Healthy Weight Week Day One: Your State of Mind

After receiving some requests from friends and readers (and friends who are readers) about managing their weight, becoming fit and wanting to be healthier, I thought it would be fitting to publish a weeks worth of posts dedicated to this topic. I understand entire books are devoted to such things, but I will do my best to try and deliver as much as I can, and as much as I know (through research and experience) in a week.

Before I do begin, however, I want to reiterate that I will NOT use the word "diet" in any of these posts as related to calorie restriction, weird food combinations or avoidances and insane exercise programs. Diets, in all their strange and wacky forms, don't work. I'm sure you have heard of this before, but it is so true. Sure, they work in the short term. There is no argument there. But, the body is a smart and an adaptable machine. After a while, our bodies will cry out for nourishment, perhaps leading to binging or, if you are prone to addictive behavior, even death.

Death and diet are linked very clearly. The first three letters, after all, spell die. When one who is prone to addictive behavior, as I said earlier, one symptom can be death in the hands of a diet gone wrong. One could get so addicted to dieting, weight loss and calorie control that their bodies cry out for nutrients, stealing it from various sources already in the body, ultimately killing the body. Your body doesn't want to die, but it will do everything in its power to stay alive right now, even if that means killing itself very soon by taking nutrients from stores in your body that actually need it, like your internal organs--heart, lungs, kidney, etc.

This is why I do not like diets. This is why I am a little scared in giving my advice on achieving weight loss or management. I would much rather speak about weight gain in those individuals who need and want it. When I was younger I actually wanted to become bigger, not be so skinny, and fit in. I'm now happy with where I'm at, and realize that being thin and a male isn't necessarily a bad thing, that I can still fit in. As long as I am healthy, happy and doing what I love in life, I know that my body will follow the tune and that I can be comfortable in my own skin. It might not make sense to another, but it does to me, and that's what matters in my life. Find something that makes sense to you, if you can, about being comfortable in your own body. If you can't, and you need a change for health reasons, then it is time to change in a healthy way.

By the way, I'm sorry about all the italicized words. I love italicizing words that I want to emphasize, or the ones I believe are the most valuable to you, my readers and my friends. If you become too annoyed just tell me; I'll stop.

The very first thing you want to do when becoming healthy, losing weight (or gaining or maintaing), is not to first change your diet or lifestyle pattern, but to change your mind. Your mind--your thoughts and beliefs--are what influence your actions in your own life. If you start of the bat by saying you will change the way you eat and exercise, it won't last for very long. At least, you won't maintain this because you first need the mindset and the belief that you CAN do this for yourself.

The Way Your Mind Works

When we believe something, we usually act on those beliefs. There is no question about this. When we believe that we will become dirty if we do not bathe, we bathe. When we believe that there are dangers on the road, we wear a seatbelt. Our beliefs affect our actions in our lives.

If we change our diet while still holding on to a deep seated belief that we're not good enough, we can't maintain a healthy lifestyle, we don't deserve a healthier or happier life, we can't do it, etc., our diet will fail miserably. This is because these beliefs will influence our actions toward the diet, sabatoging ourselves at the beginning or in the middle of a very good intention.

Changing your beliefs about yourself and the way you do things is an incredible important first step in achieving any goal you set. To fully see yourself doing something and achieving your goal is believing that it is possible, and knowing deep within that your goal will be reached no matter what.

How to Change Your Beliefs

Changing your beliefs about yourself can be difficult, if all you were to do was repeat affirmations over and over again in the mirror. Affirmations are good, but they won't get the job done, in the shortest amount of time possible. I'm always glad to hear someone uses affirmations, but if your not engaging your mind with visualizations and sensory feelings, you are not going to reach your goal to its fullest extent, if at all.

I have written extensively on using your mind for the purpose of changing your thoughts, emotions and beliefs in order to change almost anything in your life. In fact, you can check out my other blog here, at Hypnotic Subliminals, where I tell you want you can do to really change those beliefs.

The reason why affirmations don't work, or very rarely do, is because it doesn't go deep within your mind to change those deep seated beliefs and it doesn't engage every part of your mind associated with your goal. Here are a few steps that you can take right now to achieve your goal of losing weight, being healthy and maintaining your healthy lifestyle.

1. Make sure you can relax. Before beginning any mind altering exercise, you need to relax your body completely. Not to the point of absolute sleep, but the point before that. You want to get your body in a deep state of relaxation before you begin your visualization exercise. Even if you can't get to that "deep" state, still try to find a state of complete calm.

