Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is strictly for informational purposes. Every possible effort has been made in preparing and researching this material. It is not to be used as a substitute for necessary professional advice.
Introduction
The internet and bookstores are filled with weight loss books, diets, eating plans, and advice on how to lose weight. And most people who try to lose weight may find some success with their initial efforts but notice that, over time, the weight starts to creep back up and, before you know it, you are right back where you started.
(On a side note, the books reference weight “loss” or “losing” weight. Let me ask you – what do you usually do when you lose something? You naturally try to find it. Our bodies are the same way – when we refer to weight loss, our subconscious says, “if you lose it, I’ll help you find it.” That’s why I try not to use the terms loss or lose in reference to things I am trying to get rid of. Now back to the real article.)
The reason that releasing excess weight is hard is that it is complicated. While conventional medicine and the diet industry would like for you to believe it is simple, the reasons you gain and hold on to weight are varied and shifting.
Alternative practices, especially those that use a more holistic approach to wellness, are more likely to lead to successful weight management because they attempt to address the underlying causes of weight issues.
Are you tired of getting rid of the excess weight only to gain it back? Are you ready for a successful approach to reaching your ideal weight that focuses on long-term health? Then why not look at what alternative practices can do for you?
Some Reasons We Gain Weight
Weight gain is not something that happens for a single reason. In fact, most people gain excess weight because of a combination of factors that slowly build up over time and affect their diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices. Here are just a few of the many factors that can influence your weight.
Stress: When you have elevated levels of stress in your life, your body releases large quantities of cortisol and other stress hormones that are produced to help you respond to threats and other dangers. These hormones can trigger food cravings, hunger, and other symptoms that make it more likely that you will overeat.
Hormones: In addition to stress hormones, other chemical messengers in your body signal hunger, thirst, and cravings for specific foods. When these hormones fluctuate or are produced at excessive levels, you can feel like you need something even when you do not.
Other medical conditions: You may have other medical conditions that interfere with your metabolism, your ability to burn excess fat, your ability to absorb nutrients, or other processes that influence your overall weight.
Some medications taken for other illnesses can also cause weight gain.
Genetics: If you have a family history of obesity, you are more likely to be obese yourself. If you learned poor nutritional habits as a very young child, these are often extremely hard to change as you age.
Mental health issues: Those with depression and anxiety are more likely also to be overweight. Battling mental health issues raises stress, can lead to overeating or disordered eating and may contribute to dysfunctional body images.
Food addiction: While some people struggle with dependency on alcohol or other drugs to soothe their emotions, others rely on food for this purpose. Food addiction is more common than most people realize and can contribute to patterns of behavior that lead to weight gain.
Food availability: The types of foods that are readily available in your area, as well as what you can afford to eat, play a key role in your weight. Food deserts are common in many regions of the US, where the only food available is heavily processed and high in calories but lacking in nutrients. Eating high concentrations of sugars and fats is going to lead to weight gain.
Your age: As we age, our metabolism often slows, and we require less food to fuel our dietary needs, yet we continue to eat the same amount. This slowly leads to weight gain in our later years.
Cultural and family habits: How and what you learn to eat as a child is very persuasive. Eating is a significant component of family gatherings, rituals, and rites of passage, too. Whether your family is active together will also inform your habits later in life.
Sleep: Those who do not get enough sleep are much more likely to gain weight.
Wow! That is a lot of things happening. Weight gain, as you can see, is not just about one single thing. That means changing just one thing in your life is not likely to result in successful weight loss that lasts. And addressing only one piece of the puzzle will not help you develop the habits of mind and body that can lead to improved health over time.
Since weight gain is a holistic problem, it only makes sense that reducing excess weight needs to be a comprehensive solution. Alternative medicine is one such way to address many of the factors that can lead to weight gain without causing harm to your overall well-being.
How Alternative Programs Can Help
Alternative programs take a more holistic approach to healing and wellness than conventional medicine does. Holistic healing aims to treat the whole person by addressing all the causes of a problem, not just looking solely at the symptoms and devising ways to manage those.
Those who use a holistic approach to weight reduction, one that addresses all the factors that have led them to being overweight, are much more likely to enjoy weight loss that is successful as well as long-term.
By addressing the comprehensive causes of your weight issues, holistic approaches that use alternative practices can help you achieve a healthier weight while also addressing the reasons why you gained weight to start with.
