Becoming Mentally and Physically Fit
March 5, 2024 by Shae Parr
Growing up in the world of pageantry, I have had plenty of opportunity to grasp the concepts of healthy eating habits. What you consume in a day truly does impact how you look, feel and even how you perform, whether that be in your day to day life or on the stage. For a child, eating good, healthy, whole meals is a pretty simple way to regulate your body without adding much else into the mix. It wasn’t until I started competing as a “miss” that I began to understand how important physical fitness can be, I also did not realize how fast it could become mentally exhausting.
In the “Becoming Physically and Mentally Fit” podcast I had the opportunity to sit down with Trista Eason, a personal trainer and gym owner, to share personal experiences and discuss how implementing realistic changes can help you to maintain a healthy relationship with diet and exercise!
Prioritizing Mental Health
Finding your “why” is one of the key pieces to maintaining a healthy relationship with your body and mind. Creating a list of motivating factors and using those factors to propel your health and fitness journey will allow you to stay on track with your goals. Make sure that your “why” is reasonable, obtainable, trackable, and maintainable.
Examples of healthy motivations:
“I want to fuel my body with the nutrients it needs”
“I want to look and feel my best”
Examples of unhealthy motivations:
“I want to fit in a smaller dress”
“I want to look like _____” or “I want to be skinnier than _____”
These unhealthy motivations may seem exaggerated or shallow but I truly believe that we have all implemented these ideologies at some point in our lives. It is important that we learn to recognize unhealthy motivating factors so we can transform them to mend the relationship between our own bodies and minds.
“Comparison is the thief of joy” - Theodore Roosevelt
Recommended Meal Template
MEAL
One palm sized serving of protein
One cupped handful of carbs
One thumb sized serving of fat
Two fist sized servings of vegetables
SNACK
One palm sized serving of protein
One cupped handful of carbs
Recommended Fitness Plan
If you are just starting out on your fitness journey, it's important to realize that even small changes can bring significant results. Initially, I believed that I had to dedicate hours to the gym for it to be worthwhile, and that only extreme fitness plans could bring about real changes, which eventually led to burnout. However, when I moved to Spain, the necessity of walking several miles each day became apparent. While I initially dreaded my daily walks to the grocery store or McDonald's, it soon became second nature. Within just two months, I noticed a remarkable transformation in both my body and mind: increased energy, happiness, toned physique, and shedding of excess weight. This simple change led to a huge transformation.
With 168 hours in a week, allocating just 3 hours to engage in physical activities can bring you amazing results.