Your Mind and Weight Loss

The art of living well is wisdom in living. Living well does not require abundance, but a healthy body, a sound mind, and a joyful spirit are the essentials of holistic living.

Everything in life begins with the mind--your thinking mind -- because it affects your decisions and life choices, precipitating in your actions and their respective consequences, which then become your life experiences. So, how well you live is contingent on how well you think. In other words, your thoughts create your personality and henceforth the raw materials, the building blocks with which you build your own life. Your thoughts become your realities in life.

But the mind is not independent of the body and the spirit; as a matter of fact, they are all interrelated, and hence the importance of holistic health in the art of living well. Accordingly, the mind is significantly affected by the body. A healthy body constitutes a healthy mind; what is good for the body is also good for the brain, the hardware of your thoughts. A healthy mind also breeds a joyful spirit.

Your body weight is often a good indicator of your physical health. As a matter of fact, your body shape may be a reflection of your current health conditions. To illustrate, if your body shape is like that of an apple, with extra weight in your midsection, you may have a higher risk for developing diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease, among other health problems. The explanation is that the abdominal fat stored in a beer belly is more likely to be converted into cholesterol, causing heart problems further down the road. On the other hand, if your body shape is like that of of a pear, with extra body weight around your hips instead of in your midsection, you may be less at risk for diabetes and stroke. Therefore, you cannot be healthy if you are obese. If you have heart problems with constricted blood vessels, your brain may also be affected due to restricted blood flow that carries oxygen and nutrients to your brain cells. To conclude, a healthy brain requires a healthy body with optimum body weight.

Holistic body weight management is a holistic approach to weight loss. Effective weight control is more than just about weight -- just as Oprah Winfrey once told People Magazine: "My greatest failure was in believing that the weight issue was just about weight." Oprah was right: weight loss is about the body, the mind, and the spirit, not just the body weight. That explains why many have failed in their fight against weight gain and obesity. To lose weight permanently, you need holistic body weight management, which begins with the mind, and not the body.

First and foremost, there must be the intent to lose weight. Some people simply have a couldn't-care-less attitude towards their health, not to mention their weight problems. The intent empowers the mind to find out everything about weight loss: the body's metabolism, the caloric intake, the digestive system, and the buildup of fat, among others. The road to weight loss is paved with hurdles and obstacles that have to be overcome with discipline from the mind. Weight control is mind over matter. But your thinking mind can be your asset or liability. To illustrate, you want a piece of cheesecake, but you strongly believe that it will make you fat. So you may have second thoughts about eating it. But, unfortunately, your mind has created what you do not want -- that is, getting fat--and you will attract what you do not want, which is gaining weight, through the Law of Attraction. Remember, your thoughts create your own reality -- sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. The human thoughts generate energy, and negative energy attracts negative energies. Likewise, obsessing with what you do not want will, ironically enough, get you what you do not want.

Once you have control over your mind, you can also have power over your body with reference to diet, exercise, and change of lifestyle that will facilitate weight loss. A healthy mind and body cherishes a joyful spirit that focuses on who you are, rather than who you want to become, and thus taking away the stress that comes with self-image in the process of weight loss.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau