Listen Here
By Julianna Koballa
@UFPulseKoballa
With spring break now just a memory of posts on our Facebooks and Instagrams, the real health kick to get that summer bod is commencing. A lot of us, (females especially) went and took part in the quick fix to get rid of excess body weight for spring break and to look good in a bathing suit. What most of us don’t know is that by not eating and trying to live off the air diet, we are harming our bodies more than anything else. While significantly watching what we eat, or by not eating at all, will have the scale reading lower, the scale will eventually read higher in a matter of days. A lot of individuals don’t know that when we do return to our normal diets after these “crash” periods, our weight increases twice as much than if we just would have eaten the Twinkie without prior crash dieting.
I personally don’t think dieting of any sort ever works. It hasn’t worked for me at least. When we diet, we are ridding ourselves of little pleasures and that isn’t healthy for us emotionally and even physically. How can an individual who believes in a healthy mind, body and spirit not give into a little indulgence every once in a while?
While watching my friends eat baby food for two weeks before spring break, refrain from alcohol consumption to avoid bloat, and consume numerous meal replacement shakes, I was reminded of how I was feeling at the beginning of this semester.
Now we all know good things have to come in moderation. Since Christmas break, I have been working out just about three times a week to prepare for the Cleveland Half Marathon in May. I run a couple to a few miles0, usually do core work and sometimes lift a little bit. I’m in the FRC for no more than an hour. I have never felt better. When I first started training I tried to also start a strict diet and eating schedule. That worked for only a couple weeks. I kept giving into the late night ice cream or the milkshake. But like I said, I made sure it was in moderation.
When I couldn’t stick to the strict eating regiment I thought I was on, I stopped stressing about what specific kinds of food I was or wasn’t eating. It was at this time that I stopped worrying about what I was putting into my body that I actually refrained from processed, fattening foods the most. My lifestyle finally started to change when I wasn’t putting so much stress on the lifestyle I was trying to live in the first place. It was because I was letting myself have occasional sweets that I finally was happy with how my body was changing and how I was feeling. I think it is when we restrict ourselves so much that we are doing more harm than good to our emotional and physical states.
When we focus on other things besides just our body image, it is then that our body image may change. When so much emphasis is put onto body image we feel a need to look a certain way. The truth is we are all made differently. Different bone structures and different heights are all around us. We can’t have unrealistic image goals because it is then that we will be more hurt because results will never occur.
The bottom line is this. You are beautiful. When you are happy with your body, and you stop putting so much emphasis on how you physically look, your true beauty comes out. If we believe in the healthy mind and body, and I mean truly believe in a healthy mind and body, then we will have just those things. You will eventually change your lifestyle to match those beliefs and then you will see a true change. Living a balanced, healthy lifestyle will in turn give you a healthy body.
