You are not fat

Such a great perspective to have and I love this statement made on tumblr it really made me think.

You are a soul. You are a mind.
You are not fat. You have fat.
You also have fingernails, but you aren't fingernails, are you?
You have hair, but you aren't hair, are you?
You have fat, but you are not fat.
You are beautiful.

This is really quite profound and is a very clever statement because it enables us to think of our weight loss in a new way.

Some of use have longer fingernails or more hair than others but we do not define ourselves or get in an emotional muddle over it, if the fingernails are too long we just cut them to our desired length. If we do not like our hair we change it to a style we like. These two brilliant examples of fingernails and hair do not define us, so why should we let fat do the same. If we are happy with our weight and feel we have enough fat great, if we have too much then lets remove in with a similar mindset to how we change the length of our nail and hair. No real emotional attachment, just do what is best for you.

You are amazing please do not define yourself by something you have too much or too little off, define yourself by your soul and your life purpose.

Best wishes
Mindful Mark

Physical Hunger

The image above helps demonstrate the differences between to the two forms of hunger and by listening to our bodies we will be able to tell the two apart.

Physical Hunger

• Comes on gradually & can be postponed
• Can be satisfied with any type of food
• Once you're full you can stop eating
• Causes satisfaction, doesn't cause guilt

Emotional Hunger

• Comes on suddenly & feels urgent
• Causes specific craving, Pizza, chocolate, ice-cream etc
• Eat more than you normally would. Feel uncomfortably full
• Leaves you feeling guilty & cross with yourself

These are fantastic signs to look out for to help you clarify which type of hunger you are responding to. A really great tip is to only eat when we are physically hungry and register our self on the hunger scale between 3 and 7. Learn more about the hunger scale.

Paul McKenna in his book 'Hypnotic Gastric Band' has developed an visualisation exercise to help you re-tune you mind to recognise physical hunger:

1. Think of a time when you were really, really hungry - so hungry you felt faint and even a crust of stale bread would have tasted delicious. Remember that.
2. Now think of a time when you were absolutely stuffed - when you'd feasted and eaten so much you were in pain, even nauseous. remmember that.
3. Do this several times so you emphasize the difference between starving and stuffed.
4. OK, now relax. Those two feelings are the extremes. You never have to feel either of those awful feeling again. you never have o be hungry and you never need to feel that full.

A brilliant mindfulness exercise there from Paul McKenna, if you liked it I can only recommend you purchase his books 'Hypnotic Gastric Band' and 'I Can Make You Thin' because they are full of useful techniques and philosophies that will help you lose weight.

Kind regards
Mindful Mark

Just keep moving

This piece of weight loss advice comes from a genius, Albert Einstein stated:

"Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance you must keep moving."

This is genius advice because it doesn't matter if your are moving at the speed of a Tour de France professional cyclist or the speed of pensioner cycling to the shop, either way you are moving forward towards your weight loss goal. And if you are moving forward toward your goal you will in time reach it, be it the end of the race, back home putting the shopping away or your ideal weight you have to just keep moving toward it.

Amazing things happen when you just keep moving! So do just one thing each day which is a positive move toward your weight loss goal and in the end those little changes will make a big difference.

If you would like support to start your movement toward your ideal weight please get our 3 FREE eBooks and our informative eNewsletter.

Kind regards
Mindful Mark

Be Brave and Make Some Changes

Making changes can be scary because we are in a rut and use to our current routine and lifestyle. It can take bravery to make a change. By recognising what life will be like if you did not make the change compared to your life if you did is a great way to get you motivated to take the required action.

A quote from the film 'We Bought a Zoo' helps come up with a solution for us to be brave enough to change and make difference to our lifes:

"You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery, and I promise you something great will come of it."
Source - moviequotesandmore.com

This advice helped his son in the movie ask a girl out because 20 seconds of bravery is achievable to make that change. The choice of having a better lifestyle for himself was worth that 20 seconds of insane bravery.

This is all you need to get started on your weight loss journey too. 20 seconds of courage and the changes have started.

We, at Mind Body Weight Loss, will be here to support you in any way we can, with regular updates, tips, advice, product suggestions and eNewsletters.

Take care and speak soon
Mindful Mark

Weight Loss Begins in Your Head

It is clear that any change that we action in our body start from our head, it starts with a thought which, turns into words, behaviour, actions and beliefs. Weight Loss is no different what you think at the start ripples through to your final results so when I found an amazing article on topendsports.com that shared an amazing 9 exercises for you to use to get your head in gear I had to share it with you.

The nine exercises are:

1. Self Examination
2. You can be what you want to be
3. Keep a journal of your daily successes
4. Go easy on yourself, you are beautiful work in progress
5. Forget about the past
6. Resolve to change today
7. Write a plan for your life
8. Carry affirmation cards about yourself
9. Change your eating habits

You can see read more about these exercises here. They look fantastic to use and I would love to hear how you get on and which ones you found most helpful.