The reason you want to relax is because when our bodies are relaxed, and when we close our eyes, we become more "in tune" with out inner selves. We also have access to our subconscious mind during the times we are relaxing, which is what you want. Your subconscious mind holds all the beliefs, thoughts and ideas you have ever had and we want to access it in order to submit a new belief into its network.

Focusing on your breathing seems to be a good relaxation technique for most people, and notice it slowing down as you continue to relax. Many people also like to imagine every single muscle, from the top of their head to the tip of their toes relaxing and letting go. This helps you focus on areas of the body that you might be holding tension in, and allows you to release it.

2. Imagine, Visualize or Feel. The reason why I say, "...or feel" is because some people complain that they cannot visualize effectively, therefore self hypnosis (what you are doing right now) won't work for them. In essence, self hypnosis will work for everyone, regardless of their visualization skills. If you have trouble visualizing, just feel the emotions I will tell you to feel in just a moment.

Since you are in this relaxed state, you now have access to your subconscious. You are now going to start visualizing yourself being healthy, at the weight that you want, looking great in the mirror, loving everything about yourself, loving to eat healthy, loving to exercise and drink plenty of water, etc. As you are doing this, and imagining the moment you achieved your goal as if you are actually experiencing it makes your brain believe it is possible, or that it's real. Your mind doesn't know the difference between a real or imagined event, and will look and force itself to find ways of making that imagination true.

However, just visualizing it won't do as well unless you incorporate all of your five senses. Hear the sound of the water being poured in the glass, or feel the amazing burn after your favorite workout. Or, perhaps, you see the number on the scale or your body in the mirror, and it fills your emotions with an amazing feeling that you took steps to be at a healthy weight. Also, you can "touch" and feel the muscles that you have built (you are allowed to touch yourself in this visualization, but don't go overboard!).

It is also important to incorporate your emotions into the visualization. This is the most powerful sense, being probably the sixth. It is your emotions that tie all the other senses together and makes the imagined event more real to your mind. This will tell your mind that this is achievable, or that you have already achieved it, and will put your brain in a mode that says you are this person that you are imagining.

3. Say your affirmations. Sending direct suggestions into your subconscious is also very powerful, as they put into words what you were imagining. This would be a good avenue to go for those who feel as though they cannot imagine as well as others. However, it is always important to incorporate those emotions. Also, when saying affirmations, you need to put them in present tense. This way you insert a belief that you have already achieved your goal, making your brain work hard to support this belief.

So there you have it for today's post on healthy weight management. This will start you off. I didn't want to start you out with nutrition or exercise, because you need a good foundation in order to begin with these subjects if you are trying to become healthier. Changing your mind will first change your thoughts and then your behaviors, which will in turn be more helpful in following through on the advice given in the next posts.

P.S. I am giving away a hypnosis program FOR FREE on helping to lose weight, love to eat healthy and exercise and become healthier. It is called, "Hypnosis for a Healthy Lifestyle". It helped me immensely when I first put it together, and I hope it can help you too. If you would like it, please email me or send me a comment below (or Twitter/Facebook me!). I will give you the details on how to get it. It's open for anyone, so why not give it a try?

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This is The Healthy Advocate

Meditation and Your Health

Where I am sitting on campus. Look at all the trees!

I'm sitting here at my college campus, freezing in the empty lobby while a man pushes a giant vacuum around the floor. Coming in early, then waiting three hours for rehearsal to start while freezing my butt off isn't what I had in mind, however it does give me some time to work on my blog.

What is the rehearsal about, you say? Well, The Healthy Advocate is in a play here at the school. I play one of the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth. I know, a male witch in Macbeth--however I think it is more in tune with Shakespeare's original plays. No females allowed (what did he have against females?).

Now, let's get to the topic at hand. I wanted to talk about the power of our mind. I am really into mind-body healing and medicine of all types, and am also a certified hypnotist. The more research I do, and the more I experience for myself, the better I can understand our mind's abilities and its power over our health.

The power of our minds can radically improve our health, and it can also radically diminish it. When our thoughts are in order, and when our mind is filled with only images of success, of our goals, of how to make our lives healthier and happier, we actually move toward these things. Inversely, when our thoughts are stressful in nature, dark, hateful, pessimistic, etc., we move into a state of disorder and ultimately disease.

Our thoughts also play a huge impact on our emotions, because I know each and everyone of you have had moments where you visualized your bright future, full of the things you wanted, and you noticed your stress levels decreased. You become at ease, and you are able to focus on things more fully, and are able to give yourself 100%. However, when you imagine a future of unknowingness, of darkness and sickness, you feel uneasy, stressed, out of your mind--you get the picture. I don't want to go down the downward path too much in this post; just stressing the importance of the positive will help you more so than understanding the downsides of the negative.

