Healthy Weight Loss: Why Comprehensive Works

I am a huge believer in mind-body healing. After all we are each a spirit, who has a soul (mind, will, emotions) and we live in a physical body. Having all aspect of your being in alignment is really the only way to true wholeness. You can’t just focus on the physical and ignore spirit and soul and think you will be truly healthy. It just isn’t possible. We are integrated beings.

Often we jump from one ‘health’ product to another all the while, still feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, confused, and full of physical symptoms. Problem is we never really address the root issue. You can’t just take a handful of supplements and think they will magically solve the problem any more than taking any medication is the total answer to healing.

Being well is just as much an inside job as it is an outside job. What you eat, how much, the quality of that food, is definitely important for health and for weight loss. I would never dispute that. However, what you believe about it and how you think about what you do informs your choices and impacts how your body responds.

If you believe making a certain change will result in healing or more energy or weight loss, you will be more consistent with it and it will do what you expect more often than not. That is the whole premise behind the placebo effect. People are given inert, sugar pills with absolutely no power to heal. They are, however, told that the pill will heal their problem and the power of their belief is what actually causes healing.

If our thoughts and beliefs are that powerful – and they are – shouldn’t we be paying more attention to them? This is true in all aspects of health, including weight loss.

I have found that combining what you put on your plate, what you think about it and yourself, is the KEY to going from unhealthy to healthy, from burned out to balanced. While it is imperative that you properly nourish your body with high quality, one-ingredient foods and clean water, it is just as critical to nourish your spirit and soul!  That is an aspect of Today is Still the Day that I believe is overlooked in many other plans. You can be slim and still be unhealthy! Changing your diet is only one part of the puzzle.

I think the bottom line is that we have to consider our ultimate goal. Sure you may want to lose 25 pounds and maybe for the sake of your heart or your knees, you desperately need to. It’s important to realize that the excess weight is a symptom. In order to change that long term, you have to find the root issue. That’s why “diets” don’t work – they are temporary and only address the symptom. Ultimately, you want to be a healthy, vibrant person who is able to live life with ease and joy.

That’s what true health and wholeness is. In order to achieve that, you can’t ignore your spirit and soul and just focus on dropping a certain number of pounds or fitting into a specific size jeans.

Health is more than the absence of illness and it is more than just being a certain size. So instead of just focusing on the diet or the scale, pay attention to the whole person and I would be willing to bet you will experience so much more success!

How do you approach any improvements in your health? Do you just focus on the symptom or do you dig for the root issue?

Want to see more articles like this?   Subscribe to this blog (just click on “Follow”) and get each new post delivered to your email or feed reader.  To follow me and get even more tips on how to live your life in 3-D, including improving your diet, choosing cutting edge nutritional products and effective weight loss strategies be sure to like me on Facebook here and here, sign up for my FREE weekly No-Nonsense Nutrition Report (and get a free gift!), follow me on Pinterest and Twitter!

Make gradual changes. Boost health, vitality and energy. Become your best YOU.      

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Weight Loss: Why Detox is Step One

The first two weeks of the Today Is Still the Day plan are what I refer to as detox weeks. Some people get nervous when they hear that word but there’s no need for anxiety! I have very good reason for beginning with detox. My main purpose is to make the rest of the plan easier for you. When you begin by eliminating certain foods that can cause cravings and sensitivities, you give your body an opportunity to reset. You even retrain your taste buds which are renewed every 14 days or so!

There are many integrative physicians who believe we should be constantly in a minor state of detox in order to support our body’s own systems in dealing with the toxicity of modern life. Obviously I agree. Because we are exposed to more and more toxins in the air, food, and water supply, our systems have been overtaxed. Your body is created to detoxify, but when it becomes overwhelmed from every direction, you begin to break down.

I believe I have simplified the process. Rather than some extreme fast or other restrictive “detox diet” I prefer to decrease the toxins we might be taking in by focusing on high fiber, cleansing, organic produce and lots of clean water.

Those first two weeks usually also eliminate starchy carbs and grains unless you are dealing with adrenal fatigue or some other issue, which simply makes it easier for you to focus on clean protein, healthy fats and non-starchy veggies, especially cleansing leafy greens. These foods reduce inflammation while supporting your natural detoxification systems with the nutrition it needs.

What is different about the detox weeks on my plan is that you also detox your spirit and soul. That means negative thinking, attitudes and beliefs. I don’t think anyone would argue with the fact that besides toxins in the air, food and water, we are also exposed daily to toxic thoughts, words, relationships and beliefs. Often we are not even aware of them, but they are weighing us down just as surely as GMOs and pesticides do.

Today is Still the Day addresses detoxification in a holistic way because if you only detoxify your physical body and ignore your spirit and soul you’ll end up right back where you started before you know it. You wouldn’t let trash, dust and dirt accumulate in your home without continually cleaning and staying on top of it. Should you do any less for your health?

