It is all good to strive to be healthy through proper diet, exercise and generally living in a way agreeable to long term health. But as we get more and more bombarded by new researches and extremes and body image issues, we may end up overdoing health and end up ruining it instead. Take a step back and check if you recognize any of these signs that you may be going overboard.
1. In your quest to shed the very last hint of fat in your body, you have made food potions ridiculously small. Much as food has almost completely been labeled evil by some weight loss advocates, our bodies need it in good doses for fuel and vital vitamins and minerals that keep the cells in optimal condition.
2. You feel superior over friends and family who are not necessarily on your extreme path to health. Never mind they may also be on the right path to healthy living but only a bit more normal and accommodating about it. The people you look down upon may actually be on a more sustainable regime and do not run the risk of dropping off the bandwagon in a few short weeks.
3. You de-prioritize your social life because you can’t even meet friends lest you risk the danger of running into a sandwich with a little mayo or mustard and ruining your carefully planned healthy lifestyle. You deny yourself the joy of sharing a meal with loves ones because it may interfere with your unrealistic boundaries. Food is social and sharing a meal with loved ones every once in a while if not every day is beneficial to the deepest of our psyches. Of course this does not apply in these days of social distancing and staying at home due to COVID-19 but you get the idea.
4. You allocate too large a budget on supplement vitamin pills and shakes. They’re unregulated and a lot of consumers don’t see the need to talk to their doctors about them and herein the danger of going overboard. Mega doses of vitamin pills and shakes is costly, often unnecessary and can be downright dangerous to your health. This would be a sad state of affairs considering you can get all these nutrients from normal every day foods.
5. You peg your self esteem on how well or how poorly you’re doing on your near unrealistic lifestyle. You gauge every reaction that you expect your body to have and if the same is not forth coming as fast or as exact as you envision it, you get onto a warpath beating yourself up over it and also over small slip ups that may have happened along the way. You feel like all faculties of your life have failed just because you skipped the gym or because you ate a little more than a morsel over lunch and go on an over compensating spree.