Back to Basics: The 5 Pillars of Wellness

When it comes to better health and overall wellness, the steps needed to get there really aren’t that difficult. In fact, you could even say they’re simple.

There’s a tendency to overcomplicate what are essentially the basics of life. Excellent marketing, advertising and now social media, have led a lot of women to believe that in order to achieve the health and body we desire, we need to follow a restrictive “diet” or plan.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

At the core of a truly “well life” is the ability to implement good foundational lifestyle habits that actually set you up for the long run.

Just like a house, a solid foundation supports the structure and keeps it from crumbling to the ground. When the foundation cracks, trouble ensues and repairs become necessary. The cracks need to be plastered and filled to restore support but there’s always the chance of additional damage, especially without ongoing maintenance.

If you think of your health as the foundation of your body, it only makes sense to realize that ongoing maintenance through good habits like proper nutrition, regular movement, deep sleep and low stress levels will keep it strong, vital and holding you up.

Make it a practice to examine the quality of your foundational habits and there’s no shame in acknowledging when some upkeep is required. Understandably, we can all veer off track from time to time. Circumstances like illness, financial stress, peer pressure, or even lack of knowledge can get in the way of living the healthiest way you can.

Think back to your childhood. What was modeled to you? What practices were the norm? What kinds of foods did you eat? What thoughts did you inherit about your body? If you were never taught what good health and wellness looks like as a child, you had nothing to pattern and may be even less likely to have a full understanding of what it means to live in a healthy way.

And now, as you find yourself in midlife, it’s more important than ever to take the necessary steps to improve your overall health so you don’t miss out on life later on.

That’s why I’m going to take you back to basics and give you the framework of what I believe to be the roadmap to your better health and wellness and have you feel GREAT in the process.

My roadmap to wellness is guided by the 5 pillars that I believe to be the fundamentals of a healthy lifestyle.

By incorporating these pillars into your daily routine, you’ll have confidence that it has what it takes to live your healthiest life. These pillars take away the unknowns that can trip us up or cause us to fail. They allow us to become who we want to be and let us achieve what we set out to accomplish.

The Nutritious Wellness Philosophy

Mastering Your Mindset

Understanding your goals, and specifically why they are important to you, is often the key that opens the door to improved success in actually meeting them. By taking a realistic look at why it’s truly important to you to make change, you’ll produce the motivation you need to follow through with it. We can’t always control the stories we’ve heard about what makes for good health, nutrition and wellness but we can control the narrative we choose to believe.

Well Rested

Sleep is essential. When you’re well rested you make better food choices, have more energy to move your body and practice mindfulness. When you’re not well rested, your defenses are down and you’re more likely to overeat, make poor food choices and veg out in front of a screen instead of going for a walk. Physiologically, lack of sleep raises the hormone cortisol constantly putting you in a state of “fight or flight”. It has a domino effect that results in any other practice you take on becoming less effective.

Intuitive Eating

When you focus on listening to your body, understanding your hunger quotient, and creating an empowered relationship with food you’re less likely to be controlled by that internal dialogue of “Eat the cookie...no don’t eat the cookie”. When you start to notice how good you feel when you fuel your body with nutrient dense foods, you’ll continue to be motivated to eat those foods. And if you’re looking to lose weight, it’s a likely byproduct.

Healthy Hormones

There’s never a better time than midlife to achieve hormonal balance. Perimenopause and menopause can be very stressful times for many women but they don’t have to be. Yes, you can breeze through these stages if your hormones are in balance with little to no symptoms. Learning to read cues and signals from your body and feeding it well with healthy, whole foods is the first step to hormonal harmony.

Move Often

The more we age, the more important exercise and movement becomes. Keeping your body flexible and limber reduces the risk of injury we might sustain as we get older. Movement is also important for your body because when you move, you release endorphins that make you feel good and motivate you to eat well and simply be happy! Regular movement throughout the day revs your metabolism, decreases inflammation and helps to stabilize blood sugar. It’s a non-negotiable.

When you create solid, foundational habits around these 5 pillars of wellness, you’ll be practicing living a well life. Healthy behaviour will become your norm and you’ll never have to think about doing them again. They’ll become a motor reflex, so deeply ingrained in your routine it will feel strange not to do them. 

Pick up a copy of the free guide I created called 5 Minutes to Wellness. In it, I go into greater detail about each of these pillars with actionable tools and prompts to get you started.

The greatest thing is that none of these practices are difficult or even require that much time. Simply incorporating one small element of each into your daily routine, will start to build that foundation. From there, you’re set to adjust, tweak and really make it your own into whatever feels right for you.