Self Reliance - Health Management

I have been taking a personal finance class with my husband for the last several weeks.  There are four couples, and two individuals taking the class together, we have really become quite close and it is a lot of fun. I look forward to my Wednesday nights because it is so much fun. I have learned a lot and think that the principles we have learned will really make our financial situation lots better. The class is very spiritually based. The course focuses a lot on how all temporal things actually have a spiritual side too, there is nothing solely  temporal.  It takes faith to keep your finances in order, and you will be bless spiritually as you learn to keep your finances in order. I love how we need to keep the Lord involved in every aspect of our lives, including how and where we spend our money.  We started this finance class thinking we were going to strengthen our finances and instead we have strengthened our marriage, and our relationship with God, made new friends, oh and also improved our financial situation. One big aspect of the class is having an action partner. This is someone  who is not your spouse that you just check in with a couple times a week to see how you are doing.  There is no exchange of financial information,  just in general how they are doing,  how they are doing on the challenges and goals of the week, if they are struggling with anything, etc. I thought it would be uncomfortable discussing such information, but really it hasn't been bad at all; in fact, I have discovered it is very helpful having someone check in on me, remind me of common goals, and someone I can discuss my struggles with and be excited about our triumphs. It has been helpful to share what we have learned, and share tips or ideas we have discovered.  A couple of times during the class we have discussed how similar Finances/budgeting is to health/weight management. I commented last week I wish that they would create a course just like it for health and weight management.  I realize that this might be difficult because they could put themselves in a very precarious situation if someone had some weird health condition, so no one should start any health program without first consulting their physician.  But I figure that I can create my own program if you want to follow along with me that would be lovely.

Like I mentioned finances and health management are very similar so many of these concepts will come from the personal finance book.  It can be obtained on line here.

Marion G Romeny states "without self-reliance one cannot exercise these innate desires to serve. How can we give if there nothing there? Food for the hungry cannot come from empty shelves Money to assist the needy cannot come from an empty purse. Support and understanding cannot come from the emotional starved. Teaching cannot come from the unlearned. and most important of all, spiritually weak"

I think it is important to maintain good health, because if you are always out of energy, ill, or to unfit to do things you will miss out on opportunities to spend time with your family, miss out on opportunities to serve others, and miss out on opportunities to enjoy God's many bounteous blessings.  I think it is important to find the reasons that motivate you to maintain your health. Take a minute to think about the reasons that you want to be healthy. My biggest motivating reason to be healthy is I don't want to hold back my kids.  I want to be able to climb mountains with them, run with them as they play games, jump on the trampoline with them, and teach them to ride their bikes. I like spending time with my children in the out doors.  If I don't maintain my health I will not be able to do these things.

Also part of this is realizing what good health is.  So often we equate weight to health and that is not the case. We need to get away from thinking about weight when we think of health.  There are plenty of people who are very skinny that are not healthy, and there are plenty of people who are not skinny but that are actually healthy.  There a people who can work and work and work and despite the fact that they feel loads better they haven't lost weight and they get discouraged because they are still "over weight."  Improving your health habits can decrease your blood pressure, and your cholesterol, and your insulin resistance all without losing weight.

Health looks like decrease stress, increased ability to handle stress, more stable mood, ability to handle anger, being mindful of how your mind, body and spirit interact. Health is decreasing your risk for disease. Health is having a positive body image.  health is not being skinny, having huge muscles, looking beautiful all the time, being unsatisfied with the way you look.

Take a minute to figure out what health really is to you. Write it on a piece of paper and put it some place where you can see it daily. Also write on the piece of paper a positive affirmation about yourself. Such as, "I am a Child of God, who loves me"  "God made me and I am beautiful" or "With God I can accomplish all things"

Starting today start recording everything you eat.  the purpose of this is not to make you feel guilty for what you consume just to make it so in a couple of weeks you can make educated decisions, and be very aware.  Also if you can keep track of your movement, and sleep.  many phones can do these things without a health tracker. or you can get some inexpensive health trackers such as the LetsFit, Yamay, or the LETSCOM, all with as good of ratings as the fitbit and half the price.  Also you can download apps like MyFitnessPal.  that help you track your food and your activity.  you don't have to try and change anything right now.  Just gain knowledge.  Knowledge is power.  or you can just record it all on a piece of paper.  What ever works bet for you.

As  a recap so for this week,
1. Take a minute to decide why you want to be health
2.  Decide what health looks like to you
3. write down what a healthy you is
4. Write down a positive affirmation
5. Place both statements some place where you will see them daily
6. Record your food intake and your movement out put.
7. Find an Action Partner