When you cut down on food, your body feels deprived and starts conserving food and storing it for when it may need it. If you eat only when you are hungry, your body learns that when it is hungry, it will get fed and this doesn’t mean shoving anything in when you want as often as you want just because you think you are hungry. Sometimes hunger occurs not because we are hungry but because we are dehydrated and it manifests itself as hunger pangs.
By doing yoga 10 minutes a day at the start, eating the same foods (maybe smaller portions) and just cutting down on snacks, not forbidding anything as this only makes you feel you are deprived, but just moderating what you put in, whilst taking notice of how it tastes and feels, as we have all so lost the ability to ‘experience’ the eating pleasure and tend to just scoff in front on the TV.
A key to learning to change your lifestyle and eating better is to describe everything in your mind as you eat it and eat it slow which then helps digestion, a lot gets stored that is not broken down properly. It takes a little while for the brain to realize we are feeding the body, therefore, it is easy to eat quicker than our brain is registering. If you slow your eating down to be in time with your brain, you naturally fell fuller quicker on less food.
Salad, although very bland for some, is a necessary weight stabilizing food, as its acts as bulk but also helps digest food and particularly slow digesting food, like meat. A little known fact that a piece of red meat, such as beef, can take up to a week to fully digest, whereas salad, vegetables are digested in just over an hour, fish and chicken (depending on how they are cooked) are also very easily digestible.
Water, water everywhere….
Drinking more water helps fill you up, so drink before eating or have an apple before the meal. Try not drink too much with the meal though as this dilute the vital stomach acid that is needed.
Leave it at least 10 minutes before drinking.
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Yoga and Fasting
In nature cure, one of the very important tools for health and disease cure is fasting.
Many people are learning the trick of curing their colds, headaches, nervous spells and other acute troubles by missing a few meals or taking a short fast. It is the simplest and the most efficient way of relieving the overloaded and "food-poisoned" system. You would be surprised to know how little food is actually required to keep the individual healthy.
One of the commonest complaints of the sick is that they have "lost their appetite". In fact, the greatest blessing to them would be to lose their appetite long enough to find their hunger. Loss of appetite is an indication that the system is overcharged with toxins and nature is trying to correct this by giving a chance to the waste accumulation in the organs to escape from the system.
Fasting as a remedy is fully in harmony with the "nature-cure" philosophy of the cause of disease. If the disease is created by an abnormal accumulation of toxins in the system, it stands to reason that fasting will help in their elimination from the system. The membranous linings of the stomach and intestine which act as a "sponge" to absorb food materials are now "squeezed" to throw out the waste matter from the system.
Exercises While Fasting
The idea prevails that during a prolonged fast one should have complete rest. This however, is a serious mistake. There is no reason why one should not take the usual amount of or accomplish the accustomed daily tasks, provided, these do not strain the physical and mental energy to the point of exhaustion.
I've found that I can keep my weight stabilized by adding in more protein and cutting the carbs and when I feel that my energy has dropped a little, then I add in a little more carbs. These seem to be my personal enemy as far as weight is concerned...sugars (even from fruit) and starchy foods.
I eat them a little more at weekend or ons social occasions, and limit them throughout the week.
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Final note:
Remember what works for one, doesn't always work for another, but good to try along this path called life. Eat to live, but also eat to enjoy too.