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Chapter 1:

Make Eating Healthy A Lifestyle, Not A Duty

A healthy diet is important for a well-functioning body. However, it isn't as restrictive or as confusing as people imagine. Food is the source of energy that we consume to provide nutritional support and has a direct impact on our cognitive performance in every stage of life.

Your food choices each day affect your overall health and wellbeing. It has a significant impact on your mood and mental health. Hence, the type and amount of food you consume has a major impact on your body.

However, eating a healthy, balanced diet doesn't mean surviving solely on carrot juice, rabbit food and bird seed. All you have to do is really simple. Eat from a wide variety of food groups in the right quantities to maintain the energy and nutrients a healthy adult needs.

The 3 Key Elements

There are several key elements involved when it comes to eating healthy, which includes: moderation, variety and balance.

The basic rule of thumb is that a person should try to balance different nutrients and food, such as protein, vegetables, dairy products and grains while minimizing alcohol, processed food and saturated fats.

Consuming a variety of food from each food group helps a person get all the important nutrients. Healthy eating helps to prevent conditions such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and even cancer. Proteins help in repairing body tissues while carbohydrates provide the body with energy. Therefore, making healthy eating a habit will go a long way in ensuring unlimited longevity and vitality of an individual.

Remember: It shouldn’t be a DUTY to eat healthy, but a desired lifestyle.

Generally, we all know the benefits of having a healthy body, however, many of us do not know exactly how to obtain and sustain it long term.

This is the real challenge for the masses. But once you master the concept or “skill” of keeping your body fit and healthy, you will be able to easily fight any physical, mental and emotional disability.

Most of the sickness and diseases that we see today are the results of indifferent or ignorant attitude towards necessary selfcare, poor eating habits, always thinking that “it will NOT happen to me”.

But think about it. How many patients can foresee that they’re going to fall sick?

Most of the time when it hits them, it’s already too late. There’s a golden old saying of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. A high percentage of people can have preventable diseases, only if they have sufficient and accurate knowledge on nutrition and supplements.

Common sense would tell us that junk food is trash to our body; it does not contain any nutrients for our bodily functions. Therefore, our body is not properly nourished, and there will be a high tendency for us to fall sick.

So how do we fix that? Simple – Avoid junk or “empty” calories food and go for nutrient-rich food!

Another key to a balanced diet is to “Eat in moderation”. This is an important tip to eating healthily.

So what exactly is “Moderation”? It simply means to show restraint, avoid extremes and excesses and practice prudence. An ideal diet is based on balance and variety of nutritious food in appropriate portions.

You should practice eating in moderation and not a “diet” tool. It’s a kind of belief to make your habit stick.

Think about it… Why most Diets fail? The first 3 letters already gave you the hint – DIE!

Also, have trust in yourself! You may soon find a new sense awareness and confidence of yourself and your body the moment you choose to stick to this healthy habit.

If you choose to eat moderately, it means that you are doing the right thing. Why so? This is because by doing so, you can have freedom to eat what your body deserves, in the optimal quantity.

This is an important concept when it comes to achieving your health and fitness goals. It is the best way to diet easy.

Learn to listen to your body for a healthier habit. Your body may allow you to consume a healthier diet naturally. But fear not! Eating healthier doesn’t mean there will be no room for your favorite dessert. You can still have them, but in moderation. It is important to remember that moderation means abundance in long-term, and not deprivation.

Whatever food you crave for, as long as these are consumed in moderation, is acceptable.

After all, what is life if you cannot live to enjoy your food and have to starve yourself? Life would be meaningless! Just bear in mind that too much of something is never good.

Health Is Wealth

Remember the saying “Health is Wealth”? This has never been far from the truth. Imagine you have lots of wealth, good circle of friends, happy family, good job but if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness, having all these abundance will mean nothing. NOTHING at all.

Instead, you will have to spend your time (and money) for doctor’s consultation, hospitalization, medication, countless follow-up checks, restricted diet, loss of energy and strength.

Do you want this? What measures can you take to prevent yourself from falling ill or contracting terminal illness? Is there a way? The answer is YES.

There are 2 paths in your eating habits:

1. You give in to instant gratification and shorten your lifespan. 2. You are mindful of your own food choices and live a long, healthy life.

The choice is yours.

Start by making today healthier than yesterday!

But… How do you do that?

