The Life Boosting Change (LBC) Approach
I’ve spent a lot of time asking, “If being healthy is supposed to feel good, why is the norm in our society to be sick, overweight, and/or unhappy?”.
You can learn more about the answer to that question here:
That leads to the next question, "what are the key components to being healthy in a way that feels good and IS sustainable?"
There are so many factors that impact the way you feel physically and mentally, but after years of experience, diving into the research, trial and error, and observations with myself and my clients, I’ve realized it can all be boiled down to 3 L’s, B’s, and C's - the Life Boosting Change (LBC) approach.
The LBC approach helps you to connect with your own unique body, mind, and heart to create a sustainable lifestyle that makes being healthy look natural - because it is. Remember - all aspects of your life impact your health and all aspects of your health impact your life. It's all connected.
There's a chance your inner critic is coming up with reasons you're an exception and this approach won't work for you. That's totally understandable given the amount of misguided and contradictory information out there when it comes to health. But this approach is about YOU. I can't tell you what will work for you, but I can help you to look at your body, brain, and lifestyle in a new way so that gives you clarity on what you need to feel your best.
When you prioritize the 3 L’s, balance the 3 B’s, and embrace the 3 C's, Wellness Level 3 “The Life Boost” is inevitable.
The 3 Life Boost L’s you need to prioritize are:
- Love
- Lifestyle
- Long-term
The 3 Life Boost B's you need to balance are:
- Belly (gut health)
- Blood Sugar
- Brain (mindset, stress, brain health, happiness)
The 3 Life Boost C's to embrace are:
- Compassion
- Curiosity
- Connection
Here’s why each is a critical component to creating a sustainable lifestyle that gives you energy instead of drains it.
Prioritize the 3 L's for a sustainable approach that gives you energy:
Love:
You need to love what you’re doing, the way it’s making you feel, and your approach needs to be loving and respectful to your body and mind. Everything you do is motivated by a desire to feel good. If your approach drains your energy and is motivated by self-judgment, any results you get will be disappointing and temporary. You have to honor what feels good in your body, mind, and heart!
Lifestyle:
Your approach needs to feel doable and to fit in with your lifestyle. It needs to make your life easier, not harder, otherwise how are you going to keep it up long-term?
Long-term:
In order to achieve long-term results that you love, your approach has to be long-term, too. You need to create a new norm! If you view your approach as temporary and you plan to go back to your old ways, then the way you feel and your results will go back to the way you used to feel, too.
Balance the 3 B's to feel your best inside and out:
Belly (gut health)
Your gut health has a dramatic impact on the way you feel physically and mentally. Did you know you have more gut microbes than number of cells in your body? You’re outnumbered! 🤯
The good news is that you have a lot of control over your gut health to set you up for success. Your environment, lifestyle factors, thoughts and feelings, and food all have a direct impact on the type of microbes in your gut, which means you have the power to support the good guys that will help you to feel your best. 💪🏻
A healthy gut is key, because it influences your metabolism, immune system, mood, digestion, stress, blood sugar, hormones, and more. When you have an unhealthy gut, it’s impossible to feel your best.
It’s important to know that when you have an unhealthy gut, it doesn’t always show up as GI signs like bloating, gas, reflux, stomach pains, diarrhea, or constipation. Instead, it can cause weird signs throughout your body that seem completely unrelated like headaches, brain fog, skin issues, achy joints, sinus congestion, anxiety, and more. Learning how to listen to your gut is key!
Blood Sugar
Your blood sugar has a huge impact on your energy, mood, hormones, cravings, metabolism, gut health, and more. If your blood sugar is going on a roller coaster ride throughout the day, you will feel out of control. The good news is that once you identify what your unique body needs in order to have stable blood sugar, you will notice a dramatic impact in the way you feel physically and mentally. Food, stress, sleep, movement, gut health, and more all impact your blood sugar, and with the Life Boost Approach we’ll address all of those to set you up for success.
Brain (mindset, stress, happiness, brain health)
It’s impossible to achieve sustainable health and a lifestyle you love if you’re not addressing the automatic patterns and roadblocks in the way. Your environment, lifestyle factors, food, life experiences, blood sugar, and gut health all have a dramatic impact on your overall mindset, brain health, mood, and stress. When you aren’t paying attention to how your thoughts and beliefs influence your actions and decisions, it’s impossible to feel in control.
So many of the decisions you make happen at the subconscious level. Once you start tuning into and becoming aware of what’s going on in that brain of yours, you have the power to partner with your nervous system, to break the patterns and habits that haven’t been working for you, and to reprogram your brain in a way that sets you up for resilience and long-term success. This is an absolutely critical piece to address in order to feel alive and fulfilled in life.
Embrace the 3 C's to move forward anytime you feel stuck or things feel hard:
Compassion
Everything in life is more enjoyable and doable when you’re your biggest cheerleader instead of your worst critic. Regardless of your goal, at the root is a belief that it will help you to feel better about yourself. You cannot achieve real health and success without unconditional self-compassion.
How have you been talking to yourself throughout the day or when you look in the mirror?
Curiosity
Judgment stalls progress and smothers joy, curiosity opens doors to problem-solving and moving forward towards clarity on why something is feeling hard and what is going to feel better.
By being here, you are already embracing curiosity to learn more about your body and mind!
Connection
All aspects of your life influence all aspects of your health and vice versa. In order to problem-solve and create sustainable change that feels good, you have to look at how everything is connected.
When something is feeling overwhelming, there's a tendency to be zoomed in on the problem or a moment (like a never-ending GIF). By zooming out, it shifts your perspective so that you can see opportunities for change that you may not have seen before.
Connection also means re-connecting with your whole self - body, mind, and heart and the things that truly matter. When things are feeling hard, it's easy to be in your head thinking about what you should do logically. In order to make changes that are in alignment with your true self, it's important to listen to what your body and heart are telling you, too - they are your compass for finding a path towards health and success that feels good inside and out.
Most Approaches Miss The Big Picture
The problem with most approaches is that they focus on only one of these components which causes an imbalance and misses the ultimate goal: to feel good physically and mentally.
If you hyperfocus on blood sugar, your approach may harm your gut health, stress you out any time you eat something that might cause a spike, and decrease your quality of life because you’re not allowing yourself to have food you enjoy.
If you hyperfocus on gut health, your blood sugar could be going on a roller coaster ride and becoming too restrictive and focusing only on GI signs can stress you out leading to more gut issues.
If you only focus on your mindset around food and stress level but you don’t understand how your food is impacting your blood sugar and gut health and therefore your energy, cravings, mood, hormones, metabolism, inflammation, and more, you won't understand how to feel your best.
And I think we can all agree that most health plans miss all 3 of the Life Boost L's, right?!
The Life Boost approach is a way of reconnecting with and listening to your unique body, mind, and heart as one to create a long-term lifestyle that you love.
Which of the 3 L's, B's, and C's might need a little TLC for you? Use my Life Boost Starter Kit to find out and for tons of resources to support you in getting started making changes that feel good inside and out. 😊
0 comments
Leave a comment