I have enough food for an army from Thanksgiving, so I’m doing a little deep dive on the term “lifestyle change”. This idea stemmed from an MSN article “Lifestyle Changes” are Often Diet Culture in Disguise. It gave me something to think about because diet culture is everywhere, even when we are trying to get away from it.

When I think of lifestyle changes, I think of adding or subtracting things from your everyday life to promote health and wellness. However, according to the article, many companies are jumping on the bandwagon of using the term “lifestyle change” as a diet in disguise. One thing I will never promote on this blog is dieting. I do promote being as healthy as we can be. That doesn’t mean we strive for thinness. We all have different body types and not all of us will be thin. Thin does not equal healthy. I am not thin, but I consider myself healthy because I eat healthy and exercise.

If we want to look at our overall health, I think using a lifestyle change to do that is important. I have a dear friend of mine who lost a close family member at an early age. They are eating healthy and getting some exercise, but they smoke. Inside I want to scream, “why the heck don’t you quit smoking!!!!” I’m sure you all know, no matter how healthy your life is, if you smoke, it negates any progress. I also know that just because someone should make that change, doesn’t mean they are ready to do so.

I also want to address the term “body positivity”. I’m going to give my unpopular opinion here. I believe too many of us use body positivity as an excuse to be unhealthy. This again does not mean that I think we need to have unrealistic views on health. If you are a woman who has had kids that doesn’t have a perfect body, but is taking care of their health. That’s body positivity. We all can’t be skinny or perfect like a model. We need to accept our flaws. We should not accept being unhealthy when you can do small steps to prevent it. We should accept if we have physical limitations that prevent us from working out in certain ways. If you are doing the best you can, that’s body positivity. I also think we should be supportive of each other and not go around putting people down. I may not agree with how some people live their life, but I will never go around using my opinion to put someone else down. Being supportive can also push someone that may not feel they can make a healthy change, move in that direction. I’m curious to know what you guys think. What is your take on body positivity? Let me know in the comments.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. A new recipe is coming next week!