How can you build good habits and get rid of bad ones?

Dominika Hostinská

We interviewed healthy lifestyle coach and young mother Dominika Hostinská. On her Instagram you’ll find lots of useful advice about healthy eating, food quality, cold exposure, and pregnancy!

On your website and social media, you spread awareness about a healthy lifestyle. Who are your pages intended for, and what specifically can women find here?

The pages are intended for everyone who wants to explore different areas of a healthy lifestyle. I mainly focus on nutrition, and I still do; I share food tips, recipes, healthy snacks, and explain the principles of truly healthy eating, but at the same time I also add other information beyond nutrition, because our health depends on many other things.

Light hygiene, cold exposure, microbiome, immunity - I pay attention to all of this in my posts and stories. 

Besides being active on social media and offering free e-books, is it also possible to order consultations from you?

At the moment, since I have an 8-month-old boy, no, but in the past it was possible and it definitely will be again in the future. I provide my consultations under the umbrella of our Strong Beauty team.

How did you get into that? I mean your life philosophy.

Honestly, it originally started just with a wish to lose weight, when at 21 I didn’t have much awareness of what is healthy and what isn’t. How organic differs from non-organic, what all goes into the quality of food, how to read labels. I had no idea what light hygiene, red light, or cold exposure were. All of that came over time. As I began to take an interest in nutrition with my original goal of losing weight, I found more and more information. I came across various people/experts who would occasionally share something from the world of healthy lifestyle beyond nutrition, and it caught my interest, so I wanted to know more. For example, cold exposure appealed to me so much that my husband and I are planning a cold-exposure course in December near Pilsen at OrganicFarm in Soběsuky.

What is your birth story? Did it change you in any way?

My birth story is unfortunately rather unfortunate. I prepared very actively for labour and, also because I work in health, I knew very well how important natural birth is for the baby’s microbiome. However, mine ultimately ended in an emergency C-section.

I let myself get stressed out by the doctors about my blood clotting and the fact that I didn’t give birth on time and labour had to be induced. It was very unpleasant, especially since I cared so much about choosing the maternity hospital (Rakovník). My reaction to the induction tablet was so strong that I started fainting and little Kubíček’s heartbeat started disappearing. So an emergency C-section - but fortunately everything was fine.

Let’s go a little deeper. Your motto is "You are the result of your daily habits" - what exactly does that mean? 

That means that a person will feel, function, and have health that is shaped by their habits. If a person eats fast food every day, I don’t assume they will feel well. Or at least compared with how a person on a balanced healthy diet feels, there is no comparison.

If a person stares at a monitor and blue light until midnight, they will never have sleep as good as when they apply the principles of light hygiene. As a result, during the day they can never be as effective as someone who does.

And I could go on with x y other habits.

How does a person create a habit? What is good about creating a habit? 

A habit is basically some activity that a person does more or less automatically. They don’t think about whether they will have that chocolate bar after dinner or not. If they are not used to it, they definitely won’t automatically have it, and vice versa.

When a person is used to exercising, they don’t think about whether they will go. They usually have set days reserved for training and it is routine for them. By contrast, a person who does not exercise has to talk themselves into it. Often they go once or they go for 1 or 2 weeks and then stop. It has not become a habit for them.

And that is precisely why, in my opinion, creating certain habits is good, but it can of course also be bad if it is a bad habit (smoking, etc.).

And how did you create it? I think that in the beginning a person has to clearly define why they want to create a given habit, so that they have some motivation they can keep repeating to themselves and that will not let them break the habit. Then start with the habit gradually, for example exercising. The word gradually is quite essential to me, because I constantly see people around me taking on too much right from the start and then not sticking with it. So working out / going for a run / or moving in any other way once a week will be completely sufficient. After 2-3 weeks, you can add another day of movement. And repeat that another 1-2 times until you are exercising 4 times a week. Everything gradually, as you feel it. Above all, don’t push too hard.

So what is your recipe/instruction for good fitness and a healthy body?

Definitely a healthy, balanced diet, but not in the form of orthorexia. If someone feels like having something they know is not exactly ideal, but they happen to be out for coffee with a friend and really want a piece of cake with it, then let them! We only live once :-). However, what always counts is what predominates. So one piece of cake definitely won’t disrupt the rest of the day, during which the body is being given the right nutrition.

And then definitely movement. It doesn’t have to be weights in the gym, but absolutely anything. Running, rollerblading, cycling, or even regular brisk walks. Simply movement of any kind. I’d probably start with those two things. Of course, the overall picture of a healthy body will also be made up of many other partial factors, such as stress, bad habits, an irregular daily rhythm (getting up and going to bed at different times, staying up late), and I could go on.

