Mary Helen's Tips for Keeping your Body in Balance

Hi Ballet Beauties! In a previous blog, I shared my tips for staying motivated and the significance of your mindset for reaching your goals. Now I want to talk about the importance of achieving balance and paying attention to how you feel. To achieve lasting success and happiness in anything you are doing and to stay grounded, focused and confident, finding balance is a must. Without balance, you risk a burnout and all of its side effects. Finding balance in your diet and fitness routine will help you lose weight, look and feel better, and, most importantly, maintain those hard-earned results! While a quick fix can be incredibly seductive, I have learned that the true value of a fitness and lifestyle program is measured in how well it can be maintained. This means getting away from extremes to stay focused and on track with your health and happiness. Balance is about learning to stay grounded in yourself so that you know what you need, you keep your priorities in line, and at the same time you remain flexible and forgiving enough to not push yourself in counterproductive ways. It also mean staying in touch with how you feel. If you find yourself swinging from a lot of energy to a little, or waking up one morning feeling great and the next feeling glum, then you might be doing something else to trigger these mood shifts. Balance begins with the physical, but it's equal parts emotional and mental -- you cannot have one without the other. Here are some of my tips for keeping your body in balance: - Learn to listen - Avoid deprivation - Know when to move on if you have overindulged - Always consider your body's needs As you learn to pay attention to how you feel and to root out patterns that are not aligned with your health and fitness goals, you will naturally and easily fall into balance -- physically, emotionally and mentally. For more of Mary Helen’s lifestyle, health or fitness tips, pick up the Ballet Beautiful book!