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Meditation For Weight Loss

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Enlightened weight loss

Excerpt from Enlightened Weight Loss

The general idea of meditation is to set aside time each day to quiet your mind and to let go of everything. A time to appreciate life in its purity. In the beginning, it will take a lot of practice to let go of the constant chatter, but will be the best thing you can do for yourself. To lose weight, be happy, more relaxed, and more productive. It might make you feel like you’re thinking clearly for the first time in your life.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions about meditation. After months of resistance, I had a patient admit to me that she hadn’t tried it yet because she heard it would open her mind up to evil spirits. I spent the rest of the session convincing her that she won’t become possessed.

I have other patients who have never tried meditation because they thought that they would need to sit Indian style on the floor and chant mantras. However there are more ways than one, and you will do what feels most comfortable for you.

There are many ways to meditate, and you don’t have to be a hippie to do so. In fact, almost all of the 200 industry leaders interviewed in Tim Ferriss’ book Tools of the Titans meditate every morning.

On a personal note, meditation has single-handedly transformed my life and my consciousness. Long gone are the days of procrastinating, losing focus, feeling anxious, or looking to food for comfort. It’s given me complete authority of my thoughts and emotions.

I know how essential meditation is to happiness and therefore to the ability to adhere to a weight loss plan. I urge everyone I know to make it a habit, regardless of their level of skepticism.

 

How Meditation Helps With Cravings, Overeating, And Emotional Eating

 

Increased Dopamine

When you have a craving, it is because your reward center is looking for pleasure in the form of dopamine, however it does not necessarily need it from chips or cookies. Meditation triggers the release of dopamine in the same way as food, drugs, or shopping. However it’s not fattening or expensive.

Improved Focus

Sometimes when you have a craving, you need to focus on something else until it passes. Otherwise, you won’t be able to stop thinking about the food until you eat it. Meditation helps by strengthening the neural pathways that are responsible for focus. This makes it much easier to steer your mind away from the craving or the negative thoughts that are causing it.

Improved Mood And Relationships

Meditation has been shown to alleviate depression and anxiety by increasing dopamine and shrinking the part of the brain that is responsible for negative and wandering thoughts. It also improves your ability to communicate and makes you more empathetic, which naturally improves your relationship with friends, family, partners, and coworkers. Tension in any of those relationships is a common source of stress. With an improved mood and improved relationships, you’re much less likely to use food as a crutch.

Improved Awareness, Memory, and Cognition

Meditation changes the structure of your brain in a way that improves awareness, memory, and cognition which helps in  many ways. Having more awareness will keep you from ignoring your hunger signals which usually leads you to be starving by lunchtime, and making bad decisions.  Improved awareness can prevent you from snacking mindlessly, eating too quickly, and ignoring the fact that you are already full.

An improved memory will prevent you from doing things like forgetting to bring your lunch or afternoon snacks to work, which is an unexpectedly common barrier to weight loss. Improved cognition and memory will also make you more efficient at work, which will inevitably reduce stress.

Prevent Eating Out Of Boredom

One of the most common barriers to weight loss is wanting to eat when you’re bored. Usually, we try to fill in downtime with television, eating, drinking, or scrolling through our phones. Anything to keep us from being bored, thinking about our to-do lists, or letting our minds conjure up any negative thoughts that it can find.

Sometimes even those distractions aren’t strong enough if you’re too stuck in your head. After you’ve been meditating for some time, your mind will be quieter, and it’ll be easier to focus and enjoy those activities. Practicing meditation will also give you something productive and enjoyable to do with your downtime.

Improved Sleep

Not getting enough sleep will make you more hungry than usual. It’s common to use food for energy when you’re feeling tired. Meditating before bed, or consistently, will help you fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night.

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The 4 Most Important Rules Of Weight Control

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Excerpt from Enlightened Weight Loss

Eat While Your Metabolism Is Running

You’ve probably heard that you shouldn’t eat past a certain time of night. There’s some truth to that, however this cut off time has more to do with your body’s internal clock than the actual time of day.

Some things in your body happen once every 24 hours, and for a limited amount of time like sleep, digestion, and metabolism. Your body isn’t designed to sleep all day, and it isn’t designed to process food all day. Your body will only properly digest and metabolize the food you eat for about 12 hours a day. The clock starts as soon as you ingest anything but water, and it stops about 12 hours later.

If the first thing you eat or drink is at 9:00 am, then you wouldn’t want to eat anything after 9:00 pm. Preferably even a couple of hours before that, because you still have to digest after you eat.

If you eat for more than 12 hours a day, then you’re more likely to be overweight and develop metabolic disorders. You should try to minimize your eating window to 12 hours a day at most, which is easy to maintain as long as you’re getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep. If you’re up all night, then you’ll end up getting too hungry to stop yourself from eating. We will cover eating windows in more detail when you choose a weight loss plan.

 

You Have To Burn Sugar Before You Can Burn Fat

Your body stores the energy that it gets from food as fat and as glycogen. Glycogen is basically stored sugar.

