Health of mind, health of body
BETHANY BLITZ/Press Yoga instructor Jen Harbour, middle, leads a group of women in calculating the amount of time they spend sitting every day. The activity was part of the Live Life Conference on Saturday, which gave women tools to be healthier.
BETHANY BLITZ/Press Yoga instructor Jen Harbour leads a group of women in breathing exercises at Saturday’s Live Life Conference that gave women tools to be healthier.
By BETHANY BLITZ
Staff Writer
Evie Fatz poured her heart out to a room of 20 strangers Saturday, noting excellence cannot be achieved without honesty.
The owner of Lotus Fit by Design hosted a Live Life Conference over the weekend to help women better understand why being healthy is important and what actually works.
“If you want to truly create health, you have to understand how health allows you to live to your highest values,” Fatz said.
The workshop focused on how one’s mentality can help them be healthier.
The session started off by each person filling out a questionnaire that helped them examine their lives. The questions asked what kind of things, people and activities participants spend most their time thinking about. It prompted attendees to look within to find their habits and routines to see if they match the person’s goals and ambitions.
The conference then brought in guest speakers that talked about movement, nutrition, how they affect each other and how they affect a person’s body and mind.
Yoga instructor Jen Harbour led the group in some simple exercises to help people stay moving throughout the day.
“Sitting is like the new cigarette,” she said to the group. “I think we’ve already smoked a few packs today.”
She also spoke about overcoming barriers and excuses that people create for themselves — such as ‘I don’t have enough time.’
Ammi Midstokke, a local nutritionist who owns Two Birds Nutrition, spoke about the relationship people have with food and how we are what we eat. She emphasized that a diet is as unique as an individual.
“It’s important to listen to your body,” she said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all diet, just like there are no one-size-fits-all nylons.”
Women from all over attended the conference. Some were locals who attend Lotus, others were just community members and one woman even came from California to join her cousins for the conference.
Deborah Berzins of Rathdrum said she was really looking forward to getting all the tips and advice she could. She is a cancer survivor and has gone four years without it coming back. If she makes it another year, she will be ‘cancer free.’
“This next year I really want to focus on getting my health together with nutrition and exercise,” she said. “I love this; it’s focusing on your mind and your feelings about yourself.
“I really expected it to be more exercise oriented, but it’s more about how you see yourself and how that controls everything. It’s great.”