness)
• Internal (nutrition)
• Mental

To make this as easy as possible to understand, I have split the healthy lifestyle into three categories.

I don’t think that living a healthy lifestyle is complete without all 3 of these categories.

1. Fitness

I have been through many fitness phases, such as doing high intensity interval training (hiit) everyday, weight lifting 6x a week, Pilates and walking, and I can honestly tell you, that the best thing (for me) has been combining them all.

Depending on the week, I workout 3-5x per week (not including little daily walks).

Cycle syncing has been a game changer.

As soon as I learned to workout aligned with my cycle, I immediately felt the benefits and relief of pressure.

Working out with your cycle just means that you understand that some weeks, you will have lower energy and some weeks you will have higher energy. So matching your workouts to how your body is feeling will give you the ultimate benefits.

It’s basically just listening to your body and being kind to yourself.

Benefits of cycle syncing:

• Better mental and physical health
• Balanced hormones
• Increases productivity
• More energy
• You avoid burnout

So how do I cycle sync my workouts?

Menstrual phase:

During your menstrual phase, your body will be really tired and run down. Often you will have cramps and just feel overall meh.

That’s why during this time, you need to be extra kind and gentle with yourself. Treat your body like it’s recovering!

The best exercises to do:

• Stretching
• Walking
• Yoga (yin yoga is nice and gentle)
• Gentle pilates
• Rest (that’s what I will be doing the first day of my period for sure!)

Sometimes you may not feel up to doing any exercise on your period and that’s okay! But towards the middle / end of your period when you aren’t in as much pain, doing gentle exercise will really help.

Exercising on your period can reduce bloating, and ease period cramps. It also releases endorphins which will better your mood!

Follicular phase:

Your energy levels will begin to rise, (woohoo!) so your body will benefit for cardio based workouts to get your heart pumping!

You can incorporate really fun and upbeat workouts!

The best exercises to do:

• Boxing
• Yoga sculpt
• Cardio Pilates
• Dance classes
• Spinning
• Running
• Hiking
• Weight lifting (this is a good time to focus on hypertrophy)
• Fun, upbeat classes on YouTube (https://youtube.com/@POPSUGARFitness)

Of course you don’t have to do a cardio based workout everyday (I just don’t have the energy or the mental strength for that lol), but you can include more cardio based workouts into your week!

Ovulatory phase:

You are at your peek energy right now! This is such a good time to use all of that energy and fuel it into your workouts!

The best exercises to do:

• Hiit
• Circuit / interval training
• Boxing
• Power vinyasa
• Spin classes
• Weight lifting (see how heavy and how many reps you can do!)

P.s I just wanted to mention, although you may be in your Ovulatory phase, said to have such high energy… sometimes you just don’t. I am meant to be in this phase now, and because uni and work are draining me so much, I feel like I’m using all of my energy for that. So it’s okay if you don’t have the energy to do these intense workouts, because sometimes you’re using that energy to get through the day!

Luteal phase:

This is the longest phase (and the phase where you want to eat everything in sight, but we’ll talk about that later).

During the first week of the Luteal phase, you may still have high energy, and may want to continue with your intense workouts, but I would lower the intensity slightly (especially for the second week of the Luteal phase)!

The best exercises to do:

• Strength training (slow and controlled movements)
• Pilates
• Resistance training
• Barre
• Vinyasa yoga
• Walking

You may start to feel cramps nearing the end of your Luteal phase, and your energy will start to dip. So just listen to your body, and be kind to yourself!

Disclaimer, any movement is good movement

I am by no means saying that you NEED to do these certain exercises ONLY at certain phases. We are not here for stressing about what you can and can’t do! Just be mindful of your body’s energy and how you’re feeling! <3

For example, I LOVE Pilates and strength training, so I tailor my workouts and how many strength training sessions I do per week, based on my energy levels!

To make exercising consistent and sustainable, you pick a workout you love. It’s pointless doing workouts that you hate, because eventually you are going to reach a point where you absolutely hate fitness, and where you’re just burnt out!

If you only feel like walking, that’s absolutely fine! When I’m not in a rush, I try to take the longer route or the scenic route when walking.

We’re building a healthy lifestyle here. Yes sticking to a tailored workout plan is amazing, especially for people who have certain goals. But if your goal is just to have a healthy lifestyle, then any movement is good movement!