Before your body can start burning fat, it has to use up your glycogen stores. Your body uses up glycogen stores when you restrict calories and exercise. We’ll cover how much you should be restricting and how to exercise later on because you do not want to restrict calories as much as possible.

Another way to use up glycogen and start burning fat is to fast for more than 12 hours.

As long as you don’t eat or drink anything with calories, then your body will use up your glycogen stores in about 12 hours. After that, it’ll start burning fat for as long as you continue fasting.

If you fast for 16 hours a day, then you’ll have about four hours a day that your body is burning fat for energy. The first 12 hours of the fast is burning glycogen, and the last four hours are burning fat.

I will go into the specifics of how to fast later on, however you don’t have to fast to lose weight. Every weight loss plan is different.

 

Only Suppress Hunger If You’re Fasting

A lot of people think they’re burning fat when they skip lunch or wait until they finally get home before they eat. They think that being hungry for two hours is helping them lose weight, however it is not.

Again, it takes 12 hours without eating before you actually start to burn fat.

If you eat breakfast at 9:00 am and then wait six hours until 3:00 pm to eat lunch, you’re not burning fat. You’re just making yourself hungry for no reason. That will make it impossible to eat slowly and control your cravings.

During your eating window, you should eat whenever you start to feel hungry.

 

Get To Know Your Early Hunger Signals

If you’re used to ignoring your hunger signals, then you might not know what they feel like. They aren’t the same for everyone. It can start by feeling like your stomach is empty. It can be easy to ignore and only lasts for a minute or two. Once you start to pay attention and eat at the first sign of hunger, they will become more noticeable.

 

If You’re Always Hungry

The first hunger signals of the day should start about 12 hours after dinner the night before. Then, three to six hours after each meal, and one to two hours after snacks. If you feel like you’re hungry more often, then it could be from lack of sleep, medication, stress, not eating enough, or eating processed carbs or inflammatory foods. Later, we will discuss what to eat and how much to eat, which will help to regulate your hunger.

 

If You’re Never Hungry

Having no hunger signals is not a good thing. It makes it hard to know when you should start eating, and when you should stop. If you never feel hungry, then it could be from ignoring those signals. If you ignore hunger signals for long enough, then your body won’t keep bothering you with them. You can even lose your hunger signals from having extra body fat because fat cells send out a hormone that suppresses your appetite. It could also be that you’re suppressing your hunger with things like caffeine, nicotine, gum, or medications.

If you’re not doing anything to suppress your appetite, but you still never feel hungry, then start by making a routine eating pattern. Losing weight and having some regularity will start to trigger your hunger signals.

 

Don’t Eat When You’re Not Hungry

If you’re not hungry, your cells don’t need energy. That means anything you eat at that point will be stored as fat and glycogen that you have to burn off later. Try to wait for your hunger signals to kick in. If you’re having a hard time waiting, then refer back to Part Two on cravings.

 

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Restoring Gut Health

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Excerpt from Enlightened Weight Loss

Your gut hosts a hundred trillion bacteria and other microscopic bugs. You actually have more microbial DNA than human DNA in your body. Research is showing that there’s an important link between the type of microbes in your body and your likelihood of being overweight. Hosting and supporting the growth of the wrong bacteria can actually make you gain weight.

There are a lot of factors that influence the type of bacteria that live in your body.

  • Urban areas breed a lot of unhealthy bacteria. Living in the city makes you more likely to have problems with your gut.
  • Taking antibiotics kills off healthy bacteria in your body, leaving room for unhealthy bacteria to populate.
  • Being born through a c-section means you were never exposed to a lot of the healthy bacteria you needed.
  • Eating a diet high in fat and sugar and low in fiber will feed unhealthy bacteria and starve off healthy bacteria.

You are not doomed if you didn’t have a natural birth, live in the city, or if you’ve ever taken antibiotics. The right diet, supplements, activity, and reduced stress levels can impact your gut bacteria in a way that can help you lose weight.

 

Diet

High fiber foods like fruits, vegetables, beans, and legumes feed healthy bacteria, and foods that are high in fat and sugar feed unhealthy bacteria.

The following foods are called prebiotics, are particularly good at supporting healthy bacteria.

  • Leeks
  • Asparagus
  • Chicory
  • Artichokes
  • Garlic
  • Onions
  • Wheat
  • Bananas
  • Oats
  • Soybeans

The following foods contain healthy bacteria; however, they usually don’t contain high enough doses to alter your bacterial profile drastically, so you might want to consider taking probiotic supplements.

  • Kefir
  • Kimchi
  • apple cider vinegar
  • Sauerkraut
  • Kombucha
  • Miso

 

If you have digestive issues, then those foods and supplements can be bothersome, especially if you have chronic bloating. You would need to heal your gut before taking probiotics or eating some of those fiber-rich foods which we’ll cover next.

