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Is Your Healthy Lifestyle Ruining Your Metabolism? 7 Signs You’re Making This Common Mistake

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Did you know that trying to be healthy can actually end up harming your metabolism instead of helping it?

It sounds crazy, but it’s a very common mistake that too many people (myself included) have made.

When you’re trying to live a healthier lifestyle, it’s very, very easy to get caught in the trap of stressing about every little detail and feeling like you have to do everything perfectly.

If you read enough articles and books about healthy food and natural wellness, you eventually start making lists in your mind of “good” and “bad” foods and feeling like you need to check every single ingredient you eat, drink gallons of water a day, and exercise until you collapse with exhaustion.

We do these extreme diet and exercise plans in the name of health, but what often happens instead is that we end up stressing our metabolisms to the point that our health starts to suffer as a result.

7 Signs Your Healthy Lifestyle Is Ruining Your Metabolism:

Do any of these seven signs sound familiar to you?

  1. Trying to be healthier feels overwhelming and stressful.
  2. You feel guilty whenever you eat a “bad” food.
  3. You miss eating some of your favorite foods.
  4. No matter how much time you spend at the gym, you feel like you should be spending more.
  5. You study food labels like you’re going to be quizzed on them.
  6. You count calories and keep track of everything you eat.
  7. You feel more like you’re fighting with your body than like you’re working with it to be healthier.

If these sound like you, then there’s a good chance that your healthy lifestyle might actually be doing more harm to your metabolism than good.

Why Your Metabolism Matters

If you’re not trying to lose weight, then you might be thinking that’s it’s not really a big deal whether or not your metabolism is functioning at it’s best. That’s what I used to think.

But it turns out that metabolism is actually about so much more than just maintaining a healthy weight. Metabolism is everything. Like literally everything

The health of our metabolisms affect every part of our bodies because when our cells get as much energy as they need to function well, then all of our bodies systems benefit.

With a healthy metabolism, we have more energy, better digestion, healthier skin and hair, steadier blood sugar, better sleep, etc.  But if our metabolisms are stressed then we end up with the opposite: low energy, poor digestion, unhealthy skin and hair, unsteady blood sugar, poor sleep, etc.

Balance Is Key

Sometimes, I think it’s actually a healthier choice to have chocolate cake for breakfast and relax on the couch all day with a movie marathon. I’m serious!

If you’re stressing about everything you eat and dragging yourself to the gym for hours a day, than that stress is going to be much more damaging to your metabolism than a piece of chocolate cake could ever be.

Everyone is different, of course, everyone has different diets and levels of exercise that suit their bodies best. The one thing that everyone needs, though, is balance. And a balanced healthy lifestyle means eating foods you love that will nourish your body and staying active by doing things you enjoy.

That’s why I love my friend Elizabeth Walling’s book, The Nourished Metabolism, so much. This book completely changed the way I thought about my metabolism and about what it means to live a healthy lifestyle.

In The Nourished Metabolism, Elizabeth writes about her experience with doing all the wrong things to try to be healthier and explains how we can avoid making the same mistakes that she did. Her book teaches you how to listen to what your body is trying to tell you so you can return your metabolism to a state of balance and optimal health.

Banner advertising the book The Nourished Metabolism that says "We're here to make real, positive, lasting changes. Because that's the only kind of change that really counts." Elizabeth 
Walling.

So, if you’re like me and you’re tired of following restrictive diets and stressing about trying to be healthier, and if you want to live a more balanced lifestyle, then The Nourished Metabolism is the perfect guidebook to help you do that.

Picture of woman looking off into the distance with link to subscribe for 7-day healthy living makeover email series and free bonus guide "10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Health Right Now."
Woman facing away from the camera sitting on the shore of a lake looking out at the water and the hills in the background.
(We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.)

The information in this post is not to be taken as medical advice and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease.

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Cristy

Monday 20th of June 2016

Getting "Coupon "summer20" does not exist!" message when I try to enter that.

ourheritageofhealth

Monday 20th of June 2016

I'm really sorry about that, Cristy!! There was a problem with the coupon code earlier, but it should be fixed now and working again.

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