Vita with Alita

25. What I’d Do Differently In My Wellness Journey: 10 Lessons I Wish I Knew Sooner

• Alita Gideon • Episode 25

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What if your wellness plan actually made life feel lighter instead of tighter? This conversation pulls back the curtain on the ten lessons that transformed a rigid, all-or-nothing approach into a flexible, sustainable practice that holds up under birthdays, deadlines and messy weeks. 
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- Alita <3

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This podcast is intended for general educational purposes only. The content discussed does not replace professional medical, nutritional, or fitness advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual needs and responses vary, especially with exercise and nutrition. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making significant lifestyle changes.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi everyone, welcome back to Vito Dalita, or welcome if you're new here. My name's Alita. And today's episode is a really, I would say personal one. I want to talk about what I would kind of do differently if I were starting my wellness journey all over again. Not that the journey's over, but I'm I'm pretty happy in the place that I am today, to be honest. And I'm reflecting over the past few years, I think I'm proud of where I kind of stand today. And I kind of wanted to share what I would do differently if I were to start my wellness journey all over again. And I'm not doing this from a place of regret or anything, but more of a place of reflection. Because honestly, so much of what I know now came from just doing too much or I don't know, holding on too tightly, learning what actually matters through experience. And I'm here to be like your mom who's probably telling you what not to do and what to do because I just don't want you to go through it yourself. They've been through it, I've been through it. And hopefully this can make your life a little bit easier. If you care about your health, your habits, your growth, but sometimes you can feel overwhelmed or burnt out or even unsure if you're doing things right, we can say, this episode's for you. Let's just get right into it. So, lesson numero one. I thought that more effort meant better results. So when I first started, again, this wellness dirty of mine started with weightlifting, but in general, when I started paying more attention to my health, and when I first started, I believed that the more I did, the better the outcome would be. More workouts, more restrictions, more structure, more rules, more discipline. And what I didn't understand was health, or at least my health, and I think for the most part, a lot of our health doesn't respond to like urgency, like I need to do this, I need to do that. If I don't do this, it's gonna be the end of the world. And I've come to appreciate that our health responds well to being consistent, being sustainable, habits that you can sustain and live with long term. And this is something we bring up over and over again. What's gonna set you up for the long term here? And I wish I knew earlier that you don't need to change everything all at once. Your progress is gonna come from small repeatable actions that you can eventually accumulate over time. It's not the intensity. If you're going at 100%, you're not always gonna be going at 100%. But if you're slowly, slowly increasing one, two, three percent at a time, over time you will be a hundred percent better. So that's the first thing I kind of wish I knew. You don't have to go all in at once all the time, especially when you're just starting out trying to establish healthy habits for yourself. Just take it easy. You want to change? Sure. Start somewhere realistic and sustainable. Lesson number two. I honestly confused discipline with control. Now, for a long time, I thought that being disciplined meant you never missed a workout. You you never rested, you never, you had to stick to the plan only, and the plan was everything, and if you didn't stick to the plan, you were a failure. But real discipline is not really about control, it's about the choice that you make. We can just think of it as a choice. It's knowing when to push, when to pull back, it's being being able to adapt without spiraling or feeling like you failed. And that's something I still kind of grapple with, honestly, because sometimes you think, okay, am I like not feeling it today because there's actually something wrong, or am I just am I just being lazy? And then this is kind of where you would think discipline comes in, and you do it anyway, even if you don't feel like it. Yes, that's true. There are obviously those days you probably just don't feel like doing it, but I'm talking more about physically being sick or just like being just on my period or exhausted or just not having enough sleep and still telling myself, you need to go do your workout, you need to do this, or else that world is gonna end. And I thought that was me being disciplined. And in the in the grand scheme of things, that one workout or that one whatever that I missed habit that I was trying to implement, I don't think is going to change my end result because I was unwell or I was tired or just it was just not the time. So don't confuse discipline with control. Discipline is important, and discipline is the driving force that will kind of get you closer to your goals. Discipline is the thing that's going to make you better. And I've heard this thing where it's like you have to follow the plan, not your mood. I don't know where I heard it, but I like that. I like it, it's very motivating, and I agree with it to a certain extent. I agree, follow the plan, not the mood. I don't feel like doing this, that, and the other today. But here's the plan, you just gotta do it, and sometimes just starting will get the ball rolling. But within limits, when you take it to an extreme and you're not listening to your body, it can actually be counterintuitive or counterproductive, not intuitive. Counterproductive is the word I'm looking for. So yeah, discipline should be giving you freedom, like you're making the choice to do these things, it shouldn't be making you anxious. If you're anxious, it might be more about control rather than discipline. All right, lesson three. I used to let aesthetics define my health. I used appearance as my main