 

Supplementation

You don’t need to take probiotics to lose weight, but there are a lot of studies that show significant weight reduction from probiotic use. According to Consumer Lab, three strains of bacteria are particularly effective. Bifidobacterium breve, and Lactobacillus gasseri for both men and women. Lactobacillus rhamnosus for women in particular. Check with your doctor before you start taking any supplements because the FDA does not regulate them. These specific products have been rated and tested by Consumer Lab for purity, contamination, and digestibility.

 

Recommended Probiotics For Men And Women

Hyperbiotics Pro-15   

Vegetarian, Non-GMO, Free from Yeast, Lactose, Soy, Iron, Gluten, Wheat, Nuts, Preservatives, Sugar, and Artificial Colors or Flavors. Timed-release.

 

Ingredients: Proprietary Probiotic Blend [L. plantarum, L. fermentum, L. acidophilus, B. infantis, L. casei, B. longum, L. rhamnosus, B. lactis, L. reuteri, L. salivarius, L. paracasei, L. gasseri, B. bifidum, B. breve, S. thermophilus] 5 Billion CFU, Prebiotic Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) 25 mg. Other Ingredients: Microcrystalline Cellulose, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Pectin, Stearic Acid, Sodium Carbonate, Guar Gum, Turmeric.

 

 

Probiotic For Women

Garden of Life® Dr. Formulated Probiotics Once Daily Women’s

Vegetarian, Non-GMO, Free from Gluten, Dairy, and Soy.

Ingredients: Women’s Daily Probiotic Blend [[Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus paracasei, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Lactobacillus brevis, Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus salivarius, Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus gasseri, Lactobacillus rhamnosus] Total Lacto Cultures (40 Billion CFU), [Bifidobacterium lactis, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium breve, Bifidobacterium infantis, Bifidobacterium longum] Total Bifido Cultures (10 Billion CFU)] 248 mg] Total Probiotic Cultures 50 Billion CFU, Organic Prebiotic Fiber Blend [Organic Potato [Resistant Starch] (tuber), Organic Acacia Fiber (A. senegal)] 377 mg.

 

Exercise

Even low-intensity exercise changes the shape of the gut and blood flow to the gut in a healthy way. It also supports the growth of healthy bacteria. Even if it’s just low intensity. A lack of exercise will do the opposite, having an unhealthy impact on your digestive system.

 

For All Digestive Issues

 

Check With Your Doctor

It is usually nothing serious but check with a gastroenterologist to make sure your symptoms aren’t coming from Celiac Disease, Crohn’s Disease, diverticulitis, colitis, hernias, or ulcers. They can also check for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO, which is less serious but possibly in need of antibiotic treatment, if you aren’t able to treat it with diet and lifestyle alone.

Chew Thoroughly

The food you eat needs to be chewed thoroughly enough for digestive enzymes to break it down. Undigested food can lead to bloating and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). If you have trouble slowing down, then refer back to Part Two.

 

Don’t Eat When You’re Not Hungry

If you’re not hungry when you eat, then your body isn’t prepared with digestive enzymes to break your food down. If you find it hard to wait until you’re hungry, then refer back to Part Two.

 

Hydrate

Your gut needs to be hydrated to function properly because water is the base of digestive juices. Your gut is constantly reabsorbing water back into your body, so you should stay hydrated. Refer back to Part Two to find out how much water you should be drinking.

 

Destress

Your body does not have a built-in response to relationship problems or deadlines at work. It responds to any type of stress as a life-threatening situation. It redirects blood flow away from your gut and towards your muscles so you can fight or run away. During a time of stress, the last thing your body cares about is digesting your lunch. Refer back to Part Two for tips on how to reduce stress


IBS And Bloating

A lot of times, cutting back on wheat, dairy, sugar, and caffeine will drastically reduce bloating and IBS. But if you still have problems, it is worth trying a low FODMAP diet. FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. Those are the types of sugars in certain foods that are easily fermented by the bacteria in your gut. The byproduct of the fermentation process are gases and toxins that lead to bloating, pain, and IBS.

Avoiding high FODMAP foods reduces bloating and IBS, but make sure you also drink enough water, only eat when you’re hungry, chew your food thoroughly, and relax. You don’t have to follow a low FODMAP diet forever. Try it for a few weeks, then reintroduce one high FODMAP food at a time.

Don’t take probiotics or fermented foods until your symptoms are resolved. And be careful about hidden high FODMAP ingredients, like garlic in spices and supplements.

Enlightened weight loss

 

Acid Reflux

You can find relief from acid reflux if you lose weight and avoid overeating but check with your doctor to make sure that you don’t have an infection from H. pylori or a structural issue in your stomach.

Your doctor might recommend reflux medication, but that can do more harm than good. Reflux medication reduces stomach acid, which helps you feel better initially. However, stomach acid is what keeps the sphincter in your esophagus tightly closed off from your stomach.  Lowering the acid in your stomach with medication can actually loosen that sphincter and allow stomach acid to leak into your esophagus. The other problem with reducing acid with medication is that you need enough acid to kill off unhealthy bacteria and digest your food. Do what you can to control your symptoms naturally. The best way to reduce reflux is to relax and avoid overeating. But you should also try to:

  • Reduce wheat, dairy, and caffeine consumption.
  • Drink a cup of water 10 minutes before you eat to hydrate the layer under your stomach that neutralizes the acid.
  • Drink teas like Throat Coat from Traditional Medicinals or Throat Comfort from Yogi. They have mucilaginous herbs that protect your esophagus from acid. It’ll alleviate symptoms but won’t solve any underlying causes of acid reflux like stress or overeating.
 