Are those the 6 habits? (hydration, healthy eating, movement (walking), sleep, meditation, and cold exposure) – can you specify them more closely?

Phew… this would probably be a long one :D, but I’ll try to sum it up really briefly.

1) Hydration

It helps flush toxins out of the body and hydrate the body, so it then doesn’t need to retain water. Because if you don’t drink enough, the body, simply put, starts to fear a lack of water and as a result begins to retain it. Your body may then look puffy.

In addition, sufficient fluid intake also prevents constipation and supports proper digestion and the proper functioning of metabolism.

2) Healthy diet

There’s no doubt that for your body to thrive, you need to give it only the very best nutrition. If you don’t constantly put your body through stress and instead give it the right fuel full of micronutrients, there is no other outcome than that it will thrive and reward you over time with patience.

3) Movement

Movement should be an integral part of our lives, and of course I’m not just talking about training, but also about the most natural thing for our bodies, which is walking.

Walking supports greater daily energy expenditure - it helps you maintain your figure, improves bowel movement (supports digestion), and reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Strength training also increases the proportion of muscle tissue, which during everyday functioning helps kick-start and get your metabolism going.

With aging, skeletal muscle also undergoes atrophy/breakdown. If you want to prevent this, you should include strength training, because it is an excellent form of prevention and the skeletal muscles of older people clearly retain their proper function more in response to strength training.

4) Sleep

If you neglect your sleep and are tired every day, you are more likely to tend toward poor-quality food. Why? Well, because your body will look for the fastest way to get energy, and that is usually fatty and sugary foods - often in low-quality form.

Quality and sufficient sleep also helps keep the body from being under stress - meaning it prevents the level of the stress hormone cortisol from rising, which leads to greater water retention and, over the longer term, also makes fat loss harder and encourages fat storage.

Don’t forget that the biggest part of the body’s regeneration takes place at night. If you neglect this part of a healthy lifestyle, you can’t expect your body to function as well as it possibly can :-)

5) Meditation

During meditation, it is necessary to completely calm the mind and suppress emotions by gradually redirecting thoughts. Thanks to this, the brain can begin to work at different energy frequencies than in the normal state of consciousness. The result is relaxation of the muscles, nerves, and all organs in the body, along with overall regeneration of the organism.

With the help of meditation, you can gradually get rid of anxiety and depression. It will also support your immune system, make weight loss easier, reduce pain, lower blood pressure, and improve sleep.

Essentially, the same benefits apply here as with quality and sufficient sleep.

6) Cold exposure

But it is absolutely crucial to do it properly and not underestimate your preparation.

Personally, I would recommend that everyone first do at least a little research / watch various videos and so on. For example, I started with the book The Ice Man by Wim Hof, which also describes important breathing techniques that are used, among other things, to calm the mind before entering icy water.😊

I’ve always been an absolute freeze baby, so I didn’t want to just jump straight into a half-frozen pond outside, but I gradually trained my willpower and resilience, and it was worth it!

Cold exposure helps:

• to gain more energy
• to oxygenate the blood
• to increase endorphin levels (hormones of happiness)
• to sharpen the mind / improve focus and concentration
• to support the immune system (getting the body used to stress = greater resilience)
• to strengthen willpower
• to speed up metabolism (activation of brown fat - turns white fat into energy and burns it)

And how do you actually start?

• as I wrote above, I would recommend at least reading a book by Wim Hof about it
• you can start, for example, with basins filled with water and ice, and from the comfort of home keep your limbs in them for a certain time (feet or, for example, hands)
• you can gradually start trying ice-cold showers, even just 15 seconds after washing off with warm water
• once you feel that you can handle an ice-cold shower for at least 2 minutes and it doesn’t cause you any stress, you can try cold exposure in nature (ideally with someone else present)
• just as you increase the cold, also increase the time you spend in icy water
• gradually work your way up to those 2 minutes - that is absolutely enough, but it is clear that a person has to build up to it

Cold exposure is generally something that can change your life, both physically and mentally, and it is DAMN WORTH IT!🙏

 

"Learn to listen to your body, respond to its needs, and know how to care for your health" - what’s the best way to learn to listen to your body? How do you teach this to your clients?