Take care and speak soon
Mindful Mark

The Power of Imagination for Weight Loss

This quote by Albert Einstein helps demonstrates the power of imagination and this post will share why I believe it can help with your weight loss:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For Knowledge is limited to all we know and understand,
while imagination embraces the entire world,
and all there ever will be to know and understand."

How I  interpret this quote is that our imagination includes all the knowledge we already know but is also open to receiving new and wonderful ideas created by your mind in visualization or meditation. With this in mind, excuse the pun, you can see how the day before yesterdays post called 'The Importance of The Mind For Weight Loss' links in with this because if you think something there is a big chance you will talk about it and behave in that way and make the new ideas from your imagination a key part of your weight loss.

If you would like to get started why not try this visualization or learn more about the strengths of visualization and your imagination.

Speak soon and take care
Mindful Mark

The Code for Your Weight Loss

Have a look at this video below and see if it resonates with you and if it does why not learn more.



Find out more

Start Where You Are

This post is similar to the theme of yesterdays in that just control, do and use what you can to make your weight loss method as effective as possible. The quote suggests:

Start where you are.
Use what you have.
Do what you want.

So lets break this down line by line:

Start where you are - means to me that in this moment right now with everything the way it is the best time to start losing weight and taking control of your life is definitely now.

Use what you have - translates as find your strength and working them to get the best outcomes, it could also mean getting the most out your knowledge, support groups, shop and food.

Do what you can - With the knowledge you have what can you do to make this happen with full desire, belief and expectancy it is going to happen. You can also look at lots of different method to help you lose weight like The Gabriel Method, Weight Loss Attitude, Fat Loss Code, The Silva Method for Weight Loss, Hypnosis for weight loss and Program yourself thin to name a few.

So lets get started, both Can Do Craig and I here to help support you to lose weight in every way we can. You can also get our free eBooks and sign up for our eNewsletter here.

Take care and speak soon
Mindful Mark

5 Questions to Ask Yourself

I found these 5 questions to ask yourself before you eat on mizfits and they really do make you think.

1. Am I dehydrated?
2. Am I trying to overcome emotions with food?
3. Am I physically exhausted?
4. Am I eating to be polite?
5. Do I need to sustain my body?

These are really useful questions because if you are dehydrated drink water before eating anything, if it is emotional consumption deal with the emotions first, if you are tired do you need food or sleep is the decision to make, if it is to be polite you have to make a difficult decision to follow your path or please someone else. Finally question 5 is the crux of why we eat and perhaps the only reason we should eat and that is it going to help me live longer and healthier?

Take and I hope you found this post helpful.
Mindful Mark

You Feel What You eat

This is the whole purpose of eating, is stay alive as long as possible in a happy and healthy way so we can spend time with the one we love. A side effect of eating well and clean is that we will operate at optimum weight, so weight loss would be fixed as a by product of eating healthy.

Eat Crap = Feel Like Crap
Eat Nothing = Feel Like Nothing
Eat Healthy = Feel Helathy
Eat Well = Being Well

Is how I would change the quote because we have the power in this moment to choose what to put in our mouth to make us feel like either, Crap, Nothing, Healthy or Well. In this moment what are you going to choose?

Take care and speak soon
Mindful Mark

Weight Loss Attitude is Everything

Learn more about The Weight Loss Attitude and find out how you, like many others, can lose weight too.
Think about this for a moment…

If losing weight and getting the body you’ve always wanted was as simple as following a diet and doing a bunch of exercise, we wouldn’t have so many people constantly fighting a losing battle with their weight.

Recent social studies show that 76% of women would like to lose some weight at any given moment. If it was just down to diet and exercise, that percentage would NOT be anywhere near as high.

Given that you’re reading this today, I should imagine you probably want to lose weight.

5 Ways To Think Yourself Thinner

These are the five ways Lauren Conrad suggests to think yourself thinner:

1. Out of site, Out of mind: Clean out your kitchen and get rid of the junk food to eliminate temptations
2. Portion Control: Trick the mind into thinking you are eating more by putting meals on smaller plates
3. Drink up!: Sip on water in between meals when you think you might be hungry. Chances are you are just thirsty
4. Eat until 80% full: Taking smaller bites, eating slower, and avoiding distraction like TV will make a difference and help you slim down faster.
5. Take a hike: When you're bored and want a snack, get and take a walk instead.

Food is Fuel

I have just found this Fuel is Food metaphor to help you lose weight and I really had to share it with you!

"You wouldn't starve your car of fuel and expect it to run efficiently would you?

Successful weight loss is not about starving, it about fueling your body with the healthy, low calorie food it needs to help you lose weight."

This fits in with what we at Mind Body Weight Loss feel is the best weight loss tip ever!

Take care and speak soon.
Mindful Mark

A Letter to The Body

 Below is a letter to the body which really made Can do Craig and I think.

Dear Body,

I'm sorry I've treated you this way, feeding you the wrong foods and not taking care of you. I promise to do better and get you back to the best shape and fitness level you can be.

