4 Health Lessons I Learned In Europe

I just got back from the most amazing 23-day trip through Europe.  I journeyed through Croatia, Italy and the Netherlands.  I met up with old friends and made some new ones.

While I certainly was expecting an abundance of adventure, I wasn’t exactly expecting to return home with some very important health lessons.

Sometimes it takes getting out of your space to realize the most important things in life.

We have a tendency to get stuck where we are, to constantly criticize, to under appreciate and not even recognize what our current state of normal is.

This becomes so apparent when I work with new clients.  Feeling fat, tired and sick all the time and a victim of their circumstances is their current normal when we start our work together.  They have no idea what it feels like to “feel good” and be empowered.

I’ve even had some say to me “ I don’t know if I’ve ever felt good before.” And after a week or two into our work they are singing their praises about how amazing they are feeling just from some small shifts in their diet and a few supplements to support their body.

The first 30 to 90 days of a client’s health rebuilding program is what I call the “honeymoon phase.”  They are naturally high and lit up about how they are feeling because they’ve been living in the dark for so long and now they know what it’s like to feel different.

We only know what we know until we know something different.

Shortly after the honeymoon phase passes, when feeling good becomes the new normal, for some reason we start to take for granted how good we are feeling.  I say ‘we’ because I’m guilty of this, too.

Eating healthy, taking supplements, going to the gym, meditating, drinking water, and getting to bed at a reasonable time start to feel burdensome.  Logically we know that these things are essential for our health, but we start to rationalize not doing them as consistently because we are feeling so good.

Consistency is crucial, and this was one of my biggest takeaways from my trip.

In this week’s video and blog I dive more into how consistency is so crucial and my other top health takeaways from my 23-Day trip to Europe.

I’ve been at this health game as I currently teach and talk about it now for over 3 years.  I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs.  I haven’t been perfect, but I have always been committed to improving my health and to learning from my slip-ups.

During my journey through Europe there were a lot of realizations I had about my health and here are the most important ones I wanted to share with you:

#1- Meditation Is A Must

I’ve had a consistent meditation practice now for almost a year.  However, without my regular routine, moving from place to place every few days and wanting to get out early for sightseeing, I hardly meditated at all and I felt it in a big way.  

Being calm, cool and collected had become my new normal once I started consistently meditating.  So when my old, shorter-tempered, more irritable and anxious self showed up on my trip, it brought to light just how important it is for me to meditate regularly.  Living with a short fuse means shortening your life. It triggers the flight or fight response, disrupting hormones and causing the body to age rapidly.  

I had become so used to being at peace I forgot what it was like to be any other way.  I am so grateful for this reminder that mediation is non-negotiable, as my friend and colleague Molly Hamill would say.

#2- I’m Better Off Without Gluten And Dairy

I had a ball eating pasta, bread and mounds of cheese in Europe!  It was delicious.  I’ve spent the past few years creating a consistent gluten, dairy, sugar and soy-free lifestyle to heal my leaky gut, rebalance my hormones and improve my health but this was a once in a lifetime kind of trip.

I was able to eat these foods in abundance and not experience the usual digestive upset and anxiety I would get in the past (a sign my gut is healing!).  However, that doesn’t mean that gluten and dairy didn’t affect me.  I still experienced nasal congestion and some mild joint pain from my indulgences.  It was a friendly reminder that even while my digestion might seem fine, gluten and dairy are still disruptive and inflammatory to the body, so I shouldn’t be fooled.

#3- Make Time To Metabolize

It was a miracle if we finished a meal in under 2 hours.  And not because we were stuffing our faces, but because the culture in Europe is to take your time with your meals, to enjoy the food – there is no rush.  

Sometimes even when I eat the healthiest of foods I can experience a little bit of digestive upset, and it’s almost always associated with stress or eating too fast. In Europe I experienced NONE of this, no matter what I ate, and likely because I was relaxed at each meal,giving my body time to actually digest.  I’m bringing back a little bit of Europe’s slower pace of eating to honor my body and give it the time it needs to properly metabolize in a conscious effort to let the healing continue to happen.

#4- This Is Working!

My newest normal has been in a “feeling good” place.  Once you start feeling well, it’s easy to forget how crappy you used to feel. It’s easy to lose sight of how far you’ve come and the gratitude that goes along with that.

During my trip, I returned to some of the places I had been 3 years ago and it brought back memories of how much I was struggling with my health before.  I remembered feeling bloated, exhausted and wanting to nap all of the time, and completely drained from jetlag.  

This time I was pleasantly surprised – I didn’t have an ounce of jetlag, I didn’t get sick, my energy was good all of the time, I was able to sleep just fine and re-entry into reality upon my return went smoothly.  All of the work I have invested in my health and the consistency I’ve been creating with this healthy lifestyle is really starting to pay off!

You might be wondering why am I sharing all of this with you.  

I’m sharing it because I know what it’s like to feel stuck, to feel like every day is a struggle, to know you have more potential but you don’t know how to harness it.

And I want you to know that even those of us who “appear” to be healthy have to work at it daily.

Healthy is a way of being, not doing.

I want you to know that truly being healthy means living into it consistently.  It is a journey.  No one is perfect, but every day is a new day to try, and over time you’ll be there before you know it.

HIT REPLY! – I would love to hear from you about what resonated most with you from my sharing my experience.  Hit reply and let me know 🙂