This time of year we’re all thinking a little bit more about our health and maybe even coming up with some healthy resolutions to start the new year.
We all know pretty much what we need to do: eat more fruits and vegetables, get more exercise, less stress and more sleep. But actually doing those things on a daily basis isn’t so easy for a lot of us.
Doctor’s orders: Stop worrying
Dr. Susan Love, one of the country’s most respected women’s health doctors, says it’s OK if we don’t follow all the healthy rules all the time. In her new book, Live a Little! Breaking the Rules Won’t Break Your Health, she argues that there’s no such thing as perfect health, no matter how hard we try.
She also says that most of us are probably healthier than we realize, so we shouldn’t be stressing about trying to follow every health and fitness rule we hear to a T.
The whole point of being healthy, she argues, is to live as long as possible with a good quality of life, since no one has yet figured out how to live forever. And there are a lot of variations on diet, exercise and lifestyle that fall within the range of “healthy,” she says, with the real problems happening at the extremes, such as with people who never get any physical activity or only eat processed foods.
For instance, we’ve long been told that people need to get eight hours of sleep a night, but in reality some people can function just fine — and don’t seem to be negatively affecting their health — by sleeping more or less.
And while we might not all be hitting the gym for our 30 to 60 minutes of movement a day, we are often lugging kids or groceries around or doing household chores, and that movement counts (I can attest to that; carrying my 14-pound baby around has brought definition to my biceps I haven’t seen since before I was pregnant).
Don’t use this as an excuse not to do better
While it’s true that people can be healthy at a range of different sizes, some health experts argue that this message to not worry so much about your health will be translated as a reason not to worry at all. People might misinterpret it as saying you don’t have to try at all to eat healthier or exercise more, but being completely sedentary and consistently eating bad foods still sets you up for future health problems.
Others say the message is a good one because it makes the whole idea of health and fitness a little less overwhelming; once people understand they don’t have to be “perfect” they’ll be able to get started doing anything at all, which can only be a good thing.
(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
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