Tag Archives: food plan

Connecting Spirit to Mind and Body

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Mind Body SpiritWe’ve all heard of the mind, body, spirit, connection, but how much spiritual energy do you bring to your wellness goals? Do you make the connection between optimal wellness and your sense of life purpose and meaning?

For most people, the answer is not so much. Wellness, to many, is about diet and exercise.

This makes perfect sense, when you think about it. We can easily see the connection between doing physical things and the impact it has on our physical body. For example, the fewer calories you take in and the more calories you use typically results in a reduction in weight.

Only, for most people, it’s not that easy. There wouldn’t be millions spent on diets and workout gadgets if it were.

One of the reasons it is so challenging is that if people don’t feel a purpose in what they’re doing, or it’s not in some way connected to their values, they aren’t going to take much positive action. Without engaging spiritual energy, people may even take counter-action to sabotage themselves.

I’m sure no dieters out there can identify with having a hard time sticking to a food plan, or bingeing, or just plain giving up.

Tapping into your spiritual energy is about connecting what you are doing to create optimal wellness (diet and exercise) with Who you believe you are, and how your purpose, vision, goals, values, and desires affect it.

The more you integrate your inner beliefs and purpose with your actions, the more spiritual energy you will have to succeed.

One of the ways that I tap into spiritual energy is that I believe my body is a gift for which it is appropriate to be grateful. While it is mine to create as I wish—and every creation is beautiful—I believe that enabling my body to function optimally fully allows me to express my authentic best and be more fully Who I am meant to be.

After all, how well can you serve or take care of others if you have no physical energy to give? How well can you create the life of your dreams if you don’t feel physically well?

What personal values might you express or honor when you eat healthy foods and exercise? How do your beliefs and values about your body affect how you take care of it? How does your desire to make a contribution impact your choices? How might tapping into spiritual energy help you meet your wellness goals?

Together we can do it!

Photo by kongsky / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Eleven Tips for Making the Shift to Healthier-Eating

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I used to think that eating healthy meant deprivation. It meant suffering through bland food until I could meet my weight-loss goal and resume my normal eating habits.

As I learned from experience, suffering through a diet only to resume your old eating habits is a recipe for regaining all the weight you just lost—plus some. To be truly successful, eating healthy has to become a way of life.

While you can still eat delicious foods, the primary shift is that you will be making different choices about what you eat when you are striving to be leaner and healthier.

Here are 11 tips for making the shift to healthier-eating easier:

1. Instead of focusing on all the foods you can’t eat, concentrate on all the foods you can.

2. Fully appreciate the foods you are eating. If you are eating an orange, appreciate the farmer who planted and cared for the tree. Appreciate the sunshine, rain, and soil that helped that orange grow. Appreciate the people who picked, packaged, and shipped the orange to the store or stand where you purchased it. Appreciate the worker who put it in the display so that you could buy it, and all the people who keep that store open so that you have ready access to an abundance of food. Appreciate the color as you remove the peel, and the tangy sweet scent. Appreciate the wonderful burst of flavor on your tongue. Appreciate how it’s nourishing your body. Appreciate your body for fully receiving those nutrients and energy.

3. If your dietary plan is flexible enough, set times (perhaps once a week or once a month) when you will allow yourself to eat some of the foods that you love that aren’t on your healthier-food plan. Then fully enjoy those foods when you have them.

4. Remind yourself of all the reasons you want to be healthier. It’s helpful to write these down so that you can refer back to them often.

5. Actively learn about the food plan you are choosing. When you understand the reasons behind what you’re doing, you are more likely to stick with it.

6. Instead of focusing on how much you hate cooking or new foods, think of it as a culinary adventure or challenge that you want to master.

7. Set a goal for trying one new food or recipe a week.

8. Instead of focusing on how little time you have to prep healthy foods, make it a priority and schedule the time into your week. How can you make it fun?

9. Learn to use spices. Spices have no calories and add lots of flavor, and often important micro-nutrients.

10. Make double batches of foods that you like and freeze portion sizes for quick, healthy meals on the go.

11. Use the Internet. There are an amazing number of healthy recipes out there that you can match up with your health-goals.

How can you shift your thoughts and expectations about healthy eating from deprivation to delicious? What difference does changing what you think about what you are eating make in your ability to create a healthy lifestyle?

Together we can do it!