Watch, Listen, and Feel Your Body

Master this concept and you’ll set a positive tone that will guide your success as a health consumer and wellness enthusiast for life. It’s critically important that you get in rhythm with your body and strive to understand what it’s trying to tell you. Next, do whatever it is that your body is telling you to do. To illustrate I’m using a paragraph from my book “Healthy Dynamic Living: Utilizing Lifestyle Lessons from Your Ancestors to Promote Healthy Aging and Ultimate Wellness”. This explanation of “Watch, Listen, and Feel Your Body” was written in the context of fat loss.

“In more than 35 years of consulting in the nutrition, fitness, and health fields, this is the most valuable advice that I provided clients. I told all clients this: “In the end, it’s your responsibility to figure out what’s best for you and your body. The human body, your human body, will react in its own unique way to whatever you confront it with. You, and you alone, will know what your body thrives on and what sets it back.” That applies to everyone, irrelevant of where you live, a beautiful secluded area of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, an urban area like Charlotte, NC or a suburban area. I will provide an evidence-based framework from which to forge a personalized fat-loss plan. You must learn how to listen to what your body is telling you and then make adaptations.”

The “watch, listen, and feel” philosophy is central to the success of any health, fitness, disease prevention and/or disease management plan. An excellent example of the utility and importance of this skill relates to elimination diets. The best way to know for sure if you suffer food sensitivities is to eliminate potentially offensive foods from your diet and fully understand the effect that the food has on your body when it’s re-introduced. Get to  know your body and take the guess work out of your health and wellness strategies.

Wayne Coolidge Jr., M.Ed., CHES is a scholar-practitioner, author, and speaker. He owns Healthy Dynamic Living, an innovative health promotion consulting firm.