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The Overlooked Secret To Keeping Off Weight

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Excerpt from Enlightened Weight Loss

Your body stores fat to use in case of emergencies. It has built-in survival mechanisms to prevent you from losing it for good.

Your body responds to weight loss by slowing down your metabolism and making you feel hungry and lazy, which makes it impossible to keep the weight off.

Studies show that taking periodic breaks from weight loss can prevent those survival mechanisms from kicking in. That way you can lose the weight, without gaining it all back.

You need to take these breaks for every ten pounds you lose.

What I mean by “take a break” is adjust your intake so that you don’t lose weight anymore. That doesn’t mean you should gain weight. It means you should maintain it.

You’ll maintain your weight for one to two weeks and then go back to your weight loss plan until you reach your goal weight.

During your weight loss break, you should weigh yourself every day to make sure you aren’t gaining.

There are a few different ways to maintain your weight:

  • If your weight loss plan is based on calories, then follow the weight maintenance calorie target guide below. If you’re following a meal plan, then switch to the plan that‘ll hit your calorie target for weight maintenance.
  • If your plan does not involve calorie control, then you can experiment by increasing your intake by a small amount at a time, until you see that your weight is stabilizing.
  • If your weight loss plan is based on fasting, you can stop fasting for those two weeks. Or continue to fast, with your calorie target increased for maintenance.
  • Instead of eating more, another option is to reduce or stop exercise for those two weeks.

 

After your maintenance period, return back to your previous weight loss plan.

Repeat weight loss breaks for every ten pounds you lose until you hit your goal weight.

 

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5 Methods For Blissfulness

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Excerpt from Enlightened Weight Loss

Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself

I’m in a position where I see how people really treat themselves. They beat themselves up over little things, and tell me how fat and lazy they are. How disappointed they are in themselves for getting to this point.

They treat themselves worse than they would treat anyone else in their lives. They don’t see how talking down to themselves is like spending all their time with someone who wants them to be unhappy. It is the same as being stuck in a toxic relationship.

Start to pay attention to how you talk to yourself. You might notice that you’re talking to yourself in a way that you would never tolerate from anyone else. In a way that you wouldn’t talk to a friend or someone that you care about.

If you notice that you’re hard on yourself, then work on being kind to yourself. It might feel uncomfortable at first, but it will become second nature once you get used to it.

 

Quit Raging

If you are mad at someone or something, then your best revenge is not to be angry. Anger triggers the same stress hormones that shut down brain function and cause you to feel unhappy. That doesn’t mean you should never get angry, however it does give you a reason not to stay angry.

This is especially true because in this situation you will likely need to confront someone or solve a problem. With all those anger induced stress hormones, you will be in no position to solve problems or communicate.

If you are angry with a person or a situation, then calm down before you talk. Swallow your pride, and use all the empathy you can manage to see where the other person is coming from. Recognize that no one is perfect. You are much more likely to get your point across if you are calm and thinking clearly.

In other situations, you might not have the opportunity or authority to communicate. In that case, allow yourself some time to feel anger but then realize that it is not worth holding onto. The only person it is hurting is yourself.

If you are angry with a situation and there’s something you can do to change it, then it’s in your best interest to calm down so that you can find the best solution.

 

Slow Down

With limited time we often resort to rushing. However, we do not realize that it has not benefited us. Rushing is an easy way to trigger stress hormones, which we have understood to slow down brain function and reduce focus. In the event that there is a limited amount of time, it would only be beneficial not to rush but to move with awareness and focus. This can be at an increased pace, however it does not need to be with stress and worry.

Try to avoid situations that cause you to rush. Give yourself a few extra minutes whenever possible. But be aware of your thoughts and mood if you’re short on time. It’s possible to move quickly without being frantic if you:

  • Don’t agonize about the consequences of being late, if there’s nothing you can do about it.
  • Let yourself be a few minutes late if there are no major consequences.
  • Find useful ways to spend the time that you’re sitting in traffic or waiting for the bus or train, like listening to music, audiobooks, reading, meditating, or just relaxing.
  • Take a minute to calm down when you start to feel rushed and unfocused.

There are inevitably going to be times that you’re running around. However, be sure not to perpetuate the same frantic energy for the rest of the day. When everything is settled, set aside time to reset with a quick meditation or a few deep breaths.

 

Believe That You Can Change

Having anxiety or depression is not a life sentence, and it doesn’t always require medical intervention. I have witnessed the transformation of many people just by changing the way they think and deal with stress.

Sometimes the biggest and most difficult step towards being happy is to decide that you don’t want to be unhappy anymore. To make that possible, understand that you have the power and the tools to be happier if you decide to make that change.

