Weight Management for Health
By Laura Silva Quesada
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Spring is here and the desire to lose those pounds gained over the winter is
building. What better time to start than now. But before you do, consider
another element to losing weight besides exercise and getting on a diet.
The ideal reason for losing weight is health. With an estimated 100 million
overweight people worldwide, obesity is a growing concern. There are many
reasons for being overweight. It is a complex condition that could be a
physiologically or psychologically rooted. Obesity is associated with so many
health risks including hypertension, heart disease, stroke, metabolic
disorders, respiratory disorders, physical injury, diabetes, and possibly
cancer. The potential of an early death also increases with increased weight.
Obesity leads to many complications affecting just about every system in your
body.
It is no secret that the main reason for obesity is a large intake of the foods
that add weight to the body, coupled with a decline in physical activity. There
are, however, factors that predispose some individuals to being obese.
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Genetics
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Physiological Factors
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Socio-Economic Factors
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Behavioral Influences
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Psychological Influences
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Lack of Knowledge on Obesity
THE GOAL IS OVERALL HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Reaching and maintaining your ideal weight is best done when you achieve health
in more than just your physical body and your focus needs to be on overall
wellness rather than on simply losing weight. Often, something that appears to
be purely physical in nature such as a weight problem or illness may have its
roots deep in your emotional, mental or spiritual part. We are
multi-dimensional beings. Addressing and improving all areas of our lives will
lead to positive changes that will express themselves in our physical body and
even a reduction in weight.
Wellness is the quality of being in good health, integrating your physical,
mental (Intellect), spiritual, and emotional parts in order to reach your full
potential in a conscious and responsible manner. This indicates that we make
ourselves conscious of the needs of our different parts in order to know what
area needs improving, and then take full responsibility in making the necessary
improvements. Each of your parts has certain needs or requirements that must be
met in order to be healthy.
Physical Part
Your physical body is the only part of you that is visible and manifests what
goes on in your thoughts, spirit and emotions. What you think and how you feel
are like the programs that are installed into a computer. What manifests in
your body as illness, including obesity, is like the print out of those
programs. When the invisible programs are healthy so is the physical
manifestation and being at your ideal weight is easier to obtain and maintain,
and yes, we must also keep in mind proper nutrition and exercise.
Mental Part
The mental or intellectual part of you also has its requirements. Your mind
needs to function in a resourceful and healthy manner in order to reach your
outcome successfully. Your mind needs to work with you and not against you.
Having a healthy mental disposition is really quite easy to accomplish. Having
a better understanding of where you stand will help you discover and focus on
developing your positive mental resources. Positive attitudes about yourself
and reaching your outcomes will help you reach your ideal weight as well as
imagery and meditation.
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
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Spiritual Part
Your spiritual part is non-physical, invisible, and intangible, yet it is very
real. It is that part of you that has the capacity to access all information
since it has no physical boundaries of time, space, or dimensions to hold it
back. It is awareness without a capsule or container to restrict it. It is your
spiritual part that experiences the sense of existence in both a physical and
non-physical world. When you add consciousness to your living experience, then
great changes can manifest. Living consciously helps you to grow and evolve.
Living consciously helps you to do away with pain, conflict, confusion, and
misery. Living consciously helps you to be more aware of what goes into your
body and whether or not it's helping your or hurting you. Find inspiration in
other journeying through similar paths as you. Discover how valuable you are
and build your self-worth and lend a helping hand to those who are beginning
the journey to reach their weight once you are well on your way.
Emotional Part
The fourth component to your being is your emotional part. People don't always
like addressing their emotions. It is too revealing and can be difficult, even
painful.
The fact is that the roots to most of your problems are buried deep within your
emotional part. Illnesses, addictions, unhappy relationships, feelings of
sadness or anger, tensions and even problems with weight gain are intimately
tied to your emotional part. It is as if your emotional part did not learn the
resources to cope with life's ups and downs, as if the "Emotional you" did not
develop or grow up at the same rate as your other parts.
It is easy to observe that the "Physical you" has grown to adulthood. The
"Intellectual you" has grown through many years of education. Even the
"Spiritual you" has gained a strong sense of its existence. Yet, in many cases
due to traumas, abuses, negative experiences, tragedies, losses, and unhappy
events, the growth of the "Emotional you" was stifled.
We learn very early on how to protect ourselves from the pain in our lives by
numbing our emotions. As youngsters we learn that by getting ill we can become
sedated to the emotional pain we are experiencing through the medications
taken. It is to our benefit to get ill as often as we can in order to avoid the
"pain." This continues through time, and other substances step in to accomplish
the same outcome. Many of us learn that over eating can have the same effect as
does alcohol, drugs, sex, and so on.
The lack of experience in dealing with painful situations early in life leads
to an adult with little or no resources for dealing with life's twists and
turns. We become incapable of resourcefully handling situations in the many
areas of our lives and often turn to food to make us feel better. It is in
healing the "Emotional you" that true wholeness and overall wellness can exist.
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Be true to yourself, what you stand for, your feelings, and needs
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Be Aware and recognize the feelings of yourself and others
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Express and cope with your emotions, both happy and sad
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Find a support system in family, friends, professionals, or groups
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Accept your emotions, abilities, and limitations
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Learn to forgive yourself and others
Design Your Plan
Your action plan will help insure that you manifest your weight goal. Take your
time. There is no rush. Although you may want to lose the weight quickly, the
best approach is to reduce it gradually, consistently, and in a healthy manner.
Modifying your nutritional intake through time, increasing your physical
activity, and aiming to become healthy is a well thought out plan.
"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in
the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put
that passing time to the best possible use."
-- Earl Nightingale
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Although losing weight may be your priority, you will find that wellness will
be your final outcome. Wellness will manifest, and be a fixed part of your
life. Achieving wellness involves manifesting many factors. Once you are fully
engaged in the process of reducing, many of those factors will manifest
automatically. The positive changes will be inevitable and they will soon take
over the negativity. As you begin to reduce, doors you didn't even know existed
will start to open. Your success will be determined by how well your life
works. You will discover as you gradually reach your ideal weight that you will
gain an overall feeling of good health. The rest of your life can truly be the
best of your life!
For more information on this topic refer to the
"Weight Management Strategy" MicroCourse or CD.
Las Comadres: COMADRAZO
Laura Silva Quesada will be joining Las Comadres this week in Austin, Texas at
their first Annual Worldwide COMADRAZO(sm) event on
April 22-23, 2005. Laura will be available to meet with attendees at a MindBiz
booth and explain how to use some of our Audio CD and Video DVD products
available for sale. She will also discuss our website, MindBiz.com and
advantages of the free membership. Two free MicroCourses are being provided to
people who sign up as MindBiz members through the Las Comadres organization.
Laura's daughter, Illeana Gomez, will be dancing Friday evening as part of the
entertainment for the event. Illeana is an accomplished Flamingo dancer and
performs and teaches in Austin while attending the University of Texas.
To find out more about Las Comadres and the COMADRAZO event go to their
website, www.lascomadres.org.
The event will be held at:
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Austin Community College
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Eastview Campus Multi-Function Room, Bldg. 9000
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3401 Webberville Road
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Austin, TX 78702
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