This week’s podcast is actually inspired by the Listen To Your Body Challenge that I hosted two weeks ago. This was a conversation that I felt like came up multiple times throughout the challenge.

The definition of eating healthy matters when you’re looking at making changes to your nutrition for a number of reasons.

Today on the Be Your Best Self Health Chats podcast we’re going to talk about all of those reasons as well as help you change your definition of what it means to eat healthy.

Healthy Eating Is Not Black And White

The internet tends to give us this idea that healthy eating is only whole foods, salads, fruits & vegetables.

Eating healthy isn’t that black and white. It’s different for every single person and that’s because we are built to be an individual. What is healthy for my body might not be healthy for your body.

For example, you might be able to eat dairy and gluten with no problem but the person sitting next to you might have a gluten allergy and be sensitive to dairy. For you, gluten and dairy are not unhealthy but for them, it could be deadly.

Healthy is more than a salad, it’s how your body handles food. Yes, fruits and vegetables DO matter and it’s important to continue to get them in your life. There are other foods that are healthy that are not fruit or a vegetable, such as grains, beans, etc.

Mindset Matters For Healthy Eating

How we define healthy eating matters for our mindset.

Think about it, maybe one night you are running around like crazy, didn’t have time to cook, and quickly ordered Chinese Takeout. All of a sudden you feel miserable and are saying “I didn’t eat healthy today”

What if the rest of the day was great when it came to fueling your body, that one bad meal can send you into a spiral.

It’s one meal out of 21 meals you eat in the week and it’s not necessarily going to make or break your body’s nutrition by eating differently at one meal.

A lot of people will look at that as “I’m screwed, I screwed up one meal, I didn’t eat healthy that one meal.” The reality is that one meal isn’t going to matter in the grand scheme of things.

Eating healthy means finding a true balance of nutrition that your body needs. Instead of the “I’m screwed” mentality, look at the meal as “welp, that was not a great way to fuel my body, I now know to plan better next week,” to start to build that balance.

How you define healthy eating matters, it matters to the success of your long-term nutrition.

This week as you are looking at your meals and take a step back and look at how you’re feeling your body.

• Are you feeling your body with food that makes it have energy?
• Is it keeping your anxiety levels down?
• Is it maybe losing weight still even with these “unhealthy meals”
• Whatever your goals are, are you feeling your body to reach your goals?

Then yes, you’re eating healthy.

Are you not feeling your body to reach your goals? Are you eating all foods that make you feel gross, disgusting, causing anxiety, bloating, etc? Then you’re eating unhealthy.

Your definition matters.

I’m curious, what’s your definition of healthy? Go ahead and throw it below in the comments below.