Do you agree that detox is an important first step to weight loss and overall health? Why or why not?

Want to see more articles like this?   Subscribe to this blog (just click on “Follow”) and get each new post delivered to your email or feed reader.  To follow me and get even more tips on how to live your life in 3-D, including improving your diet, choosing cutting edge nutritional products and effective weight loss strategies be sure to like me on Facebook here and here, sign up for my FREE weekly No-Nonsense Nutrition Report (and get a free gift!), follow me on Pinterest and Twitter!

Make gradual changes. Boost health, vitality and energy. Become your best YOU.      

Weight Loss: Choose Your Hard

If I asked you which was harder – losing weight or keeping it off, what would you say? Most people would likely say losing weight because so many struggle with that aspect. Too many people are constantly dieting only to gain the weight back and then some and start the same roller coaster ride all over again.

In all honesty, as I say in Today is Still the Day, you can lose weight on just about any diet you try – temporarily. Just making a change can cause some weight loss. According to professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, Traci Mann:

“Evidence shows that people can lose weight on the short term on practically any diet; it barely matters what the diet is. The problem is, nearly everybody gains it back in the long term. I’m not saying it’s not hard to take weight off. But when people struggle to do it, they can, and often do, succeed…The majority of people gain the majority of that weight in 2–5 years.”

So it seems the more challenging aspect is to keep the weight off once you’ve lost it. This is something I address in Today is Still the Day, both the book and the coaching plan. Anyone can lose weight. However, if you don’t change your lifestyle, habits and thinking, that weight slowly but surely creeps back on and it becomes more difficult to lose each succeeding time.

What if your perception has a lot to do with whether you will get on the diet yo-yo train or successfully keep the weight off long term? I believe it does.

Your perception determines your reality and consequently your behavior. We all have filters created by our past experiences and beliefs that we see life through. Those filters determine how you feel about things and in turn will determine whether you succeed or fail.

For instance if you have tried to lose weight before and haven’t succeeded, even if you are using a totally different plan this time, by simply running on autopilot, you will still see your efforts through the filter of your past failure and feel as though it is a losing battle. You may not even be totally conscious of thinking those things, but your subconscious runs your life and that’s where your filter resides.

I talk about “refocusing your lens” in the Today is Still the Day plan. What that has to do with is adjusting your filter by becoming aware of it. You can slip off your plan and see it as a failure or you can consider it a lesson learned and move forward smarter.

You can look at a new way of eating as an adventure you will enjoy that will move you toward achieving your fitness goals and a healthy life, or you can look at it as depriving yourself of foods you love. You will totally miss the fact that you will be trying new foods that you may just (and probably will!) enjoy even more. But it all depends on how you see things.

You can see your daily exercise time as something you “have” to do and drag yourself through it hating every moment. Or you can look forward to building a healthy habit into your lifestyle that will help you look and feel years younger. Your experience of it will be very different.

While what you eat and how active you are have a huge impact on your success or failure in getting to the healthy goal you’ve set, it ALL begins in your thinking.

And you are in control of that! That is very good news because very little seems to be within our control. Your filter is something only you can adjust. That makes you very powerful, maybe more than you ever realized, and has a direct impact on how you feel. So begin asking yourself what you see:

If you see an opportunity, you’re going to feel courageous and motivated. If you see progress, you’ll feel momentum. If you see a possibility, you will feel encouraged. If you see a gift, you’re going to feel gratitude.

So let me ask the question again: Which do you think is harder – losing weight or keeping it off?

Want to see more articles like this?   Subscribe to this blog (just click on “Follow”) and get each new post delivered to your email or feed reader.  To follow me and get even more tips on how to live your life in 3-D, including improving your diet, choosing cutting edge nutritional products and effective weight loss strategies be sure to like me on Facebook here and here, sign up for my FREE weekly No-Nonsense Nutrition Report (and get a free gift!), follow me on Pinterest and Twitter!

Make gradual changes. Boost health, vitality and energy. Become your best YOU.      

Wishes for a Blessed New Year

We will be flipping the calendar page tomorrow and beginning a brand new year! I want to be among the first to wish you a truly blessed, healthy and joyful 2019.

I hope you will continue meeting me here each Monday as I share information I hope will help keep you and your family healthier.

**When you purchase either the print or Kindle version of Today is Still the Day, email me at ann@threedimensionalvitality.com and I will send you a printable pdf of a book insert with some helpful tips and you will be entitled to a free 15 minute consultation with any questions you may have! Please take advantage of this offer. I want you to succeed.**

 

Christmas Blessings

 

I want to wish you and your family a truly blessed and wonderful Christmas and say that I appreciate and every person who takes the time to read what I have to share here every Monday.