measure of progress, and I get it, and it's nothing wrong with it in the beginning, I guess, because it's going to probably be the thing that motivates you to keep going. If you if you're let's say on this weight loss journey, and or let's not, I feel like weight loss is not the best example. Let's say you're trying to build some sort of muscle, and you start seeing that your muscles are becoming a little more defined as you continue and you're being consistent with your workouts, that's probably gonna motivate you to go back and continue because you can see that like what you're doing is working. But then let's go back to my weight loss example. Now, let's say you're trying to lose weight, and on the scale, you feel like you lost weight and you feel lighter, you feel better, but maybe you don't look that different. Aesthetics is not everything, and by letting aesthetics define your health, you're kind of putting the way you look on a pedestal, and you're not taking into account mood, energy, just how you feel in your body, everything else, just how your body's truly functioning. Just because somebody who maybe looks healthy, it doesn't mean that they actually are. So when I started this whole wellness journey, I guess, how I looked often determined how I felt about myself. And even when other things like strength, energy, or my mood were improving, if I didn't look the way I thought I should or whatever, it would bring me down. And looking healthy isn't the same as being resilient, and real wellness shows up in ways that don't always reflect immediately in the mirror. And real wellness is not just about being fit and working out, real wellness encompasses your relationships, encompasses your sleep, encompasses what you eat. And those things are not going to be reflected in the mirror. So you cannot just let how you look define your health. Now, with that being said, how you look can also help to maybe guide you. And let me maybe explain what I mean by this. If there is a certain food that always bloats you, you'll feel bloated, but you'll obviously look bloated, and that's maybe just a visual cue that there's some food you probably need to avoid. Or if there's certain foods that make you break out, or just little things like that, your body will still signal visually if something is wrong, but for the most part, don't just rely on your looks to determine if you're on the right track. That's not really a good plan. There are multiple things involved in being overall healthy and leading a healthier lifestyle, and because of that, there should be multiple things involved when measuring your wellness and your progress. Alright, lesson number four. When I first started out, I didn't leave enough room for life. And this goes hand in hand with like the disciplineslash control. So for a while, my routines that I was setting up for myself to be healthier, you know, sleeping at the exact same time and waking up at the same time and sleeping this many hours and going to the gym at this time and eating at this time and eating this, this, that, and the other, and following this specific diet, and I don't know who and I don't know what, and journaling only in the morning and getting all my steps and making sure this, all these things compounded. Like, when did I have time to live? You know, this it started, I knew this was a problem because social events started to feel stressful. Rest started to feel like I didn't deserve it, I didn't move enough that day, so who am I to just sit? And being able to be flexible, or if if something came up unexpectedly that wasn't according to the plan, which is how life goes, I would feel anxious, I would feel stressed. And I'm not gonna lie and sit here and say that this is not still something I deal with. As somebody who is very routine, who loves structure, who is very, you know, like in this, I'm very, what's the word right now, engrossed by my wellness journey, and I'm very happy with kind of where I am and prioritizing myself and my needs. But life doesn't always work that way. Life will throw something at you. Life is more than just your routines, it's your your social circle, it's your things outside of what you plan. And true, true wellness and health is able to mix these things together: your routines and your structures and your habits, but the unexpected things, the social things, the the relationships, the foods, the everything outside of your routines. So, what I learned, and I'm still trying to learn, is that wellness that doesn't survive real life is not actually wellness, it's an illusion. A healthy life includes birthdays, travel, stress, slower seasons, imperfect weeks and days and months, and that's all okay. Wellness is all encompassing, right? Encompasses all of these items together. And accepting them sooner rather than later will help you feel less stressed around them, will help you feel less anxious about them, and will put you on the right track for your wellness journey just from day one. Alright. Lesson five. People will do things differently than you, and that's okay. This is a big one for me, but let's unpack it. What do I exactly mean by that? Here's what I mean. I used to get, and I sometimes still do, I get frustrated when the people around me, especially the people I live with, don't always do things the way I do or are not exactly on the exact same wavelength that I am, and it feels like it's my way is the right way because whatever. I don't know who established that, but according to me, I'm I'm right. And it creates this like stress, this tension, this whatever you want to call it, this unease. And you're just-I'm I'm just adding more stress to myself for absolutely no reason. Like, I'll give you the simplest example. Like, by I load the dishwasher a certain way, if my sister loads it and it's not the way I load it, it used to bother me. Okay? And I know that may seem silly, but I bring this up in this whole wellness conversation because why are you letting that bother you? By letting it bothering you, you are creating an anxious situation for yourself. You're holding on to more tension for no reason, you're letting it drain some of your energy, it's occupying some thoughts in your mind. For what? For what? Because the plate's not in the right rack, like it's gonna get cleaned. Life moves on, and by letting go of some of that control, you will free up your energy and your time, and you will just be in a better place mentally, which