By Adrien Cotton

As a women’s midlife wellness expert, I am often asked, “What is your secret to looking and feeling fit?”

My answer is always, “The Wellness Wheel.”

I created the Wellness Wheel, my proprietary approach to holistic wellness, after my two decades of experience as a wellness, nutrition, and fitness professional and the owner of a boutique gym. Throughout my work, I noticed specific strategies that best served my clients. These strategies, which I call the spokes to my Wellness Wheel, became the basis of my sustainable wellness practice–and frankly my own life.

The spokes are designed to address all aspects of wellness instead of only tracking the number on the scale or our daily calories. They are so incredibly simple, yet they are also NOT what society wants you to believe is the recipe for success. They include:

• Ample and Quality Sleep
• Stress Resilience
• Movement
• Food as Fuel
• Calendar Management

My Wellness Wheel is the product of witnessing the struggles of countless women who sought an improved quality of life (AKA look and feel better) while also taking care of their families and other obligations. Our diet and our movement are undoubtedly essential components of a healthy existence, but they are merely two pieces of a much larger puzzle.

Success happens when our mindset about our own wellness overall shifts from what it was when we were in our teens, twenties, and thirties. Shifting our mindset to one that centers on the entire self rather than singular aspects, like solely focusing on diet and/or fitness which got us by before. Now, in our forties and beyond, we are more than the result of what we eat and/or our fitness. Our optimization relies on sustainability and consistency, and we can’t get that through diet and cardio alone.

Here is a closer look at each spoke of my Wellness Wheel and how they work together to support your complete wellness:

Sleep

Sleep is integral to our wellness. It is not something we can wait to figure out when we have more time or once there is less to do. Not getting ample (7 to 7.5 hours) quality (uninterrupted) sleep often leads to weight gain, irritability, anxiety, depression, and even heart disease.

The time to build quality sleep habits is right now! Women particularly in perimenopause and menopause need 7 to 7 ½ hours of uninterrupted sleep each night.

We are not alone in our quest for better sleep. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, 70 million Americans have chronic sleep problems. A study from 2020 found that 88 percent of Americans lose sleep from binge-watching TV. For women, the numbers are startling—nearly 46 percent of women report having sleep problems most nights. We are a nation of non-sleepers. It is time to take back our ZZZs.

Movement

The keys to movement are consistency and strength. Showing up every Tuesday for your morning walk with a friend will do more for your waistline, and more importantly your wellness, than an intense HIIT session once a week that may or may not happen because of other obligations. The fact that you showed up matters more than the intensity or the potential pool of sweat you’ll see from the high intensity workout.

Reframing our mindset about movement is where the magic happens. We are all athletes. We possibly just haven’t found our sport. When we find an activity we enjoy doing each week, we see and feel the results. We may also build some strength and flexibility in the process.. Whether it’s pickleball, a morning swim, a yoga class each week, using resistance bands between meetings, or a 30-minute walk with your pup, there are thousands of ways to move.

Food As Fuel

Food can often be associated with guilt, failure, and shame. It is often to blame for so many people not looking or feeling good. Calorie counting and deprivation dieting have not helped matters. Instead, shifting our mindset to viewing food as the essential fuel we need bodes well for our bodies and the rest of the spokes on the Wheel. We need food to function.

Rapid weight loss and quick fix diet programs wreak havoc on the body and our gut. It can stagnate metabolism and negatively affect our resting metabolic rate, which is the number of calories the body utilizes while it is at rest. Dieting can even disrupt our hunger cues, making it more difficult to differentiate between hunger and cravings.

Instead of demonizing carbs and excessively counting calories, we need to get back to the source of what food is: fuel for our bodies. Food fuels the lives we have chosen.

Mastering Your Calendar

You may be wondering how the way we spend our time can affect our waistline and why I have mastering your calendar as an equal spoke on my Wheel as food.

I believe time is our greatest asset. How we choose to spend it reflects our purpose and our values. No one ever asked for a tombstone that says “she was the most productive person” or “she was the best multitasker.” If, in fact, health and wellness is a top five core value, would I see it reflected on your calendar?

We call scheduling our wellness: filling my bucket first. We often have difficulty saying no and feel like the busier we are the more productive and successful we will be. It’s important to adjust our mindsets on how to effectively manage our time while also taking care of our wellness. When we take the time to prioritize ourselves, we find that our calendar begins to align with our values and goals.

Stress Resilience

Stress impacts every aspect of our health. It wakes us up in the middle of the night. It impacts our food choices. It decreases our motivation to move.

An overpacked calendar can be the culprit. Stress raises the level of the hormone cortisol in our bodies. Cortisol is our body’s alarm system hormone. When it is triggered, it activates our sympathetic, or “fight or flight,” system. Stress is a normal human reaction and can be a good thing, like when needing motivation to complete a project or being chased by a lion (which hopefully doesn’t happen often), but it can also inhibit productivity and wellness, particularly when it is chronic and left unchecked.

I get the overwhelm that comes with stress. In my mid-40s as the mother of twin toddlers, I felt a level of overwhelm I had not experienced. My never-ending days and neglecting my own needs to take care of others while also managing my own business left me feeling debilitated by stress. Eventually, I could no longer keep up with the pace I set for myself. I sought the advice of a health professional and adopted a stress resilience practice that continues to be as important to me as any other item on my to-do list. I’m forever thankful I changed my mindset toward stress. You can too.

When we adopt a holistic approach and incorporate strategies from the Wellness Wheel, we experience a total revolution in our lives. We step away from the cycle of fad diets, medication, and exercise programs that perpetuate feelings of negativity and unworthiness about ourselves and instead integrate a positive wellness practice.

This journey isn’t effortless. It requires making a conscious decision to prioritize yourself each day. This journey is worth it though, and with the Wellness Wheel as our guide, it is a path that will keep us moving toward sustainable, fulfilling wellness.

ADRIEN COTTON believes the greatest gift you can give yourself is the gift of wellness. She excels in shifting mindset and helping her clients leverage small habits that yield lasting results. As a transformational wellness coach, Adrien leverages her holistic proprietary approach to helping people feel healthy, strong, and confident in their bodies and their lives. Learn how you can uplevel your wellness with Adrien, in-person or virtually, at adriencotton.com.