Weight Loss by Meditation and Dreaming?

What if I lost weight by meditating  and dreaming about it?

                         my tanned body in Hawaii summer '13

I have heard that it works.   The advice ranges from eating healthy and being more in tune with what your body needs instead of wants to visualizing the food is your friend.  It is mentioned that meditation can raise your base line metabolism.  Each meditation session can show you a life style change that will fit with your current situation.  In spite of what you have tried before, (I have tried them all), you will make it from here and do so within your budget.

All three of those factors can make meditating an easy fix for taking off some pounds.

I am going to keep a journal this month of November to see how much weight I lost in one month.

I just stepped on a scale yesterday.  I cannot share that number with you out of personal reasons but I can do the math and report how much I lost around the 5^th of December. 

This last week I got that panicked feeling when I stepped on the scale.  Then I began to do the same old routine.  Beat myself up and vow to never eat another cookie or drink another Coke.  Then I wanted to join Weight Watchers again.  They do have an on line program as well.  Then I drove past a neighborhood gym and wanted to walk in and join.  By the way, none of these ideas are wrong by themselves, I just know my history with all of this.  It does work for a while.  I mentioned in a recent post that I had lost the same 20 pounds over and over again.  The yoyo dieter syndrome is pretty bad with me.  I was reading an article about the thyroid and I have had low scores over the course of my life.  This time I prefer natural iodine and I am going to pick some of it up at the health food store today.

If I am adding iodine daily, walking, drinking more water, and just eating better, without an actual program, will that be enough?  My guess is this:  No, I need to meditate as well.  Keeping my soul in a happy and prosperous place is the most important factor.  I wrote about seeking the kingdom of God first and all things then come to you.  Did you ever think that weight loss and balanced eating would be those things that will come more easily when your soul is where it should be…within the light and joyful “kingdom” within? 

And here is another problem with this:  It is not very empirical or scientific with all the variables.  I mean it could be just the walking everyday and drinking more water that makes a difference.  It might be the Iodine addition or just slight changes in my diet that create a subtraction in pounds over the next 30 days. I have vowed to walk at least 10 minutes and do 10 crunches a day.  That is not a great deal of extra movement, but I hate to admit, I must start there.  I am not in the best shape.  I quit smoking 5 months ago.  Believe me, I am so thrilled, but I have managed some of the change by allowing myself to eat what I want.  I put on some weight and have not taken it off.  The extra pounds make me sluggish and it is actually difficult to walk very far.   My lungs are improving in capacity which gives me great hope that this meager beginning will be just the start of better days.

 I have tried many things in the past and some things did work and others did not.  Once when I was madly in love with someone, I joined weight watchers and took off about 30 pounds over the course of several months.  Once he was not flirting with me any longer, I quit weight watchers.  I have learned that none of this depends on another person or organization.  Support might help in some ways, but, for me it must come from deep within me to really last.  One thing that did last and worked well was my membership to Naturally Women’s Health Spa until they closed their doors.  I did notice the greatest consistent improvement from doing water aerobics every day. 

It will be interesting to see how this month goes.  I will be honest with all about the end numbers.  

Tuesday December 4th

Ok: I am celebrating some small success in how I feel.  Overall more energetic and I have grasp some behavioral changes.  I am avoiding the result of the scale as my only measurement.  I gained 2 pounds.  Yes, the Holidays and Thanksgiving it partly to blame.  This was a difficult month trying to transition to a better life style. I am going to continue this next month in a similar way but I am doing a few things differently.  I watched a documentary on You Tube called "why thin people stay thin".  These people can eat anything and they were doing an experiment to try and gain weight. They could not even gain weight.  When they started eating more calories their metabolism would increase.  The participants liked sports and walking, however they were asked to refrain from working out and walking too.  

My idea is to continue to feel better, move more, walk more.  I was able to do this by parking far away from the store and places I go so that I would spend at least 2 or 3 minutes walking each way.  I am rearranging my small living space to include a place to do Yoga, and I am keeping track of what I eat daily. There are some minor changes in diet and I am going to use Truvia instead of sugar in coffee. I would like to eat less diary and that includes cheese.  Without obsessing about my weight and feeling any angst, I will continue to add and do a bit more.  I think this first month was a trial run.  I see the silver lining in all this and I am going to keep on pushing through to see maybe a two pound loss on January 5th.  That is my goal, 2 pounds a month and that equals 24 a year.  Hey I did not get fat over night.  There is a great deal of evidence that slow weight loss will stay off and the body will hardly notice the shift.  Even if your body is carrying too much weight, it tries to remain the same.  There is a medical term for that: Homeostasis.  The body resists sudden changes.  It does not react well to severe diet restrictions and goes into a panic starvation mode and tries to lower your metabolism to conserve body fat.  Wow. Our bodies just do not get what we would like to do.  It takes lots of love and patience to correct a body weight issue.  I am in it for the long haul.  

See you in January, ya'all. Happy New Year in advance.