Meditation, one of my personal favorite methods for decreasing the disorder in the mind, is a vast term. You have probably encountered people who "meditate", or you have probably even tried doing it yourself. Sometimes this stress relieving technique can actually be quite stressful when one has a hard time quieting the mind and calming the body. Then this person gives up completely on a wonderful health promoting tool. Meditation IS important for your health and happiness, as it gives you a sense of control, calm and well being in your life that I everyone has a right to.

The health benefits (dare I say proven health benefits?) of meditation are numerable, and I will go over the ones I find to be the most concerning to the majority of you guys. I'll blog more on other benefits later; but now I want to share with you the one's I found most important. Meditation has been shown in lowering blood pressure, lowering blood sugar (helping in insulin sensitivity) and lowering cholesterol. It has also been beneficial in weight loss, depression, mood and learning disorders, and benefits also lie in the arena of weight loss. That's right--closing your eyes and listening to your breath can actually help you drop the pounds.

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Here is my list for the top health benefits associated with meditation. Again, as with all my lists, this is far from complete--it only narrows down the top ones most people face and ask about.

Photo courtesy of Canadian-OnlinePharmacies.com

1 - In The Journal of Chronic Diseases, meditation and relaxation exercises were shown to significantly lower blood pressure in subjects. This isn't the only study out there--there are hundreds of them that exist; even common sense can tell you that relaxation techniques are effective at decreasing hypertension symptoms.

Meditation has also been shown to be beneficial in lowering blood sugar levels. A study recorded in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry showed that relaxation training and biofeedback lowered blood glucose levels in the individual studied. This person also showed this benefit maintained after a one year follow up. Another research study at the Cedar-Sanai Medical Center in Los Angeles showed that meditation was able to lower blood sugar and insulin levels.

A lipoprotein. Photo courtesy of Answers.com

Cardiovascular disease and high levels of low density lipoproteins (LDL), or bad cholesterol is associated with psychological stress. Reducing the stress has been shown to lower the bad cholesterol while decreasing cardiovascular disease risk.

*Note that there are two types of LDL. There are large buoyant lipoproteins and small, hard density lipoproteins. The hard and small lipoproteins are the ones you have to worry about. Having a high LDL doesn't mean you are at risk for heart disease. Measuring your triglycerides levels are the best ways to determine your risk, while also comparing these levels with your HDL (you want a high HDL and low triglycerides).

Another study showed that participants with panic disorder were almost doubled with the risk of coronary heart disease, with those with depression were three times at risk. Meditation, combined with trusted medical advice, is beneficial in reducing your risk by lowering your anxiety and depressive moods.

2 - Weight loss has also been shown to result when meditation techniques are applied to one's everyday practice. It is well known and documented that hypnosis aides in weight reduction, and is successful in maintaining a healthy weight over time. However, meditation is not the same as hypnosis. Meditation is a relaxation technique that quiets the mind and stills the body. Earlier I mentioned that hypnosis was beneficial in lowering blood sugar and insulin levels. Since insulin, in particular excessive insulin, is known as the "fat storing hormone". Too much insulin in the body easily stores the extra sugars in your body (those that are broken down from carbohydrates) as fat.

Lowering your insulin levels is one key to losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight over time. Doing this will also help improve insulin sensitivity (your cells are able to take in sugar for energy more easily). You will also optimize your grehlin hormone (hunger hormone) at the same time, helping you to control your appetite and only eat whenever you are truly hungry. Can you believe just a few minutes a day, closing your eyes and listening to your breath, can help you this immensely?

Photo courtesy of WendyUsuallyWanders.wordpress.com

3 - Meditation has been shown to be beneficial for those with depression and mood disorders by increasing the levels of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is the "feel good" hormone that increases feelings of hope and joy, all scientific feelings--but I would rather look at them as spiritual ones, as well. Mindfulness relaxation also helps one to deal with stress more efficiently, making it easy to take on hardships without having to get into a funk.

4 - Meditation is a powerful tool in combating learning "disorders" and disabilities. I don't necessarily believe in ADD or ADHD--I do, however, believe that certain conditions can lessen ones abilities to concentrate, especially in this time (diet, lack of exercise, popular culture, etc.). Having a good foundation based on natural principles, while combing meditation, has been shown to increase one's attention.