 

Accept The Highs And Lows

Even after you make these changes, there will still be times that are harder than others. Some days or some weeks that you feel less happy than you were before. If you notice that happening, then don’t use it as another cause for concern. Stressing about being stressed will only make things worse. The highs and lows are inevitable in your life, as not any emotion has permanence. In fact motion is in the word itself, as it always remains in motion.

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A Guide To Meditation

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Excerpt from Enlightened Weight Loss

 

The Basics

When you meditate, you’re setting aside time to let everything go. To appreciate life in its purity, without the distraction and filter of thought. In the beginning, that won’t be easy. You’ll need to repeatedly guide your focus towards something like your breath or a sound, and away from your thoughts. The goal is for it to feel good, reduce stress, and improve your focus and clarity. Everyone goes about it differently. Some people listen to guided meditations on the train or in their office. Others lie in bed or sit on the couch with a candle lit. However and wherever you choose to meditate doesn’t matter. It’s all based on your preference. The guidance below will help you figure out what works best for you.

Understand The Mind

While the goal is for the chatter of the mind to cease, it is not under your direct control. During this time, you won’t be forcing the mind to stop. This will never work. The reason you will not be able to do so is because of your misunderstanding of the mind. It is because of your identification with it. The mind is not you. The mind is simply a recording, a firing of nerves and synapses in the brain. You hear the thoughts in the mind, a voice in your head and you believe that it is you. However it is not. You are simply awareness. You are pure consciousness. The mind is something that you can use. However now it is using you.

Do not try to force the mind to stop. Instead become aware of who you are. Sit in your meditation and hear the mind chattering. Realize who it is that is hearing the mind. That is you. You are the awareness behind the mind. The awareness is quiet. The awareness is experiencing all of the senses.

Once you have broken the identity with the mind and come to realize that you are a state of quiet awareness, the mind will become quiet. It will no longer be the master. Once you realize who the master is, the mind will have no authority to speak.

Meditation Throughout The Day

While it is beneficial, if not necessary, to set aside time to meditate, it should not be seen as a task in isolation. Meditation is something that can be done in everything you do. In every breath and in every action. In meditation you are experiencing yourself and your actions through awareness as opposed to moving subconsciously while being lost in thought. When you breathe, when you take each step, when you brush your teeth, when you eat, do so with awareness. The more energy that moves into awareness, then less energy there will be for thought.

What To Expect

During each meditation, you might only feel that your mind was clear for a few seconds. Especially in the beginning. However even that’s enough to start feeling the effects. Meditation will make you feel happier, calmer, and more focused. If you keep it up, you’ll notice that it becomes easier to focus away from your thoughts. By the end of each session, you might feel a kind of high. You are accessing the natural state of bliss that is available to you once you have moved above the mind.

Refocus Without Judgement

When you start to meditate, you’ll notice that your thoughts are emerging and wandering without control. Every thought you have is causing an emotional reaction and preventing you from being relaxed and present to the moment. You will use a focal point like your breath to focus away from them. Whenever you start to notice that you’re lost in thought, gently steer your attention back to your focal point.

 This might be hard at first, however don’t become frustrated. Getting frustrated or putting yourself down will defeat the purpose of the meditation. It’s only difficult to focus because the region of your brain that’s responsible for wandering thoughts is overdeveloped from years of using it. Your ability to focus is underdeveloped from a lack of practice. The more you practice meditation, the easier it will become to steer your focus.

Don’t Obsess About An Empty Mind

It has taken many people many years to break the identification with the mind. To be in a state of pure awareness. For some it has been spontaneous. However the expectation of an empty mind will prevent your experience of it. It is also not necessary for your initial journey. Even moments of clarity are enough to create more bliss than you have had in the past. Do not be discouraged or distracted if you don’t have an empty mind, simply continue to experience life while separating from the mind.

Find What Feels Good

Granted, there will be times that you can’t be as comfortable as you’d like. Sometimes you’ll only have a chance to meditate on the train or in your office, however you will want it to be as enjoyable as you can make it. You can use scents from candles, essential oils or incense, wear comfortable clothes, lay down with a blanket over you, shut off the lights, or play relaxing music. Some people find it more enjoyable to sit up straight or meditate while they walk, or stretch their body. Whatever works for you. Don’t be afraid to experiment until you find what feels good.

How To Breathe

How you choose to breathe depends on how stressed you are when you start. If you’re stressed or very anxious when you begin, then a controlled breathing technique can help you relax. It will trigger your body to switch from your “fight or flight” nervous system to your “rest and digest” nervous system. Once you feel relaxed, the meditation will be more enjoyable. There are several breathing techniques to use. Two of the most effective are described below. You can start with them, and then continue the meditation while you breathe naturally.

Another technique to understand is to recognize the personal patterns of your breathing. While the methods below can give you relief, it would benefit you to become familiar with your own breathing patterns. At times of anger your breathing will follow a pattern that is different from the pattern you breath in during times of relaxation. Over the next few weeks become familiar with how you breathe during relaxation. Begin to bring this same pattern of breathing into your meditation.