What I want from my clients is that they simply tune in to themselves. That is, after they work out, they should sit down for a moment and say how they feel about it. Are they energized and in a good mood? Great! Are they exhausted and know they won’t have the strength for anything else today? Then it probably wasn’t very wise for them to start training, because they must already have been tired before that or they overdid it.

The same goes for food. Stop for a moment and observe how you feel after eating. Are you full? Is your stomach upset? Are you suffering from bloating? All of these are signs that the food didn't suit you, and so that next time you can respond correctly to its needs, try changing the meal. Perhaps make it lighter. Or were you hungry again soon after eating, and is that often the case? Try to think about what it consisted of. Were there proteins? Were there fats? Include them next time and watch what happens,

It can't be said so briefly; simply observe how your body feels after certain situations and don't repeat what didn't suit it. Try a change until it becomes beneficial for it :-).

And now a completely key question: Why say no to diets? Why don't diets work? And why do so many people still keep doing them, even though they have no long-term effect and can also bring health complications?

Because the marketing tactics of companies and nutrition advisors are simply still very strong. They know very well how to target people, and people then fall for it, in my opinion, because they want results right away.

They are not interested in maintaining a truly healthy lifestyle. They just want to lose weight, just as it was at the beginning for me. My weight loss had nothing in common with a healthy lifestyle.

But this approach is not sustainable in the long term and certainly does not lead to a happy, content body and soul. What leads to that is gradually adopting healthy habits in everyday life, as I mentioned above. However, new healthy habits could still keep being found; it wouldn't have to be just these 6.

What interested me most was how on your website you mention these consequences of dieting: insomnia, loss of menstruation, and constant thoughts about food - what causes this? What happens in the body when we diet?

Well, all those factors trigger various processes in the body.

Insomnia is mostly due to increased stress hormone cortisol, which rises simply because the body is under stress when it lacks fuel. This hormone then causes the person to be unable to sleep (fall asleep). 

Loss of menstruation - the body does not have enough fuel for certain bodily functions, so it shuts off the ones that are not life-threatening. Loss of menstruation, hair loss, brittle nails, bone thinning, etc.

Constant thoughts about food are psychological :-). Simply put, when someone is not allowed something, they want it even more; but here it is probably also the fact that the body is starving and simply needs to eat, and as the body keeps trying to make the person finally eat, endless thoughts arise.

What would you advise women after childbirth? What is the best way to recover slowly and gradually get back into shape?

A woman after giving birth needs to rest and also keep her body warm. Nourishing slow-cooked broths work like an elixir! After childbirth, getting lactation going is crucial, and that means eating and drinking properly too. I definitely wouldn’t restrict myself here. 

I described quite a lot in my free e-book. It’s for women after a C-section, but the chapter on nutrition could be useful for everyone (I’m wondering whether it would be a good idea to attach it here as a bonus)? :-)

After giving birth, I would approach movement very cautiously, and even more so after a C-section.

After a vaginal birth, if a woman feels up to it, I would start gradually after the six-week postpartum period. Brisk, longer walks, later adding some yoga, bodyweight strength training, and eventually even moving on to dumbbells. It’s also very important what the woman was used to before and during pregnancy. That can make the process of returning to fitness vary a lot.

After a C-section, I would recommend starting with any bigger activity about six months after birth, and this issue is so broad that I would also definitely recommend reading the free e-book about C-sections that I wrote in collaboration with a midwife.

Is it necessary to lose weight after giving birth, or does the female body naturally return to its pre-birth shape?

I think it can be quite individual here, but a woman who had healthy habits and whose body was not under stress in either direction (overeating or starving) has no reason to hold on to postpartum weight.

Every body definitely has its own timing, so it’s important not to compare, but I don’t see a reason why they shouldn’t go down when a woman adopts the healthy habits we talked about here, or even just part of them. But let’s be honest, with a baby it’s easier said than done, and that’s why every woman should simply move forward according to her own abilities and not stress about it unnecessarily, because the mental strain of wanting something and it not being possible right now, or not working out again today, can also block quite a few processes on a physical level.

In the context of the 6 habits, you mention some that are very hard to stick to with a new baby - every mother knows that. You don’t sleep at night, you run around after a newborn during the day, and you don’t even realize you haven’t eaten yet... and when you want to start meditating, you fall asleep doing it... how do you manage the very demanding first months, when a woman can be under a lot of pressure and stress, and at the same time maintain a healthy lifestyle and good fitness?