Meditation has been shown to actually increase one's brain size! This part is very fascinating to me, because it shows that we can actually grow new neurons and gray matter within our brain just by the power of thought and relaxation. In a study done at Harvard Medical School, researchers found that those who meditated for 20 minutes a day showed actual growth in one of the inner cortexes of the brain, the one most associated with memory and attentiveness. Another study showed activation in brainwaves associated with attention.

Isn't it amazing that we can actually change the structure of our brains by using meditation? It's incredibly fascinating that we can do something to our brains that most thought was impossible. We have been taught that the brain stays pretty stagnant over our lifetime, and very little physical growth is actually achieved. However, using meditation one can thicken parts of the brain to help aid in memory and mood.

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How Can I Start My Meditation Practice?

This mind altering (yes, it can be a bit mind altering at times) tool doesn't solely rest on having you sitting on the floor, cross legged, closing your eyes and repeating, "OM" over and over again. OM is a very powerful and relaxing mantra, but meditation is so much more than that, and I believe each and everyone is important and should be incorporated into our life. One form of meditation I love to do is yoga, outside in the sunshine. Doing yoga is an amazing way to calm and center the mind, which is a large component of meditation; but doing yoga in nature allows you to connect to the earth, to nature, and it also helps you get your beneficial Vitamin D from the sun (which has been shown to help in correlating benefits achieved through meditation--healthy blood sugar, blood pressure, weight, learning and attention).

Other exercise, such as running, walking, lifting, jogging, pilates, etc., is a very good form of meditation, as it allows your brain to focus on one thing--the task at hand. In meditation, you want to achieve a state where you are only focusing on one thing--your body, breath, the exercise you are performing, so on and so forth. Then, as you continue to practice, you will be able to completely free yourself of all thoughts and of the world around you, clearing your mind in order to receive healing and nurturance. Centering the mind and healing the body is a goal in meditation which is easily achieved through continued practice.

Combining exercise and meditation is a powerful way to elicit good health, however there are other ways to meditate. The most popular way is laying or sitting down, in a comfortable position (whatever works for you), closing your eyes and focusing on your breath. There is absolutely nothing else you have to do but breathe and listen. Your breathing will continue to slow down, and your muscles will start to loosen and become relaxed. You can even imagine that every single muscle in your body is relaxing, from the top of your head, to the bottom of your feet (or vice versa).

Am I Doing it Right?

Here's a secret: It doesn't matter. There isn't a "wrong" or "right" way to meditate. There really isn't. Besides, worrying about getting it "just right" will only aggravate your system, causing you more stress than when you started. That definitely will not produce the benefits associated with deep relaxation and focus. Just let go, allow yourself to relax and breathe deeply, and with practice, you will be able to flow within a state that brings forth ease of mind and healing.

Just implementing an exercise program will help you incorporate a form of meditation into your life. This way, you will be getting the benefits of exercise along with the benefits of meditation. Although, there are certain parts of quiet and still meditation (relaxation) that you can't achieve in exercise meditation. Doing it at night before you go to sleep, or in the morning as soon as you awake is what is easiest for most people. During the day it can be a bit hectic, unless you do have a time where you will not be disturbed and have nothing else you need to do.

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Take this information and share it with those you love, as health information needs to spread across to all those who will listen! Meditation is beneficial and fun, and I'm sure you will love it, as it will greatly increase your health while helping you maintain a calm and solid attitude throughout your life.

This has been The Healthy Advocate.

P.S. Upcoming blog posts will be two of my favorite recipes. One is my Gluten Free Sprouted Buckwheat "Ritz" Style Crackers!

These seriously are good. Grain free and low in calories, these are crackers you shouldn't feel bad eating.

I will also be sharing with you in an upcoming video about how to make sunflower seed butter. See you then...

Spring Into Your Health!

Photo from TheDailyMail.com

Spring is here! The cold and dark winter months are now drawing to a close, bringing longer days and warmer nights. The birds are outside right now chirping away and it feels like Spring. It feels as if life is blossoming all around me, and the joy I feel inside compares to no other feeling that accompanies any other season.

What are your favorite spring memories? Mine would have to be the time around Easter. Coloring eggs, putting "grass" inside my Easter basket and awaiting the Easter bunny (I love that guy!). I would always leave out carrots or nuts for the bunny, knowing that he had a lot of hopping to do that night. It never grew tiresome, waking up in the cool-warm morning, going to the kitchen and seeing my basket filled with an array of colors.

