The connection between mindfulness and weight loss
Nowadays, it is well-known in medecine that there is a connection between mind and body symptoms. In fact, it's not very accurate to reffer to this matter only as speaking about ”a connection'', cause we can effectively reffer to a new branch of medecine which was developped accordingly: the psychosomatic one. Many studies pointed out that stress and emotions trigger the neuro-endocrinian mechanism, which subsequently releases other physiological or physiopathological mechanisms in some organs or body systems.
We speak both of physiological, and physiopathological mechanisms, cause, depending of the kind of emotion involved, these organs or systems could increase their function and start the healing processes, or contrary, begin to act in a pathological manner, leading to organ disorders, or in time, even illnesses. It's not a fantastic interpretation, it's pure science, proven by many clinical cases, such as: stress-induced diabetes, ulcers or even cancers.
On the other side, it's equally proven the extraordinary healing power of the body,
triggered by psychological positive factors, even in lack of complete medical treatment.
We know about ulcers, neuro-somatic paralysis, or blood diseases largely improved by positive emotions only, effect proven by blood tests and other fonctional explorations.
The placebo effect is well-known in medecine, and consists of a visible and consistently positive effect on health condition, driven only by the patient's inner conviction that a medecine is efficient, or that he is not so ill, in fact, and could easily get better.
This mechanism, which is well-known in medecine, could also be successfully applied to the weight loss process. In fact, weight accumulation iself is frequently a ''mind- triggered product'' – caused by stress, self-depreciation, fatigue, depression. In some situations, it might be enough to ''reverse'' the process, through a positive psychological approach. Of course, this could not be efficient enough when it's performed by persons themselves, but it could be necessary a qualified support - such as nutritionist, psychologist or priest. Family ans friends' support is also essential.
But, even in the situation in which weight accumulation was not caused by stress, and however the person doesn't have the will and determination to begin to lose by
him/herself, a psychological help is priceless, in order to help the persons discover and maintain a valuable motivation to do so, and encourage them that they should and could do so. In other words, someone must believe in them more than they do, or even believe at their place – at least in the beginning - and continuously stimulate them to do the necessary in order to achieve the goal. We could say this attitude is only up to love, even if we talk about a doctor or a psychologist – cause if such professionals don't love their patients, and on the other side, if patients don't feel their true interest or compassion, or they don't trust them and obey their recommandations, results could be poor.
Following this line, a specialist could even encourage patients, the obeses, to do
something for other people, for the community, forgetting about themselves, and not to care so much about their image; untill the moment when they could perceive that their weight shifted by itself, following the perfect percentage for themselves, and not the ''standard'' they'd established previously. In fact, the image of perfection someone forge for him/herself could be a straitjacket for him/her well-being and health. We don't know the real standard of our body, established by our Self, and, instead of uselessely fighting our nature in order to ''adapt'' ourselves to a foreign standard, it could be much more easier to let the nature do its work, and treat our body like an ally that we help, and not like un enemy that we hate. We should think like this: “”If I suffer, so my body suffers, too, and I need to help it, not to hate it.'' In other words, we have to love our body in order to achieve our goal.
Of course, this approach doesn't exclude a diet. On contrary, a moderate diet should
accompany the psychological approach – but a moderate, not a draconic one – like, for example, giving up only to saturated fats and fried products, and eating more vegetables and fruit in compensation. And, we have to perform activities that we like, and could nourrish our soul, in order not to feel the need to eat in excess to fill an inner void. ''A contented heart is an incessant feast'', an Arabian wiseman says.
It's a strange situation that, beginning from a scientifical approach, we ended up to a spiritual one, but in fact, it's not so unusual, cause all that's connected to the mind is not far from the soul, and soul is, above all, pure love. In other words, if we had enough love in our souls, for ourselves and others, we could do absolutely anything.
''If you could love enough, you should be the most powerful being in the world'' (Emmet Fox)
Dealing with negative emotions for weight loss
It has already been stated, from the lines above, that soul and mind have a huge part to play in all healing processes, and specifically in the process of weight loss. Of course, among the emotions that could influence this process, the negative ones take an important place, unfortunately. We pointed before that they could even release some pathological mechanisms in the body organs and systems, triggered by neuro- endocrinian discharges. Otherwise said, stress and depression could trigger even organic disorders – like gastric hyperacidity which lead to peptic ulcers, or exaggerate insuline release, which in time could deplete the pancreas and cause diabetes.
