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The 5 Pillars of Health

When we are stressed out, exhausted, having difficulty losing weight or struggling with digestive and hormonal issues, our relationship with each of the Pillars of Health often suffer; we force ourselves into exercise we don't have the energy for, only to feel even more exhausted afterwards.

We follow the 'perfect diet' and try to willpower our way through hunger and cravings, only to crash and binge.

We try to motivate ourselves with berating thoughts not realizing that these thoughts are going to make us fail.

In order to feel healthy, happy and look good, we need to work with our bodies, not against them. We need to learn to listen to our body's signals and give it what it truly needs and we need to love ourselves as we are right now in order to change.

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Pillar 1: Movement

Firstly, I call this MOVEMENT because it does not need to be structured exercise or work-outs.

When we move our bodies we build our energy (a bit like a car battery) but when we work-out we give all of that energy to the movements we are performing, leaving ourselves just as tired and now with sore, achy muscles too.

Sometimes, this is great for the body and when we recover properly we build a stronger, leaner, more resilient body.

But other times, this just adds more stress to an already over-stressed system leaving us tired, achy, anxious and with a propensity to gain body fat.

Individualized movement practices mean we get to decide what form of movement our bodies need each day from a 'work-in' to a nature walk, to skill-based training, all the way up to HIIT.

Finding the right movement for our bodies, at the right time, can help us to build energy, peace of mind and better health and get the body we desire.

Pillar 2: Nutrition

Food is one of our main sources of energy and as most of us have heard, we are what we eat. I would actually take this a step further and suggest that we are what we eat, what we digest and absorb.

Our food has changed more in the last century than ever before in our history and that is having a big impact on the function, health and wellbeing of our bodies.

Many of us are trying to negate this by following what we deem to be a healthy diet but what is a healthy diet? On my last check, a google search of the term 'healthy diet' brought up 3,850,000,000 results. We have more information than ever on diet but we are more fatigued, more stressed and have more digestive and hormonal dysfunction, why? 

The answer to this is called Biochemical Individuality. What works for one person does not necessarily work for another. Healthy diets are individual to each of us, which is why the Healthy & Happy programs focus on finding the right nutrition for each person for a healthy, happy body.

We also focus on our relationship with food, emotional eating, stress eating and changing our behaviors to better support our bodies.

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Pillar 3: Rest

One of the most under-rated of the pillars of health, rest is essential for energy, fat loss, peace of mind, mental focus, emotional wellbeing and also plays a really big role in our ability to create new habits too.

Most of the health benefits that we associate with exercise don't take place during a workout but actually take place when we rest afterwards. Rest is essential for our hormonal and digestive health and recent research shows that our future brain health may also depend upon our ability to rest.

There are various forms of rest that are essential to our health, with the ultimate form of rest being good sleep and this is why every Healthy & Happy program contains a guide on optimizing sleep. In fact, we are quite proud of our success rate (approx 90%) in helping people to get better, deeper, more consistent sleep.

Pillar 4: Mindset

Our thoughts create our feelings, 

our feelings create our actions,

our actions create our habits

and our habits create our thoughts, feelings and actions all over again.

This is why no health and wellbeing program can be complete without looking at our mindset.

Trying to build new habits from a place of willpower doesn't give us long-term results.

For sustainable health and happiness, we get to examine why we choose into certain behaviours, why we sabotage our success and what alternative actions we can take to meet our needs and desires.

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Pillar 5: Self Love

Many women who come to our programs have spent years feeling as if they aren't enough - aren't slim enough, aren't calm enough, aren't productive enough, aren't successful enough, the list goes on.

Similarly to our mindset, how we feel about ourselves and our bodies makes all of the difference to our success. When we try to force ourselves to eat a certain way, to exercise more, to meditate, to sleep or whatever our goal is, we have already set ourselves up to fail. 

Unconscious beliefs that we aren't worthy of success is one of the most common reasons why we do well for a stint, then 'fall of the wagon' over and over again. After all, why would we take care of someone who we don't truly believe is worth it?

Re-wiring our thoughts and beliefs to make changes from a place of self-love is one of the most powerful gifts we can give to our bodies.

In fact, over the past decade of working with hundreds of women to improve their health, this is the one consistent difference I have seen between those that reach their goals and those that do not.

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