The Easter basket I--I mean The Easter Bunny--Put Together

I did receive chocolate bunnies, chocolate candy and the oh-so bad stuff that I definitely stay away from these days. However I did always spread out the consumption of these things, when I was young, for months, never eating a whole Easter bunny in one, two or three days--but having it last for weeks, if not months, on end. I guess I got down that whole 'moderation is key' thing even back then.

By the way, I made some sugar free, completely natural homemade candies for Easter, just so I wouldn't feel left out! The whole family enjoyed them as well. I will post the recipes in a following post.

Making my sugar free Easter candy

In Chinese medicine, Spring is associated with the liver, the organ that helps detoxify and cleanse our body of impurities. After the long winter months, our eating may have been focused more on heavier, denser foods to help warm our bodies. During the warmer months, it is time for the body to crave more light foods filled with water and moisture.

Keeping our liver clean will help us detoxify the buildup of toxins that have developed over the past few months, and it will also help us burn fat more efficiently. Since the liver is our main fat burning organ, it is imperative that you do what you can to make it healthy and clean. There are a number of ways to do this, and all of them are quite simple, yet hold a powerful impact on your body.

#1 - Listen to Your Body

This is a fairly simple rule, that I am sure all of you have heard before. However, there is a bit of a twist when it comes to it. During the spring, and the warmer months, our bodies will require and crave more water and moisture. If we don't supply this through our diet (water and food), we will die within a short time. Listening to your body enables you to know when to need water and when to eat foods that are rich in moisture.

Our diet in the spring should usually be different than in the winter, because in the winter you are wanting warmer, denser foods to provide your body with heat. However, in the spring and summer months, your body needs lighter foods that won't weigh you down, that won't produce too much heat or cause you to become dehydrated. Choosing the right vegetables and fruits that are in season should help provide you with the water you need, along with a good does of pure, clean water every day.

#2 - Tonify the Liver

Spring, like I mentioned earlier, is associated with our fat burning organ, the liver. Help out this organ this spring so it can help release toxins in the body. Choosing the right foods will do the trick. Lemons and limes are amazingly beneficial for the liver, and will help support bile formation (helps digestion).

Dandelion greens are also amazing for detoxifying our bodies through the liver. I bet you were surprised to find that you could actually consume this plant, just as I was when I discovered it a few years ago! Nevertheless, it is a very good green to throw into your salads, green smoothies or to be dried and made into a tea. The leaves are quite bitter, so be aware of this before you ingest them. They may be available in your local health food store this spring, or at your local farmer's market.

There are also yoga moves you can do that correspond with a health liver (to see all poses, click here). One is a simple forward fold.

Photo from YogaJournal.com

Another is downward facing dog.

Photo from YogaJournal.com

Try these poses for about five minutes every day, or as long as you can stand it, building up to the five minutes. These poses help stimulate the liver in a healthy, natural way.

#3 - Eat with the Season

Photo from SummerTomato.com

Staying healthy doesn't always have to be difficult. We don't always have to look feverishly thorugh the supermarket shelves, trying to find the right item that says it will support our health. Simply going to your farmer's market, or going to your local produce section will give you the items you need.

Eating local is important, but so is eating vegetables and fruits that are in season. Most of the time, if they are in season in our part of the country, than they're local. Even if it means the next state over, it's still better than eating a vegetable or fruit shipped from Australia that has already lost most of its nutritional value.

Eating in season will help your body detoxify more fully, no matter what season, because you will have more available nutrients being taken into your body to assist with a multitude of metabolic functions. The vegetables that will be in season this spring, and more than likely be local as well, will be artichokes, arugula, asparagus, chard, mustard greens, spinach, parsley and watercress.

#4 - Meditate!

Photo from EpicSelf.com

Meditation is a fantastic tool for preparing your mind and body for the outside world, and is an incredible way to relax. But did you know that it offers your body much more?

This fantastic tool has been shown to assist in digestion, which can also assist in detoxifying your body. When our minds and bodies are at ease as the result of deep breathing and/or visualization exercises/techniques, our digestion becomes much easier, helping us release and burn more fat in the long run.

So not only can meditation help calm the mind and ease digestion, it can help keep us slim as well! It's completely free and only requires 10-30 minutes of your time. Start out with deep breathing exercise and then looking into some visualization exercise, such as imagining yourself in a place that makes you feel completely comfortable and serene--like a forest, a brook or any other favorite setting.

There you go! Four simple steps to now implement into this spring. I bet you were already going to do these anyway; hopefully I was just a "push" in the right direction! Feeling great, cool and confident during these warmer months is what you body wants, and the way to do that is to detoxify. Keep your body clean!

For now, this is The Healthy Advocate.