What actually is good health?
Is it sticking to a strict diet and regime in order to feel better?
Or is it being flexible, trusting your body, enjoying life and allowing yourself some slack?
I used to be pretty strict with my diet and tended to stress about every bite I took. Maybe I was following a certain eating plan (created by people I looked up to who claimed their diet was perfect for such and such conditions) and fearing that if I fall off the wagon even a little bit, the good work I had already put in was all lost and my gut or my body would become “contaminated” with something that I was supposed to avoid.
During my recent holiday in Finland, I met a very dear friend and we talked about this as she was trying the ketogenic diet but over the summer holidays had ditched it because of this kind of thinking. She decided that it’s not worth following it as she won’t be able to follow it strictly while on holiday.
Such all or nothing thinking is not a helpful basis for a healthy body, but a sure way to induce the stress response, which – if prolonged – is much more harmful to us than a one-off meal that is not fully compliant with our healthy eating plan.
The effects of stress are well known in that it raises the levels of cortisol and other stress hormones, impairs the digestive function and negatively affects the microbial balance in the gut (both of which we know are very detrimental to our overall health), impairs sleep, messes with hormones and leads to immune responses that can cause all sorts of conditions from high blood pressure and heart disease to depression and autoimmune diseases.
Muikku at Kalastajan Koju
Over the two weeks that I spent in Finland, I allowed myself to enjoy ice cream and other sugary treats, alcohol, sweets and even some gluten! I just couldn’t resist these famous breaded and pan-fried small fish, ‘muikku’ (vendace), from the lakes of my home town Savonlinna, which you eat whole, fins, tail and all (gutted and head removed though). I enjoyed them at a family meetup in a relaxed environment by the lake. I decided to trust my body to be able to deal with this “assault” of being “glutened”, as I know that I’m not allergic to gluten in the way coeliac patients are, for instance (in which case I’d not recommend you challenge your body like this). It was a real pleasure!
Over the same two weeks, I also spent a lot of time outdoors (even though it was pretty chilly!), most days cycling in the hilly town, had saunas, jumped into a cold lake, spend a lot of quality time with family, meditated most days, slept pretty well and ate a lot of health-promoting, local and foraged foods, such as wild blueberries and chanterelles, local strawberries, oily fish and local freshwater fish as well as veg-based and varied home-cooked meals. All great for my health for sure!
So my point is that it’s all about balance and context! Don’t lose sight of all the good stuff you are still doing without even thinking, by sweating the small stuff and feeling guilty about not being perfect.
Trying to be prefect (perfection doesn’t exist!!!) just leads to a failure in our minds, guilt and stress.
So this summer, give yourself some slack, enjoy your holiday, relax and rather than focusing on the negative, pay more attention to all the positive things you are still doing and allow yourself the pleasure to enjoy some treats too.
And trust that your body is really intelligent and can adapt and readjust. It is this ability to adapt to any given environment that determines health!
A strict/fixed biological system is not healthy at all! To quote BioCare, “Health is adaptation”!
Have a happy, relaxed, guilt and stress-free summer holiday everyone!
Minna
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