Meditation For Weight Loss
America is a nation obsessed with weight loss, but at least 60 percent of adult Americans, or about 120 million, are categorized as being overweight or obese. Each year, obesity causes at least 300,000 excess deaths in the U.S., and healthcare costs of American adults with obesity amount to approximately $100 billion.
The reason more than half the U.S. population is dangerously overweight and rapidly becoming fatter is not because of genetics, fast food, or that we have not found the right diet plan--it is simply because we have an improper relationship with food. Food is seductive and eating is hypnotic, and while many of us may realize we eat for the wrong reasons of enjoyment, distraction, or to entertain ourselves, very few of us realize we compulsively overeat because we eat with the wrong motivation and spirit.
Obesity and the compulsion to overeat can result from years of bad eating habits that ultimately become the hypnotic connection to food. Sadly, most uncontrollable urges to eat are driven by a deep emotional hurt or emptiness. When we don't have real love, this subconscious desire drives us to the nearest substitute. For most of us, that substitute is food. From the time we were born, we learned to identify food with mother. When we were hurt, we ran to mother and she comforted us with food. This early conditioning is what sets us up for a dangerous enslavement to food.
We eat for pleasure, we eat to forget, we eat because we are bored, nervous and even to relieve ourselves of guilt. As a result, food becomes a part of our identity and we become what we eat. Feeling guilt or shame for our unhealthy diet and appearance only increases the need for the temporary relief of that pain through the comfort of eating.
Simply breaking the hypnotic connection to food relieves us of the unhealthy and uncontrollable urges to eat. Eating then becomes a healthy pleasure and not a guilty gratification.
In most cases, we try to diet because they want to live healthier, happier lives. In other cases, we become so obsessed with body image that we simply can't live with ourselves. But in any case, diets don't work because they rely on a willful struggle against an emotional problem, which only deepens the hypnotic connection to the problem.
When it comes to losing weight, one of the most important things you can do is make peace with your problems. Getting in touch with your emotions and being able to observe your emotional connection to food before you eat is the best way to overcome your weight problem. Sometimes when we're eating that extra helping of mashed potatoes or ice cream, what we really need to do is end a bad relationship or ask our boss for a raise. The only way to truly overcome an out-of-control eating habit or the compulsion to fill emotional emptiness with food is to observe and overcome the those internal forces. This is where meditation comes into the picture.
Once you learn how to meditate, you can do it anywhere and at any time of the day or night. Before you start an eating binge, you can take a few quiet minutes to calm your mind and break the hypnotic cycle of overeating. You may find yourself creating a whole new relationship with food. At the Foundation of Human Understanding, we teach you simple meditation techniques to help you address your food issues. Find out more by calling us today at (800) 877-3227 or (541) 956-6700 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Our mailing address is P.O. Box 1000, Grants Pass, Oregon 97528.
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