Tips for Weightloss
Holistic Lifestyle tips for weightloss
For a holistic lifestyle, it is vital to keep your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual body in balance and harmony. So, for a successful weightloss, we have to make sure that we are nourishing and nurturing our body, emotions, mind and soul.
Body– Exercise, healthy diet and resting
Emotions– Check your emotional state. Are you happy, fulfilled, at peace, loved and loving yourself?
Mind– Empowering, positive and inspiring beliefs about yourself and others
Soul- Your body is the temple for your soul.
Diet doesn’t work for long because it is hard work and as soon as you are off your diet, you pilled on the weight again. You get stressed with calorie counting, you pop pills that have serious side effects , and on top of that, you are always hungry and then get irritated, annoyed and frustrated. This can affect not only your mood, but also that of others around you. Instead of dieting, you can simply make lifestyle changes by focusing on your food, rest, thoughts, exercise and looking after yourself. Making simple and easy lifestyle adjustments will make a big impact in your life. Whilst most of the fat we carry in our body are due to excessive and bad eating habits, here are some quick tips you can easily incorporate in your busy life to lose weight.
- Get enough sleep
People who sleep less than seven hours per night are heavier, gain more weight over time, and have a harder time losing weight. Depriving yourself of sleep can cause a lot more stress on your body. Without enough sleep, hormones can act up, causing you to think you are hungry when you aren’t. This can create an environment for overeating, and potential weight gain. Make sure you have enough sleep each night to keep your hormones functioning properly.
- Choose an exercise that you love
If you hate going to the gym, then go for a run or swim. Choose an exercise that you love instead of forcing yourself do something you don’t like. Simple habits like
- walking instead of talking your car for short journeys
- use the stairs instead of the lift,
- dance to your favourite music
will benefit you. The key is to keep moving and burn the excess fat.
- Listen to your body
Your body is sending you messages all the time, listen to it. Does it need food, water, exercise or rest? Avoid starving yourself and then binge eat. Eating small meals at regularly interval will ensure that your body does not go in starving mode. If you are hungry during meals, eat healthy snacks- fruits, nuts, yoghurt instead of sugar and fat laden food like crisps, biscuits, pastries or chocolates.
- Drink Lots of water
You will be hydrated and feel fuller instantly. Drinking a glass of water 30 minutes before a meal will help you from overeating as water is an appetite suppressant. Drinking water helps boost your metabolism and cleanse your body of toxins. Also, drinking more water helps your body stop retaining water, leading you to drop those extra pounds of water weight. Make sure you’re drinking at least 8 glasses of water per day to keep yourself hydrated and encourage weight loss.
- Drink Herbal tea
Replace your teas and coffees with green tea or other herbal teas. Green tea has also been shown to increase metabolism and fat oxidation. It also contains less caffeine than a coffee, fewer calories and is loaded antioxidants which are great for your body.
6. Cut down on sugar
Sugar makes us fat. It is outrageous the amount of sugar that are in processed food. Cereals, juices, fizzy drinks, yoghurt, chocolate, biscuits, microwave meals are laden with sugar. Know what you are putting in your mouth. Even the so called healthy juices in cartoons have immense amount of sugar. I was shocked when I discovered the so called healthy Cranberry juice I was drinking had 8 teaspoon of sugar in it. There are apps you can download to tell you the amount of sugar that exist in certain food. e.g 9 teaspoon of sugar in a can of coke. Cutting down sugar can reduce your weight significantly.
7. Check your emotional state
Are you eating to numb your pain, depression or low self esteem? The first step in putting a stop to emotional eating is identifying your personal triggers. What situations, places, or feelings make you reach for the comfort of food? Causes of emotional eating can be stress, stuffing emotions, boredom, feelings of emptiness, childhood habits and social influences.
By releasing your emotional pain, you will develop a healthier relationship with food. For instance, if your partner leaves you for someone else, you might feel unwanted and unworthy. You turn to food to comfort yourself. High fat and high sugar food like cakes, doughnuts, chocolate biscuits, etc can give you temporarily relief from your emotional pain but in the long run, they become addictive and you will put on weight. Whilst you can go on a diet and exercise, you will fall off the wagon easily because of the underlying causes. The best solution is to go to the cause of the problem and heal it form there i.e the feeling of unworthiness.
8. Stress Level
Every time you have a stressful day, your brain instructs your cells to release potent hormones. You get a burst of adrenaline, which taps stored energy so you can fight or flight. At the same time, you get a surge of cortisol, which tells your body to replenish that energy even though you haven’t used very many calories. This can make you hungry and your body keeps on pumping out that cortisol as long as the stress continues. Cortisol also encourages your body to store fat—especially visceral fat, which is particularly dangerous because it surrounds vital organs and releases fatty acids into your blood, raising cholesterol and insulin levels and paving the way for heart disease and diabetes. People with high level of stress tend to put on fat around their stomach area.
Avoid fast food as they do not nourish the body but put additional pressure on the detoxifying organs to process the toxins. Eat whole, organic and natural food which give your body all the nutrients that it needs. Also slow down, breathe deeply and relax when you can
9.Take ‘me time’ to feel good
Apart from being fit and healthy, one of the reasons you want to lose weight is because you want to look and feel good. Take ‘me time’- when you devote time to pamper and nourish your mind, body and soul, you not only feel good but you also feel important and this increases your self worth, self esteem and self confidence. Long walk, meditations, yoga, spending time in Nature, soothing music, massages, relaxing baths, spas are great for your mind, body and soul. Do what makes you happy.
Looking after your body, emotions, mind and soul need not be hard work. Just simple adjustments are all your need to lose with and feel and look great. Get back into balance and listen to your body. Nurture yourself and the excess weight will drop. People over eat for many different reasons. Find the reason why and work on your mind, body, soul and the emotions to achieve permanent weight loss. You will eliminate overeating, binging, snacking and emotional eating and find freedom from food cravings. Develop a positive attitude towards food. Start to feel better about yourself and have a healthier more loving relationship with yourself and food.