The very first step to make a change is to set achievable goals - Goals that will gradually change your health status and overall lifestyle into a better and healthier one.

- Do you want to skip sugar from now onwards?

- Avoid drinking caffeinated drinks in the morning?

- Avoid junk food such as chips, crackers or biscuits?

- Or start tracking your daily calorie intake?

It doesn’t matter what your goals are, write them out for clarity and take massive action!

You will see and feel the difference once you start working on achieving these goals in a timely manner.

Notice this awesome feeling and enjoy the process! Cultivating this proper mindset will fuel your willpower to stay on track and also significantly improve your mood on a daily basis.

Thus, it is extremely essential that you enjoy the process while you constantly practice your new eating habits. This is an incredible way to reward yourself! – And here lies the Secret to keep a habit.

Frequently imagine yourself in your dream body because it can radically boost your self-esteem. If you look at people who are struggling with eating disorders, for example anorexia (refuse to eat) and bulimia nervosa (binge eating), you will notice that the mental pattern falls into the same category, which is having a false self-belief – thinking that they are not good enough.

Anorexics look in the mirror and see a fat person. They think that they’re fat even though their body figure is extremely under-weight or even obviously boney.

It is a mental illness that leads an individual to problematic eating disorder that harms one’s overall health and lifestyle. It can be lifethreatening as well.

Therefore, it is important to have a positive mindset about your own body and how you see yourself.

The Importance Of A Positive Mindset

Mindset plays the biggest role in determining your actions. Your mindset is the fuel to your actions. When you feel good about yourself, you will look good.

You might not be good enough now but don't worry...Don't beat yourself up. All you have to do is to keep a positive mindset.

Look into the mirror and tell yourself, “I look good”.

“And, I will look even better from now onwards. I just need to eat and live healthy.”

Looking good increases your self-esteem. And what’s most important is you need to feel good about yourself. Feeling good keeps you motivated and jovial. It gives you the energy and motivation to keep going until you’re at your best and to maintain your best.

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Introduction

Peace and happiness can be difficult to catch. Finding the right balance that lets us get to all of the different goals that we have in place is not always as easy as we would like. If we focus on our careers too much, we miss out on time with the family or we are not going to have fun with any of your hobbies at all. Finding a way to balance all of these different aspects of your life together can provide you with the peace and happiness that you need.

This guidebook is going to take a look at all the different aspects that you need to balance together to create this happiness as well. From balancing work to help with your career, balancing your family and time with loved ones, balancing relationships, working on your health and wellness, and even finding ways to balance in your hobbies, you will be able to find peace as you work through them one by one.

But how do you choose which one you are supposed to work on first? That only happens when you know what matters the most. This is going to be different for everyone who goes through this guidebook. Only when you are truly aware of the things that are the most important to you, the things that you value the most, will you be able to make big changes in your life to find the right balance.

Balance is often one of the hardest things that you are able to work through in your life. It may feel like there are a million things that are going to pull at your attention at any given moment, and finding a way to deal with them will be hard. With the help of this guidebook and some of the simple steps inside, you will be able to improve your life and create all of the balance that you need.

Chapter 1: Know What Matters

Before you can work with some of the rest of the steps in this guidebook, you first need to determine what is the most important to you. Each person has to answer these questions in a different way. What works the best for one person is not going to fit that well with your lifestyle and can make you happy along the way.

When you define your personal values and what matters the most to you, you get a chance to discover what is the most important to you. A good way of starting to do this is to take a look back on your life. Figure out when you felt really good and confident that you were making good decisions, or when you felt happy in your life.

Some of the steps you can use to make this work includes:

Find Times When You Were Happiest

This can be in your personal life and in your career. Try to get answers that fit in different categories to ensure that you get some balance in the answers. As you think of the times when you were happiest, answer some questions:

1. What were you doing?

2. Were you with other people at the time and who were those other people?

3. What other factors helped you to feel happy?

Find the Times When You Were Proud

Now that we know a little bit more about being happy and what tends to make us happy in life, it is time to identify some of the times when you were the most proud. You can again do this in your personal life and your career to help create the balance:

1. What was the main reason that you were proud?

2. Were there others who shared in the pride as well and who were they?

3. What were the factors that helped you to feel proud at the time?

These are going to be different compared to some of the other times on our list. These make you feel good and like you were able to accomplish a lot more in your life. This can happen a lot in your personal life, but may also happen when something occurs in your career as well.

