When You’ve Always Been Healthy, But Now You’re Well

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Turns out, what I thought was a break from fitness, was actually a retirement.

For more than 20 years, my career has revolved around health.

As a fitness professional, I learned how to move my body, fuel it, challenge it, discipline it, and take care of it.

I’ve worked at some of the top fitness companies, had client rosters that paid me in much more than dollars and pushed my body through accomplishes I will tell my grandkids about.

So, there’s no doubt, I know how to be healthy.

But somewhere along the way, living in Spain began teaching me how to be well.

And I’m realizing they aren’t the same thing.

A healthy lifestyle taught me to optimize my body. Or as the kids are saying today, “maxxing.”

But wellness has taught me to listen to it.

I’ve started honoring my natural schedule instead of forcing myself to be an early bird simply because I was taught that early rising equals productivity. I’m more creative and energized later in the day. When I stopped fighting that, my energy changed.

I’ve also changed the way I think about food.

I used to eat healthy with the goal of carb loading to teach multiple classes a day or the outcome of looking good for an upcoming shoot. Now, I’m much more interested in eating in a way that makes me feel good.

And somehow, looking good has become the side effect.

But perhaps the biggest shift has been discovering the secret macro:

Joy.

I used to call it romanticizing my life. My soft girl era. But Spain has shown me that this doesn’t have to be an era.

It can simply be a way of living.

A long lunch. A slow coffee, with a cookie. A walk without a destination. Sitting in the sun. Enjoying dinner without rushing toward the next thing.

Pleasure doesn’t need a purpose.

It can be the purpose.

And this realization has made the evolution of my 20-year career in fitness feel less like a departure and more like a natural transformation.

Fitness taught me how to become strong.

Wellness is teaching me that I don’t always have to be strong.

Sometimes I can simply feel good.

This change has been challenging. I’m still learning how to release some of the rules that made me feel “healthy” for so many years.

But I’m welcoming this next chapter with open arms.

Because for the first time, I’m not just healthy.

I truly feel well.

Where in your life are you still optimizing when what you might really need is to simply feel well?