Of course, good news is that these pathological mechanisms take time to fully developp, they don't appear from the first signs of stress or depression. And for this reason, it should be wise to use this window nature offers, in order to fight the negative patterns and processes of our mind, and finnally replace them by another healthy and optimistic ones.
Some could reply that it's so easy to say, and still so hard to do so, cause people are not all optimistic by nature, and even less when they pass through a difficult period of their life.
Even the weight accumulation or loss only, without another psychological
complications, could be felt like a stress and a reason to despair, cause for many it
seems to reduce chances to happiness – be it personal, or social. But, the good news is that this is only a manner to see the facts - a mind product, or ''programm'', and it could be changed by another programm. Otherwise said, it is a matter of choice: we choose how to see things: we choose to see ourselves ugly and unworthy, with all the consequences involved, or, contrary, we choose to see ourselves as valuable persons, who fight for their health and happiness, in alliance with their body. We could tell ourselves that all situation on earth is only temporary, and this period of weight accumulation or loss is also temporary, and we are not victims, but fighters and improvers of our bodies. And even if the effect is not immediately seen, and sometimes it takes a long time to manifest itself, we have to muster the deep conviction that we're on the right path, we do all that's necessary, and there will certainly be a moment when we'll reach the goal. A trainer said that, if we don't change the direction we're heading to, we'll necessary reach the designed end. Of course, this means, simply, to have faith.
Faith in what? we could be asked. The answer is simple: al sort of faith is good! First, in God, if we're believers – and that's the most effective kind of faith. Then, we could have faith in the person that support us – the nutritionist, the doctor, the psychologist, the family, our friends. They know what they say, they have knowledge on this matter, or they respect us, or they love us, and in all these situations, we're not alone, and we can cross the bridge. And finally, we could have faith even in ourselves, especially if we're used to, and if we successfully passed through another hard situations in life.
And if all these are not enough, we could use repeated positive statements, like: ''I am perfect, according to the best pattern for my body''. ''I am beautiful'', ''I am worthwile'', ''I love myself, and I let my body do its work''.
A frequent error made in this process is ''clinging to the result'' on ambitious manner. We don't have to establish rigid steps to take, like: ''I will lose a certain number of kilos this week, or this month''; or ''in a few months, I'll absolutely look like my photo from a few years ago''. Contrary, we have to let the body do its work, in its own rhythm, and our part is to do what it's up to us, and no more. Maybe the result will not be exactly the expected one, maybe we''ll not lose a great number of kilos, but if we'll feel physically better, and we'll regain our joy of life, it should be enough. Maybe our standard was not the appropriate one for our age and actual situation, and the body knew it better.
These are only a few directions to take in the process of dealing with negative emotions, and inappropriate expectations, but of course, each of us is an individual, and each of us could find his/her own strategy to copy with the matter.
How to deal with cravings for sugar
It's not much to say on this aspect, unlike the psychological one. First, if we have such cravings, a lack of vital energy could be involved, and the craving for sugar is in fact the craving for the intense and little lasting amount of energy delivered by the catabolism of concentrated sugars. It's not a healthy manner to provide body energy, cause, first, it's not enough for the body, and second, it could lead to diabetes, in time. The solution is to rapidly take some disaccharides with long-delivery term, like the ones found in pasta and floury products, or, to ingest another energetic food – like nuts, peanuts, ginseng, royal jelly, etc. Or, if we don't have these at home, to simply eat something consistent and sugarless. Or, take a nap, to put the body to rest. In some cases, the lack of sleep could cause lack of energy, and the body wrongly asks for sugar in order to replenish it.
There is also the situation in which the craving for sugar is simply caused by a wrong habit to frequently eat sugars, and a pause is bad required by the body. In such case, we could ''trick'' the body by giving it instead some fruit, in the amount needed, cause fruit are healthy and easy to metabolize. Or, if this doesn't work perfectly, we could use a simple pastry, without cream, or sweetness, or powdered sugar above (a pretzel or a croissant).
We must also speak about the situation, less-encountered, in which sugar, like any other food, is requested as a subconscious ''compensation'' for some psychological losses, or frustrations. In this situation, apart from the ''fighting'' means mentioned above, the persons need a psychological support – from a professional, or simply from a friend, someone who knows them better, and could find the right words to gently explain them the link between the craving and other situations in their life. Sugar could've been a substitute for not received, or lost love, but you must be secured by the fact that you are loved now, and yiu are important for the people in your life. In fact, sometimes, understanding a phenomenon is the first step to healing.