is what wellness also is about. You there's letting go of that control, and the fact that people will do things differently than you is okay. Now, this is not a free pass that everybody gets to do whatever they want all the time, and everything everything, you just have to learn to deal with it. Obviously, there are ways to go about things, especially if you live with someone. But for example, in my example with the with the with my sister and the dishwasher, she's not doing anything to harm me. If anything, she's helping by actually loading dishes in the dishwasher, and we're living amicably together. I can just deal with the dish not being in the right rack. So you can deal with some people doing things a little bit differently than you, free up that mental space, take a deep breath, relax, it's okay, you move on. Letting go of control, especially over other people, is freeing. Use this in every aspect of your life, and trust me, you will just feel better. You will feel lighter. Different people have different priorities, have different seasons, different capacities, different ways of doing things. You don't need everyone to do it your way for your choices to be valid. The way you do them should be valid to you. That's it. Move on. Alright, lesson number six. You don't have to say yes to everything just because of the fear of missing out. You don't need to say yes to every plan, you don't need to attend every event, you don't need to prove that you're productive, that you're social, that you're doing enough. And I was somebody who in high school I was very quiet. I was not very, I guess you can call it popular. I did not go out much. I yeah, that's that's sort of how I was in high school. And I feel like there was a point in my life after high school where I was getting invited to events and to things, and and I was making friends, and I was like, oh my god, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I want to do this, I want to do that. I need to make up for all the things that I missed out on. And oh my gosh, was it exhausting? Saying yes to everything because you feel like you're gonna miss out or you feel like you're gonna regret being at home is exhausting because sometimes you would go out and you're like, Why did I why did I go? Or sometimes you would go out and you would come home and you realize I have a million things to do, and now my sleep is in trouble. Now I overeat because I was out. Now this, now that. I love going out. I'm not against it, but you don't have to say yes to everything. Saying no is not missing out, it's choosing what aligns with your priorities right now. Okay, so you're allowed to have that peace of mind. Peace is allowed to matter in your life more than the fear of missing out. You don't have to say yes to everything, and this kind of goes hand in hand with protecting your energy and protecting your priorities. On this wellness journey, not everything that everyone does is gonna align with what you want for yourself, and that's okay. You just don't have to say yes to everything, and that's that's okay. This I think will bring us nicely into our next lesson. So, next, true confidence comes from parenting yourself. Yes, we are adults, you gotta parent yourself. And one of the biggest shifts for me was realizing that true confidence doesn't come from what you achieve or like when I get there, I'll be confident. No, no, because you you know you gotta there's gotta be some confidence to even start before you get there. True confidence comes from knowing that you have your own back and that you will be there for yourself. And when you can parent yourself, when you know how to say no, when you know how to set boundaries and you know how to choose what's right for you, and you do whatever what's best for you in that time and what aligns with your values and your priorities, everything changes. Your confidence will be quieter, you don't feel like you need to gain validation from the external world. Your confidence will be more grounded. You'll just know that you have your back when you're able to parent yourself. And the parenting yourself I brought up because this brings back the conversation of discipline. I talked here about parenting yourself in terms of saying no and setting boundaries. And this is what we mean by discipline. Discipline and parenting yourself means when you're standing in line to get food and you're standing there, and you know, you really want the sweet, sugary drink that's probably not the best for you, and you're gonna get a sugar crash, and you're trying to eat healthier, and you've made that promise to yourself. Parenting yourself is saying, hey, no, you made a promise to yourself that you're not gonna get that, you're not gonna eat this way. So, right now, what are you gonna choose? You're gonna choose the healthier option, the tea, the coffee, the whatever. That's what I mean by parenting yourself, and that's where true confidence comes from. When you're able to parent yourself, you're able to stick to your word, you're able to put yourself first, you'll feel it, you'll just feel much better in your skin, in your body, and it will show in everything that you do. Alright, lesson eight. I wish I trusted myself sooner. And this goes hand in hand with the confidence. Maybe I lacked confidence, not maybe I did. Not much confidence, not much trust in myself. But for a long, long time, not trusting myself meant that I was outsourcing my confidence. So, what I mean by this is I was trusting different plans or like rules or outs or people's opinions or what people had to say, and I was trusting it more than my own experience. So even when something was not working, and here's a real example. When I first started my whole fitness journey, obviously to gain information and to try to figure out what to do, I was going to social media, YouTube videos, Instagram influencers, trying to see, okay, like where do I start? That's fine. That's a good baseline, that's a good way to get your foot in the door and to get started. But where the problem arose is when I was doing something, a plan, let's say that somebody suggested or somebody said it's the plan that they follow, and I hated it. I hated I hated the plan they were following. And I was like, no, but this is the plan. I gotta do it. And they said to do it. And because they said to do it, and they look like that, and I want to look like that, and I don't trust myself, I'm gonna do it. And