Kay:

Hey yo Questers, it’s Wellness Wednesday, February 3rd, and we are right in the middle of Black History Month, which, you know, means that we are bringing you some of the best black leaders and black minds that we can find and today we have a black, marathon-running, American health coach and entrepreneur who also has some Samoan ancestry and this is the one and only Lita Lewis.

Shi:

She tells us, “Health is more than fitness,” which is so small and succinct, and yet it’s so powerful.

Kay:

Five words that mean so much.

Shi:

Right. “Health is more than fitness.” What does that mean? That really means that we want to take a more holistic perspective when it comes to our health and we know that fitness is a part of it but there’s so much more to it and there’s more dimension. We don’t want to limit ourselves to think if I’m fit, therefore I’m healthy because when we do take that holistic approach and we consider health in this way, we really do our best to think about the other avenues of our life, like mental health, like emotional health, like relational health and we can see this more deep picture of our understanding of health that really does go beyond fitness.

Kay:

Look, you could have a banging body. You could have every single one of your packs. You guys know what I’m talking about, that six-pack, that eight pack, those abs. You’ve got every single one pronounced on that belly, but still, be totally depressed. You can have an amazing marriage, but you could be so physically unhealthy and both of you are perpetuating that together. You could be doing every single positive affirmation in the book, but because you haven’t done that emotional hygiene you could still be finding yourself in those same feeling patterns that disrupt your life, time and time again. So, just because you have health in one area, doesn’t mean that you’re fit in all.

Shi:

By bringing this a more holistic understanding, I think it gives us that opportunity to examine those other areas of our lives and ask where we can be more healthy and where we could bring in more of that. Kay and I like to often talk about the fact that balance is a myth, that balance is really hard and takes a lot of attention in order to keep something balanced. We like to focus more on harmony, and I think this really ties in well with this idea of health because it’s not often that you sacrifice for one area of your life and continue to sacrifice before you see that it’s going to hurt the other areas. So, finding ways to bring harmony to all of your health zones can make that life feel more balanced and be in more harmony.

Kay:

Yes. As you start finding more health in those health zones and you get more balanced, you find that those zones kind of feed each other because that person does have that banging bod and those eight pack abs it’s likely that their thinking is a little bit clearer and that their emotional health is easier to deal with than someone who is steeped in the emotional negativity of disliking their body image. So, the health sides feed one another but they’re not mutually exclusive.

Shi:

What I also like about this quote is that it encourages us to look at it more broadly, to think of it more broadly, but it encourages us to consider things like mental health, (BIG buzzword right now), lots of people talking about mental health. One of our business partners, Dr. Daniel Amen, talks about how we should really make this be more about brain health because it’s the organ that houses the mental faculties that we use, and so really mental health is brain health. We’ve been enjoying that kind of perspective shift here, but whether we’re calling it brain health or mental health, it’s obviously an incredibly important component of our every moment of experience. If your internal experience is not a fun one, if it’s toxic in there, if it’s unhealthy, your life is not going to be fulfilling and it’s going to probably be pretty full of pain and suffering.

Kay:

Now, mental health is one of those things that many of us, I think, can get into the weeds on a little bit, thinking to yourself, “well, while I have anxiety and that’s just who I am and that’s just how that is.” We’re not here to tell you how to cure your mental ailments or your mental illnesses but mental health and emotional health go hand in hand, and they might sound like they’re two different things but like you said, they’re not mutually exclusive. They feed off of one another and so maybe, as you’re focusing on that mental health, think into, “where do my emotions come into play? Am I depressed because I’m fat? So I eat because I’m depressed and then I get more fat and I’m in that cycle of depression, or if I were to just move my body, even one walk around the block, could that help with that mental health and knowing that I at least did one thing today that move me toward my physical health?” Now, as Lita Lewis reminds us, “Health is more than fitness.”

Shi:

Five powerful words that bring us to your #WellnessWednesday Quest today. What is one way you can improve your health today besides or in addition to engaging in physical fitness, through the form of exercise? Whether it’s a healthy meal, 15 minutes of meditation, or making yourself a little me time to end the evening, decide on one way you wish to improve your health today. Are you ready?

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!