Weight loss is no easy task, especially in today’s world where we’re constantly bombarded with messaging about not being enough. At best, it can feel like a daunting endeavor and at worst losing weight can create a lot of mental and emotional stress that we store in our bodies and minds until we find a way to release it. And unfortunately this is a phenomenon that the majority of us deal with at one point or another in our lives.
But what if there was a secret weapon to use alongside our weight loss journeys to ease the stress and turn quick, temporary fixes into long lasting results? Today we’ll tell you why meditation is just the companion you need to relieve that weight loss stress.
Meditation increases awareness
Traditional diets typically lead to temporary fixes and research has even shown that they tend to trigger lower self-esteem as people are thrown into a vicious cycle of quick weight loss followed by eventual weight gain. Fad diets encourage unhealthy, obsessive habits and are essentially band-aid fixes, rather than getting to the root cause of weight gain.
Through meditation we increase our body and mind awareness and this can aid with weight loss in a few ways. As meditation becomes an integral part of your life, you will begin to observe your eating and exercise habits more closely. This new awareness provides a window to understand your relationship with food, ultimately digging down to the roots of any weight issues.
With this awareness you can objectively observe your habits and uncover those which are beneficial versus destructive to your weight loss goal. To successfully make any change in life, we must first identify the current patterns that we are trapped in, be it binge eating, exercise avoidance- whatever they are! So meditation can help unlock valuable knowledge necessary to creating lasting change.
Healthy mind equals healthy body
It’s now universally understood that we can’t address our physical health without considering our mental health, and vice versa. Together, a healthy body and healthy mind create wellness, so when we consider something like weight loss, calming and clearing the mind is an essential factor not to be forgotten.
And how should you go about calming the mind? Meditation is a great start. Aside from the valuable insight meditation can provide, it’s well documented that it can relieve stress, ease anxiety and lower depression.
Getting started
The key to meditation is consistency, and while getting started might feel overwhelming remember that it’s a practice and just like anything in life, you’ll have to work at it before it feels natural.
Find a simple guided practice on Youtube that you resonate with, or perhaps a teacher from a local studio and commit to practicing every morning even just for five minutes. There’s no excuse not to wake up just five minutes earlier to sneak in a little time for yourself. Meditation has the potential to be a great aid on your weight loss journey towards less stress and a healthier life.
