Body weight or the shape of our body, that is something that always sits at the back of our head and tends to creep at us more or less often.
It can make us insecure, miserable, fed up, demotivated and exhausted.
But why does it feel so difficult to feel good in our own body? Why does it take so much effort to lose weight, to get toned, to maintain it?
Because the question has never been ‘How can I lose weight?’ or ‘How quickly can I look better?’
The correct question is ‘What can I change to feel better?’
Reasons to start exercise are, in most cases, body changes like weight loss, muscle mass gain, change in circumference. Which is all a valid reason and results can be impressive for anyone who wants to succeed and commits to it.
As a positive side effect, life-style improves, mind gets stronger, more focused and clearer, which has a huge impact on life itself that gets more enjoyable and satisfying. Not only because our physical and mental health improves but also we find ourselves in better emotional health, thanks to the feeling of belonging and confidence that is growing equally with it. And those three health factors are our inner pillars that support the outer experience of life. They are however interconnected and if one is imbalanced, it brings an impossible demand on the other two.
Let’s look at each pillar individually.
The physical health pillar – going back to the weight loss, body changes and its functionality.
Why do we feel the need to change anything? Simply because there is something that we don’t like. In most cases it goes back to excessive weight and body fat which also causes additional health issues.
Being overweight or not being lean enough to your liking, doesn’t just occur by itself. Even though genetics, medical conditions and hormonal changes play a big part in this matter, the main reason is an inadequate and inappropriate nutrition – what we eat, how much we eat and when we eat it.
The most simple and basic advice would be to eat balanced meals that are based on protein, have enough healthy fats, vitamins and minerals together with moderate amount of carbohydrates for our body to function at its finest. Portions should be big enough to cover the hunger but small enough to feel like we could eat more. Meals should not be based on the time of the day but on body requirements. We should always avoid eating anything that makes us feel funny or unwell. In this particular case I am encouraging my clients to experiment with it a little, just to feel the difference. For example staying away or reducing the consumption of gluten, sweetener or refined sugar, unhealthy fats, etc. not only they’re all causing issues in our guts (digestive issues and bloating) but they have negative impact on our brain functioning.
Imbalanced and unhealthy diet means that our physical health pillar is unreliable and that causes problems for the other two pillars, mental and emotional. It affects our sleeping pattern, our mood, our self-esteem and our vitality. We start to feel sluggish, demotivated, grumpy and tired. That said, it obviously doesn’t mean that it is all down to a healthy diet. Even with good eating habits, the physical health pillar will be unstable without movement and exercises that are also crucial for body maintenance and overall well-being.
If our physical health isn’t good, it has straightforward affect on our mental health.
The mental health pillar represents our self-belief, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, self-respect, basically our self-esteem. It is crucial for good mental health to keep choosing not the easiest for us but the best for us, regardless of it’s difficulty. Because it builds our resilience and psychological health. Unstable mental health pillar has a direct effect on the other two pillars, emotional and physical. It creates self-doubts, low self-esteem, withdrawals, anxiety, difficulty to cope with emotions, drowning in the past pains or the fear of future and it’s also linked to bad eating habits. That all makes life overwhelming and any previous hard work and effort feels wasted which leads to negative feelings towards own self and often even towards everything in life. All of that makes our emotional health pillar weaker and in many cases, it makes this pillar to collapse completely, causing domino effect.
Some of us put extra hardwork in and try to rebuild these pillars with the best effort. Only not realising that the effort isn’t equally split between the three main pillars, which leads to inner instability and makes the outer life factors roll over us.
This all has been said in as little description as possible to understand it better and to be able to visualise it. Even though it’s a vast topic with many other aspect, factors, circumstances and conditions.
Overall and as a final conclusion I would like to highlight the importance of full realisation of the deep connection between physical, mental and emotional health that can be understood as a fundamental part of well-being.
So as you can see, ‘HOW TO LOSE AND/OR MAINTAIN WEIGHT’ has never really been a question 🙏❤️🍀.