How to deal with stress for weight loss
We have already talked aboud the stress matter during the process of weight loss, when we mentioned the power of mind and soul in the healing process – cause weight loss could be, in fact, a healing process, that re-establishes the normal state of the body. On the other side, overall the entire healing process of body and soul, weight loss could be only a feature, and sometimes, not even the most important one. The one who suffered was, in fact, the whole mind-body, and the sufference quite always begins with the mind and soul, with inappropriate emotions triggered by life events, that could lead to disorders in the physical body – weight accumulation or loss being only visible aspects of a larger picture – the top of the iceberg.
So, if we really want to deal with stress – not only during the weight loss, or caused by the planned weight loss - we have to learn how to approach life differently, to reshape ourselves in order to receive otherwise the challenges life could throw us. In fact, it is up to re-educate ourselves, to change the way we look at things, and even the way we are used to feel things. It's not an easy path, but it's the way to normalcy – even if we could not feel that from the beginning. And we don't usually feel that this process of change leads us to normalcy, cause we are used to our ancient and toxic way to feel pain and sadness and frustration as a response to normal life challenges. We are used to our painful psychological patterns, and this habit sometimes gives us a strange comfort, and the effort to break it, and build another healthy pattern instead, could be considered too tiring and worthless to perform. In another words, sometimes it's much easier for ourselves to let us acccumulate or lose weight as a result of a wrong way of encountering life challenges, than to address the origins of this phenomenon.
Of course, there are also situations in which we should want to do so, but we don't know how to begin. Or, we feel we don't have enough power to do so by ourselves, or we fear that this process of changing patterns could crush us instead of healing us. Cause the first stage in changing patterns and emotions is to accept the ancient wounds, and try to understand that we could have had another emotional response to the trigger. Or, maybe at that time, we couldn't have had another response, but us today, we understand otherwise the situation, and are able to forgive ourselves for the emotional response that caused a pathological process in our mind and body, and at the same time, forgive the other persons involved, cause they were as ignorant and suffering as we were then. It's not easy to forgive, but when it happens, the healing already begins – even if the visible results on the body are not seen yet.
And another important issue is not to forget this moment of understanding and
forgiveness lately, but trying to revive it each time life presents us with a similar
problem, and of course, relive it if needed during the whole process of healing. We are not the ones we were then, when we suffered and sickened our body, not anymore! We are now the persons that understood and forgot, and consequently, re-shaped ourselves, and forged us another path in life. We are wiser. If we are also believers, we could say in this situation: ''I was lost, and now I'm found, I was blind, and now I see.''
How sleep helps weight loss
We mentioned previously a few words about this item in the chapter reffering to the
means to deal with sugar cravings. We stated then that, if the body has a great lack of vital energy, it must replenish it by all means necessary. Sugar is a short-term solution, with possible heavy consequences. But a natural and normal solution is sleep, which replenishes the body reserves without side effects.
But, how sleep helps in fact the weight loss, is a matter of scientific explanations. We already know that weigh accumulation could be triggered by stress and fatigue. It's like the body feels a danger, feels that it's on the edge of its' endurance, and desperately starts to accumulate energetic stocks. Glucose from sugar could be a quick source of energy, but another more reliable source are saturated fats, which deliver that energy gradually, on a long term. In animal world, this principle is applied during hibernation, which is a natural and healthy process for some species. But for humans, this principle of accumulation, which is ''borrowed'' from animals, is not so healthy.
First, the way to adress this danger which is the lack of energy, is wrong for humans, cause they don't possess the adaptations animals have acquired, and secondly, the fat stock is not so useful to the body. Contrary, it could lead to another health issues, triggering a chain of pathological mechanisms. And after all, the fact of being fat itself mantains a state of stress and insatisfaction.
So, the solution is to address the way of dealing with stress and negative emotions, as we previously stated. And, an additional solution is to offer the body enough sleep, in order not to feel menaced by the lack of energy, and create fat stocks. If we have enough sleep, we help the body to ''come out of stress'' itself, to release a bit from the burden of its harsh duty to defend life.
And on the other hand, sleep itself could be a medecine for stress. We all noticed that, after a night of good sleep, even the most complicated life problems dont't appear so hopeless anymore.
So, instead of trying the most sophisticated slimming therapies and products, it would be enough to apply the most ancient and well-known rules to maintain health. On the condition to follow a discipline during this process, apply them constantly, and really believe in their efficiency.
A wiseman said a long time ago: ''God never allowed an illness to exist, without leaving there to be a correspondent cure in nature.”
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