1. What desire or need was filled at the time?

2. Why and how did the experience give meaning to your life.

3. What other factors helped to contribute to feeling fulfilled at the time.

Determine Your Top Values

As you write down some of the answers that you got from the other steps, you will be able to get a better look at some of your top values. These will be based on any experiences that you wrote down before in terms of fulfillment, pride, and happiness.

Why is each of these experiences so memorable and important?

You will be able to write down between five to ten works to figure out what is the most important to you. things like enjoyment or obedience, or openness or something else will fit. Look for some of the themes that showed up in the moments that made you happy and proud and fulfilled in the process.

Once you have a list of things that you believe are your top values, you will then then need to go through and prioritize some of the top values. This is sometimes seen as the most difficult step because you will need to look deep down to figure this all out. However, it is going to be one of the most important steps in the book because when you are making decisions, you will need to choose between different solutions that are going to satisfy different values. This is when you need to know which value is the most important.

So, how do you get all of this done? Some of the steps that you can follow to help prioritize your top values include:

1. Write down the top values. They do not need to be in any order at this time.

2. Look at the first two values. Consider which one you would satisfy if you could only work on one and then pick the one that is the most important.

3. Keep going through the list. Take the time to compare each value with the others until you have the list in the best order. Reaffirm Your Values

Now that you are done organizing the list, you need to make sure that they fit with the vision that you have and your current life. Think about whether these are the best values for your needs or if you need to change to something else. You should ask yourself some of the following:

1. Do these values make you feel good about yourself?

2. Do your top three values make you proud?

3. Would you be comfortable telling these values to others you admire and respect?

4. Do these values represent things that you should support, even if the choice is not all that popular and it is going to put in you in the minority?

When you consider how important your values are when making a decision, you will be able to maintain your integrity and what

you know is right. This makes it easier to approach all decisions with clarity and confidence. You will also have some peace of mind to know that what you are doing is going to be the best for your future and current satisfaction and happiness, based on what is the most important for you.

The most important thing to remember is that the answers to all of these questions will be different for each person. Each person has their own values and what they find is the most important for them. Do not compare yourself to someone else. Figure out what your values are on your own for the best results.

What If I Have More Than One Value?

It is possible to have more than one value at a time. In fact, most people do. You probably will take a look at the list that we will talk about and all the aspects that come with balancing your life and will want to work on all parts of it at some point. But the important thing to consider is what your biggest values are right now and what you feel is the most important in your life right now.

All of the areas of your life should hold some value for you. And your most important value will probably change. If you do not have kids right now, your work may be one of the most important parts out there. But if you do have young kids, you may want to focus more on personal time with them and less on your career for now. It all depends on the unique individual and what works the best for them.

Chapter 2: Balancing Work Without Compromising Your Career

One area that a lot of people struggle with is trying to figure out how they should balance their work and their home life, without sacrificing their career. They have a lot of big ideas on how to create a great career and getting ahead, but they also worry about not getting a chance to spend time developing their family when they are short on time there too.

Prioritizing your work life balance is going to reduce the amount of stress that you have and prevent things like burnouts. This will help lead to a healthier and happier life overall. Recognizing the value of this, many professionals are trying to look for ways to have flexible work days and hours and choosing jobs that help them get ahead while still getting a chance to spend time with the family.

But how are professionals supposed to achieve a good work life balance without having to sacrifice your career ambitions? Some of the steps to make this happen includes:

Consider How You Work

Finding the right work and life balance is all about redefining the attitude that you have to work and then figuring out where all of your priorities lie. You do not need to do a deep soul search to make this happen, but you can go through and look at some of the practical elements. Map out what you would like to achieve in your personal and professional life, and then put a timeline that is realistic on it.

For example, start by looking at how you divide up the working day, how long you spend commuting, and when you seem to be the most productive. Would remote working make life a bit easier? Is there the right supports for you to achieve success in this business while still being at home sometimes?

Once you have a better idea of what is occupying your time and what you would like to give more of your time and energy to, it is easier to compartmentalize some of the different elements without having unrealistic expectations on yourself. Realize that it is not always possible to get the perfect split with home versus work time. Some weeks you may get more home time and others you may have to do more work time. But if it is balancing out from one week to the next, this is a good sign that you are focusing on your values.