hello steemians...
this is very informative article and my 7 days working.......
Understanding why the weight is there, at present is likely to provide the answers as to how to actually shift it, as what the body is able to do with food as it enters the system is one area that is sometimes overlooked in the weight debate. Understanding how the energy of the body is produced, stored and utilised may allow a different sense to be made of the immensely resource, time and worry consuming passion losing weight is for many.
Usually when people are trying to lose weight, they become convinced that changing the amount or type of food that is going in their mouths will have a magic effect on what is seen, and felt around the edges of their silhouettes. That the calorific value, the energy expended in extra activity, the types of diet, quantities and combinations, will all, if changed, allow the shedding of the excess they feel they have no need of.
But, what if there is a reason that the excess is there, which is not actually dependent on what was consumed at all? What if any efforts to alter shape and weight are destined to fail until the right pieces of the puzzle are found and inserted in the appropriate sequence? What if you finally realised that concentrating on the right hand side of the equation is exactly why everything you have done, to the letter, right, good, exactly - were all only a small aspect of the overall situation?
What if you actually looked elsewhere, and tidied up the reason for the weight, not the end result? What if all it takes is you to change perspective, and move your focus more to the left? (See diagram above)
WHAT IS "THE WEIGHT"?
A simple enough question - very infrequently asked. What is fat? Is it fluid? Is it a cellulite mix? Is it solid? Is it flabby? Is it on and off easily? Tied to your menstrual cycle? Wobbly? Painful to prod? When did to start to ease on? Was it gradual or sudden? What else was going on in your life at the time? Was it after a shock/ stressful time/pregnancy/ in response to unhappiness?
It may be also helpful to start to OBSERVE YOURSELF - explore your answers to the questions above. Ask yourself when is it that you reach for something to fill that hole? Which hole? Think about it - we are usually not quietening a body need when reaching for food/fluids/cigarettes/alcohol/ whatever, so much as wanting warmth, comfort, something to do, something to fill an inner yearning/ state of dis-ease.
START A JOURNAL - record what you were doing/experiencing that prompted a "snack attack". What thought are you avoiding? What did that person say/not say, do/not do that triggered off a reaction of what you think they inferred, that then 'upset' you in such a way a 'reward' was in order? What would happen if rather than feeling victim to all these inner voices you actually took charge? What have you got to lose? Maybe the reasons for the inner and outer stagnation in your life - Expressed as damp - fat and fluid?
CHANGE HOW YOU SEE YOUR LIFE, AND YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO IT.
Remember that if you take the position that something in you set the situation in motion, you then also have the tools to change it, by altering yourself. Rather than seeing this as you being "to blame", you might choose to see yourself looking from a different angle. The changes of focus shifting your perspective, thus altering your habits.
WHY DO WE EAT?
In starting to observe yourself as you go through the day, grazing or denying yourself food, perhaps change the way you actually view eating. A useful model may be one where you see yourself as a car, which without petrol goes nowhere. In order to start the engine, (but go nowhere useful), to be in 'idle' mode, it is possible to eat what feels and tastes good.
To further assist yourself into truly functional mode, generally following the owner's manual (as told to you as a child by well meaning adults) would be of great value. However, as a young person, probably the consequences of immoderate living are not yet in evidence. Feeling and acting as though bullet-proof is part of the process, a stage through which life initiates us onto wiser conduct.
In order to be a high performance model, attention needs paying to the type, amount and timing of fuel put in the tank. For the engine to even run efficiently, it may need to be tuned appropriately, with occasional maintenance. Where is that owner's manual? What manual? The one that would have been useful to arrive with the responsibility of looking after your vehicle and keeping it in good working order. What vehicle? The only one that you get, this time around. The one that is started up by the parents, with their best intentions, and the one that you as a youth completely take for granted - until at some point it started to 'playing up' and responding as a car would if you ignored its basic care and running requirements. In the weight debate, it might help if you had an appreciation of why we eat at all.
To assist the body in its task of smoothly functioning, the rules of eating are -
1 - REGULARITY - Eating at least every three hours. Not a huge amount, but sufficient to stop the blood sugar dips that create mood and energy swings and sugar cravings. Eating a little often, snacking high quality, will provide maximum opportunity for stressed digestive and metabolic systems to heal.
