What Does It Mean to Be “Healthy”? - WholisticMatters (2024)

January 1, 2020 • 21:25 min

About this Episode

The most common New Year’s resolutions are more often than not related to diet, eating healthier, exercising more, or some other aspect of health (06:07). Less than ten percent of people will be successful in achieving their goal for 2020, and 75 percent of people will give up on their resolution within thirty days of making it. Why is it so hard to achieve success with a New Year’s resolution? Perhaps because the goals individuals set aren’t sustainable or built around achieving a truly healthy lifestyle. In this episode, we discuss how to define “healthy,” how to set healthy goals for yourself with sustainability and longevity in mind, and how to approach lifestyle goals realistically.

What does it mean to be “healthy”?

(01:17) The World Health Organization (WHO) defines healthy as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
“Healthy” looks different for everyone (01:58), and it is not easily quantifiable by a single metric, such as weight.
Define progress by assessing how you feel after making healthy choices, for example how certain choices affect your sleep or stress levels (03:44).
The practice of being “mindful” versus “mind full” supports wholistic health (04:11).
Make a lifestyle change instead of aiming for a short-term fix (05:25).

How can we make lifestyle change realistic and sustainable?

Make weekly action plans (07:50) with well-defined and realistic parameters. Measure success with how successful you are at following the action plan as opposed to measuring something like weight to determine your achievement.
Know that there will be roadblocks to reaching your goals (08:56). Plan ahead to know how to react and adapt a healthy lifestyle to life events.
Build positive motivation (10:44) and resist comparison on platforms like social media. Everyone’s healthy lifestyle journey is different.
We don’t resist change. We resist being changed (14:48).

Why is being healthy important?

Lifestyle habits like diet and physical activity play a huge role in maintaining health, affecting aspects of life like sleeping habits and perceived quality of life (17:27).
The majority of adults are not mentally thriving (17:46).

Learn more about how good nutrition starts with whole foods.