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Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the never-ending health advice out there? 

Or wonder if some of the health “rules” you live by might be causing more stress than they’re worth?

If these questions resonate with you, then you’re in for a treat with this episode! We’re challenging conventional wellness wisdom and talking about why it’s okay — and sometimes crucial — to break certain health rules.

Tune in to learn: why less intense workouts can sometimes be more beneficial, the power of embracing flexibility in your daily routines, how tracking every detail of your progress can hinder rather than help, the reasons why strict eating rules can backfire, and why I let go of the “no pain, no gain” mantra.

So if you’re ready to embrace a more liberating approach to health, then press play now… This one’s for you!

In this episode we chat about:

• Do workouts need to be intense to be effective? (1:17)
• What to do when your routine is no longer serving you (2:48)
• Why it’s okay not to track every single metric on your health journey (4:12)
• The strict eating rule I used to swear by — and now I’m happy to have broken! (5:34)
• The truth about “no pain, no gain” (7:34)

Episode resources:

• SheLaunch (join here)
• Mastering Your Mean Girl by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Open Wide by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Comparisonitis by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Time Magic by Melissa Ambrosini and Nick Broadhurst (book)

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The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy.

[00:00:00] Hey, beautiful. Welcome back to the show. I am so excited about this episode because I’m going to be sharing with you. Five wellness rules that deserve to be broken. Grab your pen and paper. Let’s dive in. Welcome to the Melissa Ambrosini show. I’m your host, Melissa, best selling author of Mastering Your Mean Girl, Open Wide, Comparisonitis.

And time magic. And I’m here to remind you that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word. Each week I’ll be getting up close and personal with thought leaders from around the globe, as well as your weekly dose of motivation so that you can create epic change in your own life and become the best version of yourself possible.

Are you ready? Beautiful. Beautiful.

Hey, beautiful and welcome back to the show. Today I’m going to be sharing with [00:01:00] you five wellness rules that deserve to be broken. Now, you guys know that I love wellness. I love health. I am obsessed. And I want to share five rules that deserve to be broken. Are you ready? Let’s dive in. Okay. Rule number one, a workout must be intense to be effective.

Now, I am all for tough, sweat drenched workouts. There is something so exhilarating about it, feeling those endorphins like racing through your body. It is so good. I mean, that feeling is incredible, but constantly pushing yourself to the limit every single day can have the opposite effect than intended.

It can burn out our adrenal glands and fry our nervous system, okay, because women, especially, we are not [00:02:00] designed to push ourselves like that every single day. We have to honor our cycle, okay? And our bodies thrive on a variety of workouts and intensities. Depending on where we’re at in our cycle. So slower, more calming sessions like yoga or Pilates or walking in nature.

They are just as important as the intense ones. So embracing this kind of variety, it not only makes your fitness regime like so much more sustainable and fun, but it also adds an element of play and enjoyment that is hard to beat. So, remember, rule number one, a workout must be intense to be effective is a wellness rule that deserves to be broken, my beautiful friend.

Okay, let’s move on to rule number two. Find a routine and stick with it. This rule needs a major rethink. Now if your daily routine doesn’t feel right anymore, [00:03:00] if your little routines and rituals they don’t light you up, it’s not just okay to change it, it is absolutely essential. Now, with a young child at home, I have learned to be flexible with my daily routine.

And as a family, we are constantly adapting things to meet our daughter’s changing needs. So for example, she went from three sleeps a day to two sleeps a day to one sleep a day and now she doesn’t have a sleep. So we reconstructed our whole day to work around those naptimes and. That’s what you got to do when you’re in this season of your life.

So what season of life are you in right now? And even if you don’t have kids, the same principle applies. Like if a ritual or a routine is not serving you, it is time to revise it. Do something that lights you up. Okay. So rule number two, find a routine and stick with it. That is a wellness rule that deserves to be broken.

Tune in each day. Does this [00:04:00] feel true for me? Does this light me up? Does this align with me and the season that I’m in right now? And if yes, do it. If no, shift it. Yeah. Be flexible. Okay. All right. Number three, rule number three, you need to track every step and every workout. Now while tracking has its place, obsessing over numbers can take the fun out of being active and it is not necessarily good for our mindset.

So it is totally fine to take breaks from tracking or even to retire from it entirely if it is causing you stress. Okay. All right. I used to track all of my steps and be like, yes, I’m getting 10, 000 steps. And I’m in a phase right now where I’m like, I actually don’t care. As long as I move my body, I actually don’t care, but that might change tomorrow.

And I might be tracking again, but right now I’m like, I’m cool to not track. Right. So instead focus simply on how you feel, right. So [00:05:00] many people find this to be a far more rewarding approach and it can even reignite your joy for movement if the passion has taken a dive, right? So if tracking is causing you stress and not good for your mental health, then ditch it and find the joy in movement again.

Find things that you love, find things that light you up and do those instead. So that is number three. You need to track every step and every workout. That is a wellness rule that deserves to be broken, my friends. Okay, number four. Avoid carbs at all cost. Oh my gosh, this one caused me so much stress for so many years.