Without you, I am talking to myself each week!

Health: Enzymes for Digestion on Every Level

Hippocrates said, “All disease begins in the gut.” So it makes total sense that keeping your gut, or digestive system happy and able to do its job effectively will make a big difference in your health. We read and hear about different vitamins and minerals quite often and lately we are reading a lot about probiotics and those are all very important for health. However, we don’t often hear about the importance of enzymes. Yet they are absolutely vital to life.

Enzymes are proteins that act as catalysts for the chemical reactions that break down food particles into nutrients your body uses to function. There are different types of enzymes that are responsible for initiating, speeding up, slowing down, or otherwise altering about 4,000 different biochemical reactions. So they are not just for digesting food, although that is one of the most important functions.

More than 3,000 different enzymes have been identified, and some experts believe there may be another 50,000 we have yet to discover. Each enzyme has a different function, like 3,000 specialized keys cut to fit 3,000 different locks, which in this case are biochemical reactions.

They are found naturally in raw foods, however cooking and processing food destroys them. Enzymes begin to be destroyed at temperatures above 110-115 degrees. So unless you eat all your food raw, which most of us do not do, you will not get enzymes directly from your foods.

I have found, personally, that increasing the amount and types of enzymes I take with meals, and between meals for certain purposes, has improved my digestion and health. Even if you eat all organic, grass-fed, highest quality foods, but are not able to properly digest them, you are not getting full benefit of the nutrients they possess. So essentially you’re flushing much of that nutrition down the toilet!

There are numerous reasons why your digestion might be compromised, so there is not one answer for everything. However, if you are generally healthy otherwise and eat a good, whole food diet and find yourself experiencing gas, bloating, fatigue, constipation or diarrhea, why not try using a digestive enzyme and see if it improves your symptoms? It certainly can’t hurt you. This is especially true if you are over 40. The longer you live the more you need to supplement with enzymes. At least that is the case for me and many people I’ve worked with.

On another note, in researching enzymes I was thinking about how they work in the body, and I saw a correlation in the spirit. I believe meditating, particularly on scripture, is like taking spiritual enzymes to help you “digest” those truths more fully. You don’t get the full benefit of what you take in, whether through your mouth or your eyes, unless you can fully break it down so you can assimilate it thoroughly.

So this week I want to encourage you to consider enzymes – digestive and spiritual! Something this simple and basic could make a huge difference in your health, physically and spiritually.

Do you take enzymes? Do you meditate? What has your experience been?

Want to see more articles like this?   Subscribe to this blog (just click on “Follow”) and get each new post delivered to your email or feed reader.  To follow me and get even more tips on how to live your life in 3-D, including improving your diet, choosing cutting edge nutritional products and effective weight loss strategies be sure to like me on Facebook here and here, sign up for my FREE weekly No-Nonsense Nutrition Report (and get a free gift!), follow me on Pinterest and Twitter!

Make gradual changes. Boost health, vitality and energy. Become your best YOU.      

Weight Loss: Today is Still the Day

“There are two days in the year where you cannot do anything – YESTERDAY and TOMORROW. Only today can you be happy, smile, dream, love, and be thankful.” – Pablo

Mindfulness is a huge buzz-word today but being present in the moment and living in a mindful way has been proven to improve health. This is true of all aspects of health, including weight loss. You may have made mistakes that have led to being overweight now, but that is the past. Yesterday. You can’t change that.

You may want to do things differently in the future so that you change your results. I applaud you for that but still that is in the future. Tomorrow. You can’t do anything about that either – yet.

What you can do is make a change today. Today is the only day you have to work with. It is where we live. The only moment you can change is the one you are in right now.

That is why I called my book Today’s the Day. And the new, updated version, which is now available on Amazon is called Today is Still the Day. Today will always be the only time we have to make changes that will have an impact. We will be able to look back on what we did today and assess whether it worked well or not. We can plan ahead but we still have to implement that plan in the moment.

So I would like to encourage you to open this gift God has given us of today – it is called the present after all! And I would encourage you to consider purchasing my book so you can begin, today, making some changes that can make a huge difference in your tomorrows. It would make a great Christmas gift too!

Do you ever find yourself longing for the past, wishing for the future and missing the present?

Want to see more articles like this?   Subscribe to this blog (just click on “Follow”) and get each new post delivered to your email or feed reader.  To follow me and get even more tips on how to live your life in 3-D, including improving your diet, choosing cutting edge nutritional products and effective weight loss strategies be sure to like me on Facebook here and here, sign up for my FREE weekly No-Nonsense Nutrition Report (and get a free gift!), follow me on Pinterest and Twitter!

Make gradual changes. Boost health, vitality and energy. Become your best YOU.