by Reena Daruwalla, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com

Yes! And let’s add to that a corollary, Healthy is Sexy at any Size. Our ultimate goal in life should be to attain good health, of mind, body and spirit. We need to change the general perception that a person needs to be a certain size to be beautiful. The truth is that each one of us needs o be whatever the ideal size for each one of us is. And what is our ideal size? The size at which each one of us is healthiest! That makes some of us curvy, some of us thin, some of us a little on the heavy side and so on. We need to take all of those body shapes and sizes and celebrate them!

Each one of us needs to know what it is that that is good for our own bodies and what we can do to prevent its abuse. By this I mean that we need to look after ourselves and our health by leading active lifestyles and eating right.

Let me share with you some of the mantras that I live my life by:

• I lead an active life: About three times a week I hit the gym, where I do moderate intensity weights for between 20 and 30 minutes. I put on upbeat music on the i pod to really get me in the mood. I take my girls to the park most days and following them around is in itself a bit of a work out! Whenever possible my husband and I take a walk, and I really believe that all major family decisions are usually taken when we are out on our walk. Even having a family pillow fight or a good laugh session is activity!
• I make sure my family and I eat right: I am a woman who loves her meat, but in the interest of good health, we are vegetarian two days of the week. The rule of thumb is, one fruit and one vegetable every day. A good way to include fresh seasonal fruits in our diet is to replace the sweet at the end of the meal with fruit. Indians generally eat chapattis (sort of whole wheat pancake) and not bread, which I make myself daily, so I know that we don’t eat too much of refined flour.
• I sweat it out: This is not very difficult in the warm Indian climate and I am convinced that this is great for my skin. I may be right or I may be imagining it, but I feel that sweating rids my skin of impurities and cleans the pores. And this is for sure: my skin looks radiant after a good sweat session.
• I drink water: Water according to me is the most delicious drink in the world. I am lucky I hate sodas and aerated drinks. I have convinced my little girls to think the same way by giving them a rather grim demonstration: once I cleaned the toilet with coca cola to show them that this is certainly not suitable for human consumption! So I drink water and lots of it. Even juices don’t hold much attraction (with the exception of that great Indian drink, sugar cane juice) I’d rather eat the fruit.
• I control food portions rather than cut out entire food groups: This way I can eat anything but I make sure that I have it in moderation! And I truly enjoy eating so I would hate to have to give up on anything. I also believe that variety in my diet is a must so that I get all the requisite nutrients from food and do not require any supplements.
• If it is too difficult, I don’t do it: I once tried to lose weight in order to get into a particular pair of pants. It was too difficult. Even if I had been able to manage it, it would not have been for long, that is not the way my body was meant to be. Just as some people cannot put on weight if their lives depended on it, I could not get thin if my life depended on it. My body structure is such! I accepted that I would not look like that, and also that I looked great the way I was!

As long as I live by these easy to implement mantras, I remain fit, full of energy, healthy and most importantly happy with myself! I am going to ask Nancy to share some of her mantras for Sexy at any Size with you as well, so stay tuned!