4-7-8 Breathing Method
  1. Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of tissue behind your upper front teeth, and keep it there through the exercise.
  2. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.
  3. Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.
  4. Hold your breath for a count of seven.
  5. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.
  6. Repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.

 

2-4 Breathing Method
  1. Inhale through your nose for a count of two.
  2. Hold the breath for a count of one.
  3. Exhale for a count of four.
  4. Hold the breath for a count of one.
  5. Repeat until you feel more relaxed.

 

Eyes Open Vs. Eyes Closed

Keeping your eyes open or closed depends on how you’re meditating. If you’re doing it while you walk, then I would suggest you keep your eyes open. However for the most part, you can open and close them as you please. Sometimes closing your eyes will help you relax, but other times it can make it harder to get out of your head. Do whatever feels natural and comfortable for you.

Pick A Focal Point

Whenever you start to notice that you’re lost in thought, gently steer your attention back to your focal point. Experiment with the focal points below until you find something that works for you, and switch things up if you’re getting bored with your routine. Keep in mind that you can use more than one at a time. For example, you can use a breathing exercise while you listen to music.

Guided

Guided meditations make it easier for some people to get out of their heads. Sometimes, the person’s voice can be bothersome, or you might find it too dramatic or distracting. Take some time to find the ones that you like. I would recommend you use Insight Timer because it’s free and has a lot of options.

Apps

  1. Insight Timer
  2. Headspace
  3. Breathe
  4. Oak
  5. Binaural Dream
  6. H*nest Meditation

 

Sound

Music, natural sounds, and binaural beats can be used to trigger relaxation or positive emotions. However, it can also be distracting. You might find that you prefer silence or whatever noises you can hear from outside your window. The following apps have many different sounds to choose from.

Apps

  1. Breathe
  2. Insight Timer
  3. Binaural Dream

Open Eye Focal Point

As you breathe in a relaxed way, with open eyes, maintain focus on a single point. The mind would like to take your visual focus away from this point however maintain your focus until the point that the concentration fades into a state of meditation.

Breath

Breath is the most common focal point to use. You can use it at the same time as body scan, sound, active, visualization, and guided focal points. As mentioned before, controlled breathing techniques can be used to trigger relaxation if you’re not already relaxed. Once you feel relaxed, you can focus your attention on the feeling of your breath. There are different ways to do this. You can focus on the feeling of your breath as it moves through your nose or mouth, and how your stomach moves up and down as you breathe. You can think of how you’re inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide.

Active

If you have trouble sitting still, then you can do something with your body while you meditate, like walking, stretching, coloring in mandalas, or using meditation balls. Walking on a treadmill works well because you can hold onto the sides, listen to music, and walk carefully with your eyes closed. You might find that exerting energy prior to meditation helps you become relaxed during the meditation itself.

Body Scan

Lie down or sit up straight, and breathe naturally as you individually relax all the muscles in your body. Start from your feet and work your way up to the top of your head, or the other way around. If you find this difficult to do on your own, then you can search online for guided body scan meditations.

Timing

Experiment with the timing of your meditation. For instance, when you wake up, before you leave for work, on your commute, at lunch, when you get home, or right before bed. You will likely find that there is a time you prefer. Meditating in the morning will keep you focused and relaxed throughout the day while meditating before bed is the most helpful for sleep. You can start off with a few minutes at a time, and work your way up to 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or even an hour.

Keep It Up

People often avoid meditation because they are too stressed. It is easy to make that excuse for yourself, however it doesn’t make sense. If you make meditation a priority, then you would not be so stressed. Time restraints are no excuse either. You can always find a few minutes in the day to meditate if you try. Even one minute would make a difference.

You might even stop meditating for the opposite reason. Regular meditation will have you feeling better daily, so you might feel like there’s no need to keep doing it. The efforts of consistent meditation can be easily lost. You spend most of the day creating patterns of thought. Creating an identity with the mind. In the time that you spend not meditating, you are undoing the habit of separating from the mind.

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What To Eat For Weight Loss

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Enlightened weight loss

Excerpt from Enlightened Weight Loss

Balance Your Meals

Unfortunately, you won’t get ideal results from only eating pizza and ice cream every day. It’s not that you must eat perfectly all the time. You could lose weight regardless of what you eat, as long as you’re hitting your calorie target. However, eating junk every day will wreak havoc on your health, gut, and mood. For the most part, you should eat nutritious meals that have protein, non-starchy vegetables, and slow-digesting carbs. Below are examples and benefits of those food groups; you can get specific recipes and meal plans from my website .

 

Protein

You need protein in your diet to maintain muscle. Proteins are also typically slow to digest, so they will keep you full. You can get protein from animal sources like eggs, meat, fish, or poultry, or from plant sources like quinoa, grains, beans, lentils, nuts, or seeds. You can use soy products, but they’re usually processed and genetically modified. Go for organic tofu, tempeh, or edamame. For animal products, it’s best to choose organic because they’re free from antibiotics, growth hormones, and appetite stimulants.  For beef and milk, the best quality is from grass-fed cows.