I avoided carbs so much. And it is not good for your body or your mindset. I spent a good chunk of my 20s following this rule to the letter. But when I became [00:06:00] plant based, it opened my eyes to a different way of eating. And it has been liberating to learn how beneficial healthy whole food carbs are, especially as a source of energy, fiber, and a host of other important phytonutrients.

Women, especially, like we need healthy carbs. It helps balance our hormones and cut through cortisol. And when I cut out carbs, I was very, very depressed and I was not a nice person to be around. I was very irritable. So healthy carbs, like sweet potato. Yum. Like that is one of the best foods I think on earth pumpkin, you know, really yummy things like that.

Get those into your diet and don’t be scared of them. And it’s also been fascinating to see how much my body thrives on them. It has been a game changer for my energy levels as well, my sleep, my mood, and my overall wellbeing. [00:07:00] And also. my cycle. It’s helped balance out my cycle. When I added in healthy carbs, it balanced out my cycle because my hormones were happier.

So like I mentioned before, my favorite and my go to carbs are roasted root vegetables and then things like quinoa, millet, oats, and plenty of fresh fruit like bananas. I eat bananas every single day. Yum, yum, yum, good, healthy carbs. So rule number four, avoid carbs at all costs is a wellness rule that deserves to be broken.

All right, my friends, let’s move to the fifth and final rule. Rule number five, no pain, no gain. Now, in my career as a professional dancer, I used to equate pain with progress. Pushing myself to extreme became the norm. I was hypercritical of my diet and exercise habits and I pretty much turned punishing myself into a full time job.

Now, transitioning out of this [00:08:00] punishing mindset into one that’s more Nurturing has been a transformative and deeply healing journey for myself. Now, these days, I’m all about self kindness, choosing activities that genuinely bring me joy, whether that’s a walk in nature, Stretching or savoring one of my favorite organic vegan raw chocolates.

Like, literally I said to my girlfriend the other day, like for me, a tumeric latte, tumeric with coconut milk. And one of my favorite organic vegan chocolate slices at the moment, I’m obsessed with this Ferrero Rocher slice that I buy from a little shop around the corner and I get a tumeric latte. It is heaven.

Like it brings me so much joy. Like Nick’s like, look at you. Like I am so happy. I’m like, look at how much joy this brings to me. I just love it. Like this is what lights me up. And so I am all about [00:09:00] self kindness and doing more of what lights me up and enjoying that and really enjoying that. That’s for sure.

And this change in my mindset isn’t just for my own benefit. It is also for my daughter. Now, I never want her to treat herself the way that I used to treat myself. So I have got the best incentive in the world to be kind to myself and to model what true self love looks like. Because we are always modeling, our children are watching everything we do and everything we say.

So if we want to model self love, we have to Do it and speak it. Yeah. They are watching everything we do and say, and I have a little hot tip for you. Some of the self love rituals that I’m introducing to my daughter already include saying affirmations, doing mindful, coloring in kid friendly yoga and deep belly breathing every night.

We do three [00:10:00] deep breaths together and she absolutely loves it. So there you have it, my friends. Now, most of us have spent our entire lives following rules and being rewarded for it. If something is not working for you, it’s time to give yourself permission to step outside the box and start over. You will see far more benefits from listening to your body, tuning in and treating yourself with love and kindness than just following a set of stock standard guidelines.

So remember the best rules in wellness is the one that makes you feel your best. So those five wellness rules, they all deserve to be broken. Rule number one, a workout must be intense to be effective. Rule number two. Find a routine and stick with it. Rule number three, you need to track every step and every workout.

Rule number four, avoid carbs at all costs. And rule number five, no pain, no gain. They all deserve to be [00:11:00] broken. Tune in to yourself, treat yourself with love and kindness. and follow routines and rituals in the wellness space that align with you and feel good for you, not because someone else told you to do it, but because it resonates with you and where you’re at right now and the season of life that you are in right now.

What season of life are you in? Ask yourself that question and then check in with yourself and see if the routines and rituals align with that. Okay, my friends. So come and tell me now on Instagram, which one of these you had and you were going to break, and then come and share with me, what’s one of your favorite wellness rituals.

I would absolutely love to hear. And if you got a lot out of this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave me a review on Apple podcasts, because that means that we can inspire and educate even more people together. And it also means that all of my episodes will pop up in your feed so that you never have to go searching for a new episode.[00:12:00] 

And before I go, I just wanted to say thank you so much for being here. I do not take it lightly. I am so grateful. And I just want to honor you for being here, for wanting to be the best, the healthiest and the happiest version of yourself and for showing up today for you. You rock. Now, if there’s someone in your life that you can think of that would really benefit from this episode, please share it with them right now.

You can take a screenshot, share it on your social media, email it to them, text it to them. Do whatever you’ve got to do to get this in their ears. And until next time, don’t forget that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word.

Thank you so much for listening. I’m so honored that you’re here and would be SO grateful if you could leave me a review on Apple podcasts, that way we can inspire and educate even more people together.

P.S. If you’re looking for a high-impact marketing opportunity for your business and are interested in becoming a sponsor for The Melissa Ambrosini Show podcast, please email pr@melissaambrosini.com for more information.

P.P.S. Please seek advice from a qualified holistic practitioner before starting any new health practice.