How to Lose Weight Series - Habit 2

Now, that for one week you have been able to inculcate the practice of consuming the Health tonic every morning (kindly note: you may refer my previous article in case you are unsure of what I am taking about), am sure you feel happy about starting on the right path. It’s often liberating just to know that you are taking the right step in the right path, though you have not yet reached your final destination.

I am proud of you and so should you be on being disciplined enough to start the program and stick on to it for a week now. Hold your breath. You don’t have to fret if you were not bang on able to do this like clockwork for all the 7 days. Try not to skip the good habit for 2 days in a row going forward.

Now, quickly moving onto Habit Number 2 that totally was such a simple but such a profound exercise for me.

Habit 2: Week 2

The Grateful Heart:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein

How you start your mornings can be truly one of the most important life choices you make. This is something I have come to realize over the years. This specific habit is a wellness habit that was ingrained in me by my mom from when I was like as tiny as a pod. People who interacted with me right through college particularly told me I was just such a happy person and asked how I was like that. I thought it was my personality. I was just plain fortunate to be born with the “happy” gene. Little did I know, that in adulthood, when I did stop this beautiful habit of getting up in the morning and thanking the good Lord for all the wonderful things he had done for me, the happiness factor dwindled slowly and steadily.

I attributed it to my challenging situations, stress of work life or did I call it responsibility of adult life, I don’t remember. But one thing I know for sure — I wasn’t that happy a person I used to be. Neither was anyone around me particularly radiant either.

Then thank God I re-started this magical habit and you will not believe it, deep down me I started feeling a serene, calm composure, a joy that lifted my spirits and told me I would be empowered to change the world. Yes, I started singing once again to the flat tunes of life and they started changing to melodious little songs.

Scientific fact world:

• A highly cited study by UCLA and the University of Miami found that people who wrote down what they were grateful for, were cheerful, optimistic, happier and healthier.

• American researchers — Emmons and McCullough, 2003, found that young adults who kept gratitude journals were showed greater increases in determination, attention, enthusiasm and energy.

• “Clinical trials indicate that the practice of gratitude can have dramatic and lasting effects in a person’s life,” said Robert A. Emmons, professor of psychology at UC Davis. “It can lower blood pressure, improve immune function and facilitate more efficient sleep.

• One recent study from the University of California San Diego’s School of Medicine found that people who were more grateful actually had better heart health, specifically less inflammation and healthier heart rhythms.“They showed a better well-being, a less depressed mood, less fatigue and they slept better,” said the study’s author, Paul J. Mills. “When I am more grateful, I feel more connected with myself and with my environment. That’s the opposite of what stress does.”

• Another study found that gratitude can boost your immune system. Researchers at the universities of Utah and Kentucky observed that stressed-out law students who characterized themselves as optimistic actually had more disease-fighting cells in their bodies.

• People who keep a gratitude journal have a reduced dietary fat intake — as much as 25 percent lower. Stress hormones like cortisol are 23 percent lower in grateful people. And having a daily gratitude practice could actually reduce the effects of aging to the brain.Being thankful has such a profound effect because of the feelings that go along with it, Emmons said.

How "Gratitude" helps you lose weight?

1. Stop stress eating by reducing your stress levels – It is considered that by taking the time to express gratitude towards all the things that make you happy on a daily basis, you will successfully help your body to reduce the stress levels in no time! And you know what that means – no stress eating! It happens to all of us, more commonly than we all want to admit, to forget all about healthy eating and eat all the sweet, processed food that we can grab on, in the middle of a stressful event! Why not prevent that from happening by reducing your stress levels?

2. Make better decisions about the food that you eat – By practicing gratitude daily, you will start noticing all the wrong things in your life and all the potentially harmful decisions that you make, especially about your eating habits! You will start noticing that your normal eating habits do not fit the criteria for healthy eating, so why stick to them any longer?

3. You will learn to appreciate your food – It is not that often that we take the time to appreciate the food on our table. And understand this – eating your meal in a record of 10 minutes cannot compare with taking the time to taste and appreciate your food at the moment. Plus, you will let your body process your food normally, and you will feel full after eating nearly half of your usual serving!

4. You will start setting goals – By practicing appreciation you will start feeling good about yourself, and you will learn to love yourself, and we do not mean only your body, but your mind as well! You will learn to love your character, and you will feel eager to set realistic goals, especially those that refer to eating healthier and exercising regularly to feel better in your skin! But this does not stop here! Practicing gratitude every day will help you accomplish these goals as well!

5. Gratitude will help you create and stick to a proper exercise routine – Exercising has an essential role in the process of losing weight, using healthy tips and tricks, that is. Practicing gratitude, even a small action as writing a few sentences in your gratitude journal every night will help you in the process of creating a proper exercising routine and never missing a day from it!

6. Gratitude will help you stick to your routine of preparing and eating healthy – Learn to appreciate your food before you cook it, while you eat it and after you are done eating it. Why? It is because gratitude will help you feel powerful and strengthen your willpower and that is what you seek if you want to create and follow new health routines.

7. Sleep better by appreciating the things that surround you – Sleep is vital if you want to feel rested and prepared to go through your day and sticking to your new healthy habits of healthy eating and everyday exercising! Plus, better sleep means lower stress levels, and we already discussed the importance of low-stress levels when focusing on the weight loss!

How do we practice nurturing a grateful heart?

In my life, the habit of saying out loud, yes putting in words the feelings of gratefulness and thanksgiving right after having my healthy tonic has helped immensely.

Yes I understand the school of thought which goes where people say you can think about it, write about it. However, in my experience giving those thoughts words and saying those words out in audible volume rather releasing those words out in the atmosphere as a thanksgiving has been a huge step towards enabling my day begin on the right note.

Typically, what I do is I give thanks to God for the previous day’s blessings, the good night sleep and for the new day that I have received. Besides of course, I am also grateful that I am on to a journey where I have started to think the right things and take action on the weight loss and wellness journey. If I have some special things that I look forward to doing that day, I mention a thanksgiving for that being part of my day’s schedule and most importantly I thank God for filling my life with the most beautiful people. Yes there are days when even thinking of being thankful seems like a mundane task. So on those days, I pause to basically visualise the reality of the little basic things that make my day beautiful like having an abode to stay, being able to have the kind of food I want to, for the beautiful "me", for my dearest loved ones and allow the feeling of gratitude to sink in deep and permeate my “being”.

That’s a great place to be..to feel this feeling deep inside of you. You may call it prayer, meditation, or just plain thanksgiving.

Life’s good.

Would love to hear of how you felt after practicing this habit for Week 2.