 

Slow Carbs

You can eat carbs and still lose weight. It isn’t necessary that you completely omit them from your diet. One of the problems that can occur if you rely on carbohydrate restriction for weight loss is deprivation. Completely eliminating foods usually leads to an intense desire for them. That can cause you to binge on them or at least feel deprived which will not create a lasting diet.

If you decide that eliminating carbs will not create deprivation then it can speed up your weight loss. Just be conscious of the other means of weight loss that we discuss, because people often regain weight following a low carb diet because it was their only means of weight loss. Once they inevitably revert back to consuming carbs, they have no other way of maintaining their weight.

When following a low carbohydrate diet, aim for about 50 grams or less of carbs per day. There are many recipes for low carbohydrate meals and deserts if you search for ketogenic recipes.

However, it is not necessary that you reduce carbohydrate intake. That being said, not all carbs have the same effect on your body. You want most of the carbs you eat to be slow-digesting, like quinoa, beans, legumes, teff, bulgur, buckwheat, brown rice, millet, kamut, oats, squash, fruit, or plantains. Sweet potato and white potato are fine too, in moderation. Carbs that dissolve slowly will keep you full longer. They’ll distribute sugar into your blood more slowly. Meaning your cells have time to use the sugar for energy. As opposed to foods like pasta, bread, white rice, sugar, and soda, which digest quickly and distribute sugar into your blood all at once. Your cells can’t use all of that energy at one time, so the excess sugar is stored as fat.

It’s not that you can never have pasta or bread again, but it’s something to work on limiting.

Look back to the section on Healthy Alternatives for products that mimic your favorite carbs without a high sugar load. If you’re a vegetarian, you can double up on beans, lentils, and quinoa because they’ll count as your carbohydrate and protein.

 

Fat

The fat in your diet should be coming from lean meat, fish, avocado, and a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. Other oils are usually processed with chemicals, even if they aren’t listed in the ingredients. Keep in mind that fatty foods like avocado, nuts, seeds, and nut butters are high in calories, without doing much to fill your stomach. They’re healthy, but if you’re a smaller person that doesn’t have many calories to work with, then they’re not your best option.

 

Non-Starchy Vegetables

A third to a half of your meal should be non-starchy vegetables. They’ll fill you up with almost no calories. They tend to be anti-inflammatory and packed with antioxidants, so they’ll improve your health and mood and regulate your appetite.

Non-starchy vegetables are green leafy vegetables, asparagus, eggplant, artichokes, beets, Brussel sprouts, carrots, celery, cucumber, cabbage, cauliflower, mushrooms, onions, turnips, peppers, radishes, string beans, tomato, and zucchini.

Starchy vegetables like corn, peas, potatoes, and yams don’t count towards the vegetable part of your meal. They have a lot more calories and would count as the carb part of your meal.

 

 

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Methods For Appetite Control

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holistic weight loss

Understand How Food Affects Your Health And Mood

You might see cake and doughnuts as “unhealthy food.” But in reality, it should hardly be considered food at all. Your body doesn’t know what to do with it. Food is what comes out of the ground, perfectly designed to fuel your body. It has the nutrients that your body needs every day. Your body uses those nutrients as tools and building blocks to make feel-good hormones like serotonin and dopamine. Along with every other chemical that allows your body to function.

Junk food is lacking those nutrients. It triggers inflammation, which causes many problems in your body. Inflammation affects the part of your brain that’s responsible for motivation and anxiety. It even reduces dopamine and serotonin. Unhealthy foods will make you anxious, lazy, and unhappy in the long run. Inflammation also disrupts the hormones that suppress your appetite. Eating inflammatory junk food ends up making you more hungry. Additionally, chronic inflammation leads to diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.

Don’t think of healthy food as a way to deprive yourself of a good time. Don’t think that eating vegetables once a week is enough to reverse the damage you’ve done for the last decades. The nutrients in natural foods are what your body needs to function every day to keep you from being fat, sick, lazy, and anxious. This is not to say, you have to be perfect all the time. Just try to eat mostly natural foods in order to supply your body with the nutrients you need for your physical and emotional health.

Make New Associations

Whether or not you realize it, you’ve made associations with different foods throughout your life. Those associations affect your choices. If you have a hard time choosing something healthy, it is probably because you think of it as a form of self-discipline. If you always think of healthy foods that way, you’ll never enjoy them. If you don’t enjoy them, you won’t choose them.

Now you’re forming new associations with healthy foods as you understand the positive impact they have on your mood, health, and waistline. It’s not as though you’re going to feel the same way about a salad as you would a bowl of pasta, however, you’ll appreciate it much more than you used to.

