In episode 490 of The Whole View podcast, Stacy and Dr. Sarah discuss the merit of focusing on just one healthy habit during times of stress or when we’re feeling overwhelmed. They also share which healthy habit to prioritize whether just starting out or leveling up, and the merits of giving ourselves permission to simply focus on maintenance.
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Listener Question from Carrie
Hi Dr. Sarah and Stacy, I am sure you get this question all the time, and you may have already covered this, but I thought I would ask anyway. How do we make time for health these days? For those of us who are in the mist of figuring out this whole journey to health, these past two years feel like they have just been a huge derailment to any of the goals I wanted to achieve. When you are looking down a long list (food choices, sleep, exercise, supplements, and selfcare) knowing that you need all these things to come together, where or how do you even start? And stick with them! Just thinking about it causes me stress and I know that stress has an impact on our health as well. How do you set priorities and keep habits? What gives us the most bang for our efforts? I would be so grateful for any tips or advice you have. Thanks to you both I know the ‘whys’ I just really need a simple ‘how’ to start with. Thank you! – Carrie
Key Takeaways
- Dr. Sarah and Stacy love this question because it’s a great follow-up to last week’s episode, where we discussed how we focus on health independent of weight! When life gets crazy and a broad approach to health seems overwhelming, it’s okay to focus on just one thing!
- Diet culture has trained us to expect fast results when we make changes to diet and lifestyle. Dr. Sarah and Stacy encourage you to instead think about healthy habits that support lifelong health.
- When choosing one thing to work on, you can think of it as a lynchpin (a diet or lifestyle choice that holds everything together, like how getting enough sleep regulates appetite and reduces cravings so it’s easier to maintain healthy eating habits), a domino effect (a diet or lifestyle choice that spills into other things we do in a good way, like how eating breakfast helps us make better choices at our other meals along with improving insulin resistance and regulating the stress response), or can be a single next step in a healing journey (like working on eating more veggies).
- Dr. Sarah and Stacy recommend selecting one of five different priorities if you’re fairly new to healthy diet and lifestyle changes: cooking meals at home, eating more veggies (it’s okay to start small and work up!), thinking about meals you already like that fit the bill and making more of your meals look like that, eliminations (important if you’re starting with chronic health problems that could be linked to food compounds such as gluten), and sleep!
- Sleep is the single best first step if you’ve ever struggled to make healthy changes in the past. Not only is sleep super important for health, but healthy eating and other lifestyle priorities are all easier when we consistently get enough sleep.
- Dr Sarah and Stacy briefly discuss priorities that qualify as levelling up. They encourage you to think about adding rather than subtracting, when it comes to diet. And, Dr. Sarah and Stacy encourage you to work with your doctor to help set priorities for diet and lifestyle.
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Recommended Reading and Listening
- TWV Podcast Episode 489: New Year’s Resolutions and Healthy Weight
- Can You Really Be Healthy at Any Size?
- Ditching Diet Dogma
- Habit Formation and New Years Resolutions
- TWV Podcast Episode 421: The Science Behind Body Image
- TWV Podcast Episode 471: The Harm of Weight Discrimination and Stigma – Part 1
- TWV Podcast Episode 472: The Harm of Weight Discrimination and Stigma – Part 2
- TWV Podcast Episode 436: What Is Health, and How Do You Measure It?
- TWV Podcast Episode 466: Our Stories on the Healing Power of Food and Ditching Diet Culture
- TPV Podcast Episode 353: Beach Body Yo-Yo
- TPV Podcast Episode 385: New Year’s Resolutions
The post TWV Podcast Episode 490: Setting Priorities and Creating Habits During Stressful Times appeared first on The Paleo Mom.