2. Nutrition

I am an anti diet, intuitive eating Stan. I have a whole post on why I intuitive eat (and why I think you should too, if you’d like to have a bit more information on why I do it 🙂 http://bigsisterera.com/heres-the-top-reasons-you-should-be-intuitive-eating/)

To have a healthy sustainable lifestyle, I make sure I keep these things in mind everyday, when eating:

• Is my meal balanced? (Do I have protein, carbs, and fats) This will keep you fuller for longer.
  • Carbs are your main source of energy and something, protein helps to build tissue and repair muscle and fats help with blood sugar control and reducing inflammation.
• What phase am I in? (Some phases I am ravenous, and some days I am not as hungry – so I always stay mindful)
• Am I full and satisfied, or do I feel like I need more? (I try not to eat past fullness because I don’t want to be sitting feeling uncomfortable – and I feel like it’s a waste of food)
• What am I craving? (I always honour my cravings, life is too short to restrict)

P.s. I know there is a lot of pressure to have the perfect body. I know that on social media you see the best angles. There may be pressure to eat clean and never eat sugar or carbs.

I felt so pressured by this too. Until it reached a point where I was like… okay I don’t have my ‘dream’ body like the girls on instagram, I’m restricting all of my food, and for what? I’m miserable doing this, I’m not enjoying my life restricting and tracking everything.

So I slowly changed my habits and mindset towards food, and I gained a healthy (in my eyes more healthy than any clean diet) relationship with food.

Some snack inspo:

3. Mental

I don’t believe that you can truly live a healthy lifestyle without being healthy mentally.

Constantly fearing foods, working out as punishment or so I could eat something ‘bad’, not being able to go 2 days without working out for fear of gaining weight… that is not healthy.

I have learnt a lot about myself over the past few years, and I have learnt how to really take care of myself, prioritise my mental health, and ALWAYS be kind to myself.

Obviously there are days where this is a struggle. But the difference is, when I find myself talking negatively about my appearance or life, I immediately tell myself to stop, and I try to say positive things about myself, or reasons why I don’t want this mindset anymore.

To get to that stage was tough, but I am going to give you my best tips to help you, because I believe that everyone should feel confident in their own skin. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel the way I have felt, but I know there are, especially young girls, who feel that way because of social media and diet culture.

Things that help better your mental health:

Journal

Whatever you’re struggling with, whether that’s food, body confidence, working out, write it down.

If you struggle with food, every time you eat, write down how that food made you feel, write down why it made you feel that way, write down if you enjoyed it, write down if it made you feel satisfied.

Overtime, you will understand the foods that make you feel good and the foods that don’t, no matter if they are labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods, disregard that.

If you struggle with body confidence, every time you find yourself talking negatively about yourself, write that down, write why you think that way, and then write down 3 positive things about your body (what you love about yourself, what your body has done for you).

Even if it takes a while for you to stop thinking negatively about yourself, you are still growing and bettering yourself when you think 3 positive things about yourself.

If you struggle with working out, try new workouts, write down every time you workout and what you did, and write how you felt during it. Keep in mind that every workout is going to be somewhat of a challenge, even walking on an incline is a challenge, but I know you will find one that you really enjoy.

If you struggle with feeling insecure when working out, literally just take a look around the gym, scan everyone there, no one is looking, everyone there is working on themselves, and if you yourself wouldn’t judge anyone in the gym, then they probably have that mindset too.

But going to the gym, especially by yourself, is very intimidating and understandably scary. It may take you a while to get there. You may never get there, you may love doing Pilates from home (that’s my fave).

It’s all about being kind to yourself and listening to your body.

Make time for you

This one is so important.

To live a healthy lifestyle, I believe that you have to put yourself first and enjoy your life.

Are you going to have a healthy mindset if you are constantly worrying about work or uni? No.

If you put yourself, and your happiness first, that means that you are filling your cup first, so that you can give that remaining energy into other things.

If you are constantly putting all of your energy into things that don’t fill your cup, then you are going to burnout and feel drained and miserable.

Prioritise your mental health

Make sure that you’re putting your mental health first.

Remember that no uni course or job is more important than your mental health.

What I do to help me prioritise my mental health:

• Self care
• Reading
• Scheduling time to relax
• Saying no to plans if it will cause me more anxiety
• Saying yes to plans when I really want to go
• Journaling
• Look for the joy in the little things
• Plan exciting things into your week (buying a smoothie, movie night, tv show, buy a sweet treat)
• Meditation / deep breathing (I have recently been doing the breathing box method, where you inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, and repeat. The focus on breathing makes my head so clear, because usually when I try to meditate I can’t focus)
• Exercising (yes there are physical benefits, but so many mental benefits too)
• Allowing myself to relax when I need it
• Cold showers (so many benefits)
• I try to focus on lowering my cortisol levels (stress levels), doing a lot of the things above
• I tell myself that whatever I’m worrying about now, won’t even be an issue in 1 years time, so don’t let it stress me out too much

Thank you for reading <3

I hope this post helps you live a healthier lifestyle, you are doing so well!!