At the same time, your associations with junk foods are changing. Before, you probably thought of them as the “forbidden fruit,” which makes them even more desirable. Now you understand that nothing is off-limits. There’s always a time and a place to indulge. When you have a craving, you realize that you don’t just want it for the taste. The craving is from the reward center of your brain, tricking you with dopamine and stress hormones. This new association with cravings and junk foods will make them easier to resist.

holistic weight loss

Set Up Healthy Triggers

Throughout the day, you will come across many triggers for unhealthy foods from vending machines and advertisements. The sight and thought of these foods trigger your reward center to remember the dopamine that it receives from it. However, now these triggers will not be as powerful, now that you associate them more with addiction, disappointment, and deteriorating health and mood.

Now that you have some positive associations with healthy behaviors, you can begin to trigger them in the same way. Your brain will remember the reward it gets from seeing things your weight drop on the scale and the endorphins you get from exercise. Keep items like your scale, healthy snacks, water, or gym clothes in sight in order to trigger healthier urges.

Try Going Cold Turkey

Removing all junk foods works for some people, but not for everyone. If you feel that you are ready to do so then there is a benefit to quitting cold turkey. Foods like sugar, pasta, bread, and dairy are addictive to your reward center. If you eat them once, you’ll want another fix. Not having them for a few days can reduce your cravings, once they’re out of your system. In the meantime, you can use some of the alternatives in the next section, or try to swap out processed sugar for natural sweeteners like honey, agave, stevia, or maple syrup.

Try Healthy Alternatives

You can try healthier alternatives to foods like chips, cookies, cake, ice cream, muffins, pasta, and candy for the times that you have a craving but don’t want to go overboard. Most of the alternatives are not packed with artificial flavors or sugar, so they’re less damaging to your health and less likely to trigger cravings. Below are some alternative products, and you can visit my website or other sources for healthy alternative recipes.

holistic weight loss

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5 Methods For Improved Sleep

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holistic weight loss

Sleep is incredibly essential to your mental and physical wellbeing. It is especially necessary that you get enough sleep if you are attempting to lose weight. If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, then try the tips below. Remember to be patient. Worrying about the fact that you can’t fall asleep will only make it harder to do so.

#1 Relax
  • Practice meditation throughout the day and especially before bed. See the section on meditation for more guidance.
  • Use lavender oil in a diffuser or spray it on your pillow.
  • Buy a weighted blanket to sleep with.
  • Give yourself a massage or acupressure described below.
    • With your fingertips, apply pressure between your eyebrows, right above the nose, the depression between your first and second toes, or on top of the foot, for a few minutes until you feel a dull ache.
    • Just inside your ear, press down. Don’t go inside the ear and puncture your eardrum.
    • Massage both of your ears for a minute.
#2 Make Yourself Tired
  • Try to force yourself to stay awake or keep your eyes open for as long as you can.
  • Do something or think about something boring. Try doing simple math problems in your head.
  • If you’re lying in bed for more than 30 minutes and you’re still not tired, get out of bed and do something boring, like a puzzle or a coloring book.
#3 Make Your Room Dark, Cold, And Quiet
  • Use earplugs or listen to relaxing music with headphones.
  • Use an eye mask or keep your room as dark as possible — the dark cues your brain to produce melatonin, which helps you sleep. Any light can interfere with this and keep you awake.
  • Keep your room cool. Low body temperature is important for sleep. You can take a warm shower before bed, and the cool air will reduce your body temperature when you get out.
  • Splash your face with cold water for 30 seconds.
  • Take a break from artificial light close to bedtime. Use candlelight or low light and avoid the light from your phone or other devices for at least an hour before bed. You can also put a night timer on your phone that dims the light at whatever time you choose.
#4 Avoid Alcohol, Caffeine, And Water Before Bed
  • Drink most of your fluids earlier in the day to avoid waking up during the night to use the bathroom.
  • Avoid alcohol as much as possible, as it can lead to insomnia. Check out Allen Carr’s book Quit Alcohol Without Willpower for more help on this.
  • Limit caffeine throughout the day. That includes coffee, supplements, energy drinks, and caffeinated tea. Some people are very sensitive to caffeine. If you’re having trouble sleeping, and have tried everything else, avoid caffeine altogether. If you need a natural energy boost, make sure you’re fully hydrated and try the energizing breathing exercise below.
            Energizing Breathing Exercise
  1. Inhale to the count of two
  2. Exhale to the count of two
  3. Inhale to the count of two
  4. Exhale to the count of three
  5. Inhale to the count of two
  6. Exhale to the count of four
  7. Inhale to the count of two
  8. Exhale to the count of five
  9. Repeat a few times, then return to your normal breathing.
#5 Make A Routine
  • Set a bedtime for yourself based on when you need to wake up for the next day.
  • Use a sleep tracker like Fitbit, Ora, or Apple Watch.
Check With Your Doctor

If you have trouble sleeping, wake up feeling unrested, or tend to snore, then check with your doctor to find out if you have sleep apnea. This is a condition that causes interrupted breathing while you sleep. Sleep apnea is difficult to treat because it is caused by being overweight, and it makes it harder for you to lose weight. The danger of sleep apnea is that it can increase the likelihood of stroke or a heart attack, however, it is treatable and reversible. There are devices you can wear while you sleep to help you breathe until you lose enough weight to reverse the condition.

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