Spring Cleaning

This weekend my boyfriend and I took on the glorious task of spring cleaning. We rearranged furniture, picked through overcrowded file cabinets, and dusted behind our dresser. We even bought a miniature vacuum cleaner, for those hard to reach areas; I love it. I also love the way our home looks now. It’s not insanely different, I mean we didn’t buy any new furniture, we just moved the old stuff. The same art is on the walls, it’s just placed differently. It feels as if there is so much more space and yet the things we tossed out weren’t that big. We have been recently talking about moving into a new apartment but now we both feel pretty comfortable right where we are.

It’s so interesting that a good scrub and a little rearranging have given us an entirely new outlook on our living situation. I think that the same rules can be applied to our health and our ideas of health.

There are so many “health tips” that could use a good spring-cleaning.

Make a list of all the things you think about your health, fitness, body, mind, and soul. Now make a list of the same things, but rearrange them. Make them more suited to how you feel, not how you think.

Here is a mini list to get you started. Borrow some of these if you like, throw out the others and add a few of your own.

• Exercise three times a week for 30 minutes
• Drink 8 glasses of water
• Pasta is fattening
• Cover your mouth with your hand when you cough
• Fat is bad
• Three sets of 15 reps, always
• Just relax
• Salad is the healthiest option
• No pain, no gain
• Yoga is for flexible girls
• BMI is a valuable number for assessing healthy weight

My reorganized list:

• Move every day
• Drink water
• Pasta rocks once in awhile
• Cough into the crook of your elbow
• Avocados and olive oil and almonds rock!
• Three sets of 15 sometimes and other times, something else. Maybe 5 sets of 5?
• Just breathe
• Salad is one healthy option
• No pain, no pain
• Yoga is for everyone
• BMI is an archaic assessment tool that only makes people feel bad

Wow, it’s amazing how much better I feel about my health when I look at the second list. How easy it will be to drink water and move. I might even have pasta this week and next time I feel obligated to order salad, I think I will get the lamb. Who knows?

The whole point is that we have ideas in our heads (just like I have furniture in my house) about our health. We make decisions about what’s good for us and what we have to do to be healthy. But if we aren’t doing or enjoying those healthy decisions than they are just like too much dusty furniture. This week I would like you to take a look at the clutter in your mind and see if it would help you to do some spring-cleaning. Dust off your musts, shoulds and have tos, because a fresh outlook on an existing health regime makes all the difference in the world.

Be Good to your Body, it’s where you Live