then you just end up being miserable. You can try different things, but then you have to sit down with yourself and reflect and say, All right, is this working? Yay, nay, okay, no, move on. That's what I mean by trusting myself. Trusting yourself is trying it, giving it a good go, and then sitting back and thinking, okay, meh, not working. It's okay to move on. So even when something wasn't working, I stayed with it because I should. But that's not probably the best way to go about it. Evidence matters. So evidence meaning somebody else did it, there's a science, there's a study that says do it. There's like evidence to back up some claim. Yes, it definitely matters, but so does your lived experience. Just because it worked for somebody doesn't mean it has to work for you. Just because this this is the plan that built that body for that person doesn't mean it's going to work for you. Learning to trust yourself is part of building a healthy life. So it's better to start sooner rather than later. All right. Lesson number nine: wanting to change should come from loving yourself, not because you hate yourself and where you are at today. This is so important. Wanting to improve doesn't mean that you actually dislike where you are. You can want to get stronger, healthier, more balanced, but you can do it because you care about yourself, not because you're trying to fix something that's broken. If you're starting from a baseline of I'm broken and I need to fix it, every time you fail or every time you don't exactly stick to whatever plan you're setting up for yourself, it's going to reinforce that idea that I'm broken and I need to fix it. Whereas if you're coming from a place of love and a place of like, you know, Alita, like you're doing great today, and I love where you're at and how far you've gotten, and and I can see that you've already grown so much, but hey, you know, we have a long life ahead of us. Why don't we try to be a little bit better? And let's do that by by sleeping an extra hour every day because you know that when you sleep, you feel good in your body. Okay, oh, you didn't get to do that yesterday. That's okay. We're gonna try again today. It might seem simple, but I think that simple mindset shift will truly allow you to be kind and soft towards yourself and to decrease anxiety, to decrease the nervousness around trying to build healthier habits. And you'll loving yourself will show in your actions and the way you speak with yourself and the way you speak with others. Change driven by self-respect lasts. Change that's driven by just self-criticism and hate will not. So that's a little tidbit. Maybe shift your mindset a bit. Come from a place of love for yourself rather than hate. Alright. Last lesson of the day. Something I honestly wish I knew because I look back now and I'm like, that would have been nice. But build evidence for yourself. Finally, something very practical. So build evidence. What does that mean? Take photos, journal, write notes about how you feel, voice memory. Just track your progress in a way that feels supportive to you. And I'm saying to track your progress because you see yourself every single day. And when you see yourself every single day, you kind of forget how far you've come. You know, have you ever looked through your photos and you're like, wait, I used to look like that, or wait, I used to do this, or you used to you read something that you did in in elementary school, and you're like, I used to be this way. Like, what are you talking about? This is just evidence. It'll be evidence of your growth, it'll be evidence of your progress, and it's just evidence for yourself. I wish I did this because now I I sometimes don't always remember where I started. And when you don't remember where you start, you set where you are now, today, as your baseline, which is fine, but today is probably an improved version of you. And if this is your baseline, then you probably think you didn't improve as much as you did. That's not giving yourself enough credit. And this is where the unmotivation, burnout, yada yada comes in. And you also have this kind of evidence book because on the days that you'll feel stuck or discouraged or like nothing's changing, or like, did you even make any progress? You'll have physical proof. You're gonna open and say no, I have proof. Today is just an off day, and one off day does not redefine my entire wellness journey. So if you can leave with one thing, it's this your health, your health and this wellness journey that you're on and that we are building together, it should be supporting your life, it should not compete with it. You're allowed to change your approach, you're allowed to evolve. You don't need to do it perfectly to be doing it well. This is a message to myself. I'm still in this phase of if it's not perfect, it's not good, or how how did I not know to do it this way? This is so much better. I could have been better six months ago. No, it's evolving. And it's okay. It's that's why it's called a journey, and that's why you're on it. Just enjoy it. It's a good time. Now, before you go, I would love to stay connected with you. I honestly just started a new Instagram page. I know, I know, I I'm going back on my own word where I said I don't have social media, but hey, the Instagram page is for the podcast and the podcast alone. You know I'm setting restrictions left and right so that I don't end up doom scrolling because it will probably inevitably happen. But I'll be sharing hopefully more real life evidence-based wellness conversations over there. And then the updates about the podcast will be there too. And I would love if you can follow me by clicking the link in the episode in the description. If you can send a message, I would just like to engage with everyone. And if this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me a message directly using the link in the description, and you can tell me which lesson stood out to you. And if you'd like, I can also pin your message on the podcast website so it can be shared with everyone to see. If you took something away, please maybe share it with a friend who might need to hear some of these lessons while they are on their wellness journey. Thank you so much for being here, and I'll talk to you in the next episode of Vita with Alita. Take care. Bye bye.

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Alita Gideon

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