2 - TEMPERATURE - The Spleen/Pancreas energy that is the core of the digestive and metabolic strength does NOT need to waste its 'oomph' heating oncoming foods and fluids to body temperature, to then start the digestion. Especially not if the system is so under-functioning that it is transforming incompletely as fat and fluid and cellulite.
3 - TIMING - The yang energy (metabolic) cycle is active from dawn to dusk. Transforming, assimilating and transport are all yang qi functions, which work optimally in the daylight hours. The digestive organs' main energetic time is 7-11am. The opposite is also true - digestive organs and yang (metabolic) qi are most sluggish at night, and work inefficiently when the largest meal is eaten - thus creating "feeling off", and not like facing breakfast, after a poor night's sleep. (Body couldn't regenerate properly, as it had to metabolise, as you by eating out of synch are unintentionally are trying to reverse the natural life rhythms).
4 - MODERATION AND VARIETY - Filling the system with large amounts, and the same food types can create strain, overload, and allergic responses, all of which increases the likelihood of poor digestion, leading to discomfort, bloating, fluid and fat.
5 - QUALITY - usually the most hotly debated issue - is the microwave killing the food? Is it organic/fresh?
6 - CHOICE OF FOOD - vegan, vegetarian, macrobiotic, anything that comes to hand - protein, food type, etc.
EXTRA THOUGHTS
All the above presupposes that the person is aware that they need to spend time enjoying and resting after eating, not hassling, arguing and rushing about. That food is respectfully eaten, in a quiet environment allowing for perfect digestion and assimilation. That snacks of empty, tasty 'foods' are avoided.
Avoiding all sugar, salt, animal fat (oily fish, olive oil and avocados are fine), mineral or soda water (high in sodium) and fruit juices or carbonated soft drinks may assist the change to healthy living. Similarly avoiding all gluten (wheat, oats, rye and barley) and all dairy products, on a short-term basis will help digestion to return to normal. As both these foods groups are over represented in the average diet, nearly everyone is slightly sensitive to these, our digestive systems working overtime to process them. This is a temporary measure - not forever. As we are attempting to change our actual digestive strength, it is possibly a good idea to be slightly radical, and spend a month seeing how rice can be substituted.
The quality, amount and type of nourishment value of the food you choose to consume are important. The question of whether the energy to digest and process food chosen is up to the task is as, if not more important than the choice of raw ingredients. To illustrate this, following the naturopathically inspired cleansing diets, consuming quantities of apparently slimming juices (fresh from the fridge), salads, low fat dairy products, and fruit may be theoretically an excellent idea, yet totally contrary to the system that is already full of the damp energy. (Cellulite, fluid, fat, cysts, discharges, unclear emotions and thinking).
When the digestive energy is compromised, it produces and stores physical digestive by-products as damp/ phlegm in different guises. The energy of 'phlegm' in acupuncture terms is obstructive, causing the person to become sluggish, lethargic and prone to procrastination. Fluid collects within tissues, slowing the normal electrical messages, creating an environment of frustration, that is often internalised to become self messages that are less than helpful to the person who sees that they would be happy if only they lost the weight. Possibly if the focus changed, the reasons the weight has accumulated would be addressed, and then the actual weight would be taken care of automatically by the functioning body.
HOW TO START
Supplementing with a good quality multivitamin, (or Vit B complex if you are prone to stress) three times daily, and drinking a few glasses extra, of herbal tea and water (not chilled) will also assist your body to release stored toxins. There are many Chinese herbal preparations that cool the blood and create freer flowing liver energy to allow for the bowel and liver to cleanse properly.
A Gall Bladder cleanse, done under a naturopath's guidance, followed immediately by a colonic irrigation may be the beginning of a totally differently functioning mid section. By clearing out the accumulated sludge, calcified cholesterol and forming gall stones, the liver and hence colon will work vastly more healthily. Attention to this may mean that the apparently unrelated hormonal, skin, cholesterol, migraines, bloating and bowel problems may all disappear.
