Day #16 – What Are Some Unexpected Benefits of a Healthy Lifestyle?

When I started bodybuilding this winter I expected a few things to happen:  1- I’d lose weight.  2- I’d feel better.  3- I’d look better.  All those benefits indeed happened.  Here are a few other surprises that happened:

1.  A healthy lifestyle impacted my kids.  Even though my children are very young and we don’t have lengthy conversations about health, apparently they were watching me and absorbing things on their own.  For example, while training I switched up my own diet but kept their diet mostly the same, with the thought that I needed to fix myself before I could fix anyone else yet.  One day we sat down for dinner and I was eating ground turkey, quinoa and green beans and my kids were eating bow-tie pasta with butter.  Rylee suddenly rose from the dinner table and went to the refrigerator.  “What are you doing?” I asked.  She came back with some leftover chicken and said, “I have gym tomorrow, so I’m going to need some extra protein with my carbs so I can run faster.”  WHAT??

2.  A healthy lifestyle increased my confidence.  Lifting weights is a mental game.  Your muscles don’t want to push or pull something heavy but your mind says, “That’s nice, we’re going to lift it anyway.”  At the end of a set you realize that you’re stronger than you thought you were, which boosts your confidence internally.  Externally, within weeks you can see tangible changes to your body reflected back to you in the mirror.   Exercise also improves your posture because you are aligning your vertebrae, and when you stand taller, people seem to respect you more because your posture tells the world that you respect yourself.

3.  A healthy lifestyle made sex better.  Yeah, I said it.  I’m going to have the scientists back me up here.  I went to GoAskAlice, the medical website of Columbia University, to see if exercise truly increases the libido or if I was just weird.  Apparently, exercise not only releases endorphins that in turn release hormones to rev up a person’s sex drive, it also pumps more blood to the genitals which can help men overcome ED and women achieve a bigger O.  Kinda makes you want to do lunges right now, huh? 😉  Here is the link to the article:  GoAskAlice.

How about you?  What unexpected benefits have you noticed after starting a healthier lifestyle?

Lisa

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