Minimal Wellness

Minimal Wellness

Simple. Optimal. Health.

The Gray

By Rebecca Shern · Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

One of the most enduring aspects of my personal wellness journey is a continual effort to find balance and avoid extremism. The health and fitness industry is permeated by black and white, good or bad thinking, but I believe it’s in The Gray that most people find true wellness. The ability to not obsess over diet, exercise, weight, or appearance — but to still have those things matter and have importance — is essential to optimal health.

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Gut Health

By Rebecca Shern · Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

Living within your gastrointestinal tract are 100 trillion microbes from over 1000 different species, collectively referred to as the gut microbiome. Recent research into the microbial world within our bodies has illuminated many previously unknown connections to our overall health. Indeed, the human body is an ecosystem with many sub-ecosystems (such as the gut), and just like the environment, when one of those ecosystems malfunctions, it compromises the entire system.

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Sleep

By Rebecca Shern · Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

The three cornerstones of optimal health are: diet, physical activity, and sleep. Yes, sleep. Although Americans are very good at minimizing the importance of sleep, it is critical to vitality. Because we pretend we’re superhuman, needing far less rest than we actually do, and we try to minimize non-productive time — sleep, a time when we are resting and not producing something of tangible value, is dramatically undervalued. But viewing sleep as a time of unnecessary rest and of non-productivity is faulty logic.

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Exercise

By Rebecca Shern · Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

We are built to move. The human form is beautifully and perfectly suited for endurance, power, and flexibility. For optimal health we must respect, celebrate, and nurture our physical abilities with purposeful and enjoyable activity.

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Sugar

By Rebecca Shern · Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

The modern food system, and therefore modern eaters, have a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship with sugar. It’s one of the most addictive substances (up to 8 times more addicting than cocaine) that humans regularly consume and added sugar is in nearly every processed food product made.

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A Calorie Is Not a Calorie

By Rebecca Shern · Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

For decades, we have been told that when it comes to weight gain, loss, and maintenance, a calorie is a calorie. Meaning, that a calorie — which is a specific amount of chemical energy — coming from an energy-yielding macronutrient (carbohydrates, proteins, fats or alcohol) will all function the same in the body. It also implied that a caloric intake of 2,000 calories will have the same impact on weight status, regardless of it’s composition (the respective ratios of carbs, proteins, fats and alcohol).

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Minimal Wellness Dietary Principles — Part 1: Whole Foods

By Rebecca Shern · Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

Diet is a fascinating topic — there’s an endless amount of nutritional nuance, refinement, and data available, with all that information it is possible to create a prescriptive personalized diet. Yet, what is appropriate for one person’s diet may not necessarily be ideal or work for another — we all have different taste preferences, come from different families and cultures, have different health profiles and resources, and have unique life circumstances.

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Habits Determine Health

By Rebecca Shern · Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

The health, fitness, and wellness world is anything but straightforward — wildly shifting from one hot trend to the next, companies and businesses benefit from endlessly complicating messages about health. The cacophony of information on how to be healthier, fitter, leaner, makes even the most grounded person’s head spin and ears ring.

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