We can do it!

Sincerely,
Me

This letter is great at placing us in a point of acceptance from which we can build from, it sets out a plan with a clear goal for us to achieve and work towards and most importantly we will know when we got there. We will have reach our goal when we are back to the best shape we can be.

I hope you liked this letter as much as we at Mind Body Weight Loss do, it is great find from Tumblr.

Take care and speak soon
Mindful Mark

Your Life, You are in Control

This is your life, You are in Control. This is so empowering you may see you life as story book unfolding before you. You may not like the story upto now, but the great thing about this story and indeed you life is that you decide how it unfolds. You can change each and every part of it from this moment on, including your weight loss. So lets read the quote again:

"Ctrl your portions and hunger
Alt your lifestyle and choices
Del Junk food and bad vibe"

So if you follow the weight loss advice in the above quote how do you think you story will change and unfold?

Take total ownership of finishing your story as you would like it to conclude and lets see together what amazing things will happen in your life.

Take care and speak soon.
Mindful Mark

Hunger and Emotions - Eating When You Are hungry

Because hunger and emotions are experienced in the stomach area of the body sometime it can be hard to tell the difference. The importance of Eating when You are Hungry is highlighted because if you eat because of your emotions you are much more likely to put weight on. What this post is aim to to is share a few of pointers of how you recognise your hunger and act upon it.

1. Eat regular healthy meals this way you won't have extreme feelings of hunger
2. Use a hunger scale, this helps set in a conscious way exactly how hungry you are, this is great way to tell the difference between emotions and hunger
3. Consciously eat being fully aware of the tastes, textures, smells and the messages your body is sending. One great way to experience eating consciously is to try the 'Eating a Raisin Experiment'
4. Be kind to yourself and make your life easier, for example checking your hunger scale to see if it above 5 prior to any food shopping trip.

I hope you have found this post helpful and remember to ask yourself next time you think you are hungry. How hungry am I on the hunger scale.

Take care and happy weight loss.

Soup Portion Control Experiment

 Brian Wansink who has been called the Sherlock Holmes of food carried out a study which we call 'Soup Portion Control'. What he proved was that at our eyes are indeed bigger than our stomachs. He did this by giving 60 people a bowl of soup, half the people had a normal bowl of soup. the other half had a special bowl designed to refill itself with out them knowing.

The purpose of the study was to see if we listened our body and it's message that we have had enough food or do we listen to the bowl or plate. The answer was clear from the results when the group with the self filling bowl group ate a staggering 73% more than the people with a normal bowl.

This clearly shows the power of mindful eating and listening to your body and following the Hara Hachi Bu model of stop eating when you are 80% full because your stomach takes around 20 minutes to register as full.

I hope you found this interesting and helpful and I believe that if you use the mindful eating method it will help you loads with your weight loss.

Kind regards
Mindful Mark

Getting Started with Weight Loss Tip

This Getting Started with Weight Loss Tip is great and a fantastic way to getting motivated and in a way fits in with what David Wolfe advices in his great weight loss philosophy of adding in more good food, rather taking away the bad and unhealthy.

It is a really positive piece advice that can have a big different on any ones life. Just be aware of how good the first step feels and understand that you can make that multiply by taking bigger and bigger positive steps in the coming hours and days.

"Start today,  Start Now! Even if it is small.
Drink a glass of water, Eat some fruit, Take a walk outside.
Those small changes will become bigger and you will be glad you started now"
Source - fitnessflirt

Please let us at Mind Body Weight Loss know how you get on with this tip and where it takes you on your weight loss journey.

Speak soon.
Mark

Mother of all Motivations

I just had to share this motivational quote I found on Tumblr it really made me think about what I want to achieve and has helped me focus my mind and body on achieving it.

"Your mother didn't spend 9 months forming you body in her just so you could destroy it. Love it and make it the best you can."

Now I know there is an element of guilt built in to the quote but as we know there is nothing we can do about the past but what we can do is right now pledge to make our body and indeed our life the best it can be.

Take care and speak soon
Mindful Mark

Weight Loss Support

Hi Can Do Craig and I would like to share an image with you that has really inspired us this week. Apart from it being extremely cute it helped us consider our Mind Body Weight Loss Purpose.

If you can imagine yourself on one side of your weight loss journey wanting to get to the other side where you have become your ideal weight. You have to cross that gap but do not yet know how to do so. Well we at Mind Body Weight Loss want to be that bridge which can support you along you weight loss journey. As you can see from the picture above you will still have to do some work to get the other side but we at Mind Body Weight Loss are here to make it easier for you in as many ways as we possibly can.

Some on the ways we help you lose weight are our helpful blog posts with advice, tips and suggestions, free ebooks, eNewsletters, and recommending fantastic products which we feel could help you lose weight.

Best wishes
Can Do Craig and Mindful Mark
Your Mind Body Weight Loss Support Team