Honestly, I definitely couldn’t keep this up with a little one either, and that’s okay. It’s always about doing what we can in a given situation and not losing our minds over everything we can’t get done, what we don’t have time for, and how sleep-deprived we are. That’s just how it is, and the best thing for mental health is to accept it. I tried to focus most on what could always be influenced somehow: walks with a stroller or baby carrier (movement) and healthy food. I also didn’t manage it with such regularity or, at times, under the conditions I would have imagined, but I tried. On top of that, I asked anyone who wanted to come see the little one to please bring some good, nutritious food with them, saying it would help me a lot, and everyone really tried, which I truly appreciated💙.

What does your consultation with clients look like? How can it be booked and how much does it cost? 

Consultations always take the form of a several-month collaboration, because you can’t help anyone in a week. And it’s definitely not about planned meal plans, but about a guide to how to put together a balanced diet in a playful way with various variations, precisely so that women are able to continue and know how to manage even after the collaboration ends. That is the goal. 

More can be found here: Strongbeauty

What all do you add to your Instagram profile? Can women also find tips on meal plans there, or perhaps postpartum exercises or tips on how to exercise with children?

They will find nutrition tips here, both recipes and tips on specific foods. Guidance on how to choose foods as well as other tips for a healthy lifestyle. I also share quite a few things related to my baby, as well as relaxed lifestyle content from everyday life.

Right now, exercise had to take a back seat for me because I developed hyperthyroidism after giving birth, so they won’t find workouts from me at the moment, as I am currently focusing on hormonal yoga and the Feldenkrais method, which is a very slow therapy that can be summed up as: “movement toward self-awareness.” I know that everything has its time and that I will return to exercise again; I just respect and listen to my body and feel that this is more beneficial for it right now.

You also offer e-books completely free on your website. What can women find in them and who are they for?

I have 2 free e-books.

E-book: Care for Women and a Scar After a C-section - for women after a C-section :-) or those planning one. A heads-up about various things they may not have been told regarding care, a nudge toward what to do and who to seek out, plus tips on post-birth nutrition, etc. :-)

E-book: Training Protocol - here they will find a systematically designed strength training plan with dumbbells or bands to strengthen and shape the whole body :-) + a few technical notes explaining certain training terms.

You have your own brand Gentle but Strong. How did this brand come about? Who is your most common customer?

This brand, or rather I’d call it more of a project, came about very spontaneously based on my birth experience. As an influencer on social media sharing my entire pregnancy publicly, it seemed only fair to me to share my birth story as well. When I made a video about it, I received not only lots of comments but also private messages from women thanking me for sharing it, because it gave them strength when they were in the same situation, or even in retrospect, that thanks to my approach they now had a slightly different perspective on it and it helped them a lot.

And I thought, why couldn’t there be a platform where women could share powerful stories of all kinds? What happened to them and perhaps even made them stronger in the end? A platform where the stories could be clearly organized by topic and women could support one another through them.

While creating this platform, I had a drawing made according to my own ideas, which symbolizes feminine softness and womanhood, while at the same time great inner strength and determination. A drawing that at first glance says, “I have a powerful story behind me, and I am proud of myself”

The project Spolu příběhy can be seen here.

And that led to the idea of putting the drawing on some physical items that women could buy and have as a symbol reminding them of their story.

Together with this brand, you offer women the opportunity to send you their personal story, and you publish it on the website. Why did you add this section to the site?

I think the answer to that is above. :-) My goal in this respect was to create a place where women can inspire one another, help each other, and do all that through mutual sharing, in which there can be enormous strength. 

Is there any story that has stayed with you the most? 

Yes... when the project started, I had no idea how powerful the stories that would come to me would be. Unfortunately, unlike mine, many of them did not end well... It’s not pleasant to read, but these are things that happen, and I think it’s important to talk about them. At least that is how I understood it from the women who shared these powerful stories with me, such as losing a baby. They wrote about how much of a taboo it is publicly, and when they were searching, they thought they were the only ones. Until they went deeper and found thousands of women with similar stories.

I have just one last question: what would you like to tell women who are currently looking for their path to the perfect figure?

What is the perfect figure? The goal should primarily be health and adopting healthy habits, and I firmly believe that everything else will come naturally with it. Perfection is different in each of us. By identifying with it, women often just suffer unnecessarily.

Do the best for yourself every day so that you feel energetic and fit. Be happy, LIVE, find the right priorities, and you’ll see that you’ll be much happier. You know the saying, when you’re not looking, you find it? That often applies in other areas too, because you give your mind space to go in a different direction and you relax.

Take care, ladies, and don’t forget that you are never in it alone!

Thank you very, very much for your time. Lucie Janauer.