Top 10 Health Reset Gems to Heal Your Mind, Body, and Spirit: What I Learned From Mountain Trek

What does it mean to be healthy? It’s about balanced health: being mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, and spiritually well. If any of these components are lacking, our overall feeling of well-being is gradually depleted.

If you’re like me, you focus on various components more or less often at certain points, and sometimes you’re just too busy to even consider these aspects. This is exactly why I was grateful to do a health-reset retreat in early July at the amazing Mountain Trek, near Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.

My seven days at Mountain Trek were jam-packed with movement, mindfulness, clean eating, building friendships, learning, detoxing, and enjoying the bountiful nature and healing forests around us. The overall focus included building strength, losing fat, balancing hormones, detoxing, lowering inflammation, and raising metabolism. Most days involved gorgeous hikes, as shown in the photos below.

I would say that going into Mountain Trek, I already knew a lot about health and wellness, having learned from various experts throughout my life as well as on my Where Work Meets Life podcast. Yet I left Mountain Trek filled with the latest scientific information and wisdom, leaving me with some key gems that I will be implementing in my go-forward plan. I wanted to share some of these with you. Remember, health is not about perfection, and I know I won’t be perfect at all of this, but I’m sure going to shoot for at least 70%:

1. When you eat matters. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and dinner should be lighter; completely opposite to what most of us do. Eating 2/3 of our food in the first 9 hours of the day is much healthier, as is avoiding eating (when possible) after 6 pm. Food is fuel and eating smaller meals and healthy snacks keeps our blood sugars and hormones more balanced, and our energy levels more consistent.

2. Prioritize protein. Most of us are not eating nearly enough protein. The great thing about protein is that it keeps us full longer and won’t easily turn into fat like carbohydrates can. I learned that we should strive to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of our ideal body weight over the course of each day to keep us powered up. Despite being active for six or more hours each day at Mountain Trek, the timing of our meals and snacks, combined with high protein intake, left me feeling satiated versus starving (most of the time!)

3. Sugar isn’t sweet. We tend to eat way too much sugar, and it lurks in unexpected places, like potato chips, many packaged snacks, and even in certain protein bars and powders that we think are healthy. Sugar converts more easily into fat, and spikes our insulin, leading us to feel hungry sooner.

4. Move every time you eat and whenever you can. Even if it’s a walk around the house or office, or ideally a walk outside, moving after we eat signals our body to start burning what we just ate, rather than storing it. Also, aiming for 10,000 steps a day matters, and can be done by taking the stairs, parking at the end of the lot, and building in walking meetings into our workday, for example.

5. Strength building matters. There are so many benefits to building our muscle strength, which helps us burn more calories and stay strong enough to do the things we want to do (e.g., hiking, lifting our grandkids) for longer. Resistance training of some sort should happen 2-3 times per week. Women who are in perimenopause or menopause should be especially diligent with keeping strength training up as a priority.

6. Detox the dirty stuff. There are toxins in our food and environment that get stored in our body (often in our fat cells) if we don’t eliminate them. A good sweat through a steam or infrared sauna is a great way to do this, and something I’m incorporating weekly. Yoga and massage also help release toxins through our lymphatic system.

7. Intense workouts are not necessarily better. In fact, “steady state” type workouts, like hiking at a moderate pace, a brisk walk, a light jog, etc., where our heart rate is at 60-70% of its max, are important to do 1-3 times per week.

8. Intense “anerobic” workouts keep us agile. These activities use our fast-twitch muscle fibers, which help us with agility and involve shorter but high intensity bursts of energy, such as high intensity interval training (HIIT workouts), or sports like squash that I love to play. Ideally, these activities are done 1-3 times per week.

9. Sleep is foundational. A good quality, 7.5-9 hours a night is ideal, and if you’re like me, sleep can go through challenging periods depending on stress levels. Some tips include minimizing exposure to bright or white/blue light at least 1 hour before sleep – that includes our phones and iPads. Stretching or doing yoga before bed helps our parasympathetic nervous system take over and calm us. As much as I find wine and cider relaxing, research has proven alcohol’s poisonous qualities. Drinking really disrupts our sleep 2-3 hours into it, which is when we need deep sleep to repair our millions of cells. If we decide to drink, finishing drinking 3 hours before bed is recommended. Follow it with herbal tea and plenty of water.

10. State shift to refill your energy. The concept of state shifting is about taking purposeful breaks during your day and evenings where you do something that gets you out of your busy, thinking brain. For example, a 20-minute walk, doing 20 minutes of gardening when you finish work before starting dinner, petting and playing with a pet or child, meditating, etc., are healthy for us humans. For myself, I have always wanted to be doing something while walking or gardening, like listening to a podcast or having a conversation. What I’ve learned is that “talking is verbalized thinking,” as is listening to books and podcasts. That’s sometimes okay but sometimes being quiet in our mind and processing what’s going on (i.e., sensations, thoughts, feelings) in our bodies and surroundings is equally (or even more!) important as learning and thinking.

These 10 gems only touch the surface of all I learned and experienced during my magical week at Mountain Trek. Taking action on my goals requires progress, not perfection, and forgiving myself and holding compassion when I slip is critical.

Ultimately, sticking to any wellness plan requires reflecting on your why behind doing it. For me, it’s about feeling high energy and vitality to experience our beautiful world, whether through epic hikes, or being mobile into my later years so I can play with my grandchildren one day.  It’s also about keeping my brain sharp so I can contribute in my field of psychology as long as possible. Finally, it’s about and feeling joy, peace, and gratitude as much as I can amidst life’s curveballs and challenges. I hope some of these nuggets help you on whatever health journey you may be on now or in the future.

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Dr. Laura Hambley is a thought leader on Career and Workplace Psychology, passionate about career development. She founded Canada Career Counselling in 2009, however has specialized in career development since 1999 through her Master’s research and counselling in different settings, including outplacement and career transition firms in Alberta.

Dr. Laura learned early on that effective career planning enhances wellbeing, confidence, and clarity in one’s work and life. Combining the expertise of Psychology with Career Counselling is what she sought to do as she founded and evolved Canada Career Counselling from Calgary to Toronto, Victoria, and Halifax, providing Career Counselling and Career Coaching to thousands of clients over many years.

Dr. Laura enjoys her work as a Career Counsellor and Career Coach to professionals who are in mid- or senior stages of their career, helping them navigate complex career decisions and pivots. Her extensive experience as an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist, enables her to understand and address the challenges faced by individuals, leaders, teams, and organizational cultures.  Having consulted to a wide range of organizations since the late 1990s, and becoming a future of work thought leader, has enabled her to help individuals and organizations navigate the latest trends impacting today’s organizations.

Dr. Laura fulfilled her dream of having her own podcast in 2020, called Where Work Meets Life™, where she interviews experts globally on topics around career fulfillment and thriving humans and organizations. She is a sought-after keynote speaker for organizations, associations, conferences, and events.

In addition to her Master’s in Counselling Psychology (1999), Laura holds a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology (2005) from the University of Calgary. She is a Registered Psychologist with the College of Alberta Psychologists, as well as a member of the Psychologists’ Association of Alberta and the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). She also contributes to teaching, supervision, and research as an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the University of Calgary.

For more resources, look into Dr. Laura’s organizations:

• Canada Career Counselling

• Synthesis Psychology