Considering the state of the physical organs that are to process our food is an old naturopathic approach. By clearing out the organs that process the rubbish removal, and releasing some of the backlog, a stunning difference may be noticed how you feel, the amount of energy that is available, and how you look - the clearing of muddiness of the skin, facial complexion, and of rashes and pimples.
What does eating represent in your life?
If faced with the issue of deciding to lose weight, the easiest way to tackle it is to change focus to becoming more well. Whilst you may consider yourself as not being ill, using the energy model, it can be seen that there may be a chasm between the two states of 'health' and 'not ill'.
If the state of health is seen to be the ability of all levels to adapt to change on all layers of being, a state of less than perfect functioning is one where discomforts spill over onto thinking, emotional and sleeping states. Over time, the inability to do whatever one has a mind to is lost in what one has the energy/motivation for. As age/inactivity creeps up on one, the goal posts may be stealthily shifted.
To allow the return to more perfect functioning, the change of focus to no headaches, tension, backaches, period pain, PMT, migraines, pimples and arthritis may sound like wishful thinking. All the above are simply results of your not using the owner's manual - treating the only body you have as though it were disposable, and easily replaced.
When faced with the need to lose weight - what does the little voice say?
Loss of comfort/deprivation/punishment?
Most of us were rewarded with sweets when younger. It is possible that as adults when we feel the need for comfort we reach for non-nutritious snacks. What does the withdrawal of this mean to us? What comes up emotionally when we decide mentally that we will "eat sensibly"?
What does the prospect of losing weight translate into? What inner instructions are we not conscious of, that have until now, created a saboteur that appears to block our best intentions?
POSSIBLE METABOLIC (THYROID) IMBALANCES
Is there still an issue with energy/motivation/weight movement after 2 weeks as above? If there is no difference in weight, body shape, tone and energy, take your temperature first thing every morning for three weeks. Perhaps, to speed things up take it for a week prior to beginning the new regime. Remember that it is normal for a woman not on the pill to have the most reliable reading 2/3 days after the start of her menstrual cycle. In health, the temperature stays around the same reading until the day before ovulation (mid-cycle). It may then dip significantly, before rising about a half of a degree, and stay elevated until bleeding commences, or the baby is born.
The first half of the menstrual cycle in this healthy, normal case is about one half a degree lower than in the second half of the cycle, or during pregnancy. The point of the exercise is not to establish whether ovulation is happening, but to check whether your basal temperature is too low. If it is under the low 36's at the beginning, and under the high 36's in the second part of the cycle, it may mean that the thyroid gland is under-performing. It may be less helpful to check by visiting a GP, as the blood tests currently run, do not take into account what your personal base line is/was.
Borderline cases of thyroid under-activity are probably the biggest reason for difficult weight loss. If you have reason to suspect your thyroid is slowing down, this may not be seen by the medical profession as the problem it actually may be. (It is after all, not life threatening - just a quality of life issue). Most doctors are unaware of alternatives to currently considered 'best' medical practice, and most take more notice of the results of blood tests, rather than your clinical, presenting symptoms.
It is very usual to see a large number of women, who have overweight/cellulite/depression/ low blood pressure, low libido/low blood sugar (hence ridiculous sugar cravings and mood swings), vague aches and pains, fatigue hair and skin changes, inability to think clearly, and who generally feel as though they have been robbed of their vitality and personhood. Regardless of the energy they spend eating exactly according to whatever plan they are following, they still find that there is a barrier to change. It is a difficult thing just to go through the motions of living when floundering in the mire of damp.
Knowing that something is wrong, and no one treating the entire go-slow of the body/mind as important, is enough to depress anyone. Being female, and 'ageing' (that is over 35) we are often considered to be a case for antidepressants, hormone replacement therapy, or just 'accepting' that one is ageing.
Ageing is not a disease, nor is it necessarily based upon the numbers of birthdays you have celebrated.
Reading the 'Owner's Manual', "Living as Energy", I have written may be a helpful step. Dr Sandra Cabot has written "The Liver Cleanse Diet", "Don't Let Hormones Ruin Your Life" and "Boost Your Energy", all of which may assist you to return your inner factory into the well functioning model it needs to be.