Your weight gain is a symptom. It is a symptom of your overstressed lifestyle, of the combination of genetics and learned behaviors, of your lack of sleep and hormonal imbalances, of your untreated mental health problems and its impact on your sleep, stress, hormones, and other factors. It is a multidimensional challenge that requires a multifaceted solution.
Enter alternative processes. Through practices that are designed to promote wellness, not just physical health, you can learn to treat the underlying causes of your weight gain.
Alternative methods often focus on healing the mind and soul as well as the body, which are significant influencers of your diet and lifestyle choices. Because alternative practices concentrate on treating the whole body, you can enjoy better health and lower weight that lasts for years to come.
Alternative Practices for Effective Weight Release
The alternative practices listed below can be effective for helping people to release excess weight and keep it off effectively. These strategies must be combined with a nutritious diet that is healthy and made of appropriate portions as well as regular activity.
Meditation
Meditation is a helpful alternative practice for many reasons. Through meditation, you can learn to be more mindful in your life. Mindfulness makes you more aware of your emotions and how they affect your choices. It also helps you to release negative emotions and stress that can be impacting how you choose to nourish yourself.
Those who meditate can learn to control their impulses to binge and to help everyone notice how food makes them feel and if they are genuinely hungry or experiencing some other emotion.
Becoming more mindful helps in many areas of your life, particularly in learning how to overcome issues with food, mental health problems, and other factors that influence weight loss and gain.
Energy Work
Energy work comes in many forms. My two personal favorites include the emotion code and the body code. Developed by Dr. Bradley Nelson, these two amazing modalities help identify imbalances in the body. This can include many different reasons. Trapped emotions, idea allergies, misalignments, toxins, and many other things get in the way of helping our bodies be in a healthy, balance state. Energy work can be done effectively in person or long distance, so when you find a qualified practitioner your session can take place anywhere.
There are also a lot of other good options – tapping, EFT, Reiki, AoScan technology – the list could go on and on. When looking into energy work, do your research. Check testimonials and references to be sure the practitioner is qualified. There are many fraudulent modalities that can sometimes do more harm than good. However, I personally have had a lot of success with energy work and getting healthier – mind, body, and spirit.
Acupuncture
For thousands of years, the Chinese have been practicing acupuncture. This practice involves inserting extremely fine needles at strategic locations on the body, along lines of energy. By unblocking these points with the needles, your natural energy can flow, and you feel more balanced.
The points at which the needles are inserted are often near or along nerve channels, and the stimulation of these nerves by the needles increases circulation, releases feel-good hormones, and causes the body to relax. The ultimate effect of acupuncture is to reduce stress, to improve many different medical conditions that can cause weight gain, and to improve your sleep.
All these effects can be positive influences on the factors that influence your weight and health. If you have pain that is causing you to shun exercise or to self-medicate with food, acupuncture can help to relieve that pain and allow you to lead a healthier life.
Visualization
Your mental attitude and disposition about yourself play a significant role in your choices and actions. The more you can see yourself as a healthy, thinner person, the more likely you are to make choices that help you to attain that goal. Visualization can be a powerful alternative practice that leads to a shift in your mindset, which can then help you to lose weight and keep it off.
Visualization also helps you to remember why you want to lose weight because you can see yourself living the life you want when you are able to enjoy all the activities you long to do.
Hypnosis
Changing your habits is crucial to improving your actions, but you may have some long-held beliefs about food or yourself that are interfering with your efforts to release excess weight.
Hypnosis is an effective strategy for introducing suggestions that can help you make better choices and to change your habits to ones that can lead to permanent weight loss. Hypnosis works for some people but not for everyone, but it can be an effective tool that helps you retrain your brain in how you think about food, exercise, or other lifestyle choices that are impacting your weight.
Exercise and Physical Activity
Getting enough daily exercise and activity is crucial to your weight management for several reasons and is considered to be a holistic strategy for achieving your ideal weight. Not only does moving your body help you to burn more calories but exercise also helps you to regulate your hormones, reduce your stress, sleep better, use insulin more effectively, and improve your mental health.
By addressing many of the significant causes of weight imbalances, exercise can be an effective tool in your weight release arsenal in ways that have little to do with burning calories.
Final Thoughts
Other options for alternative practices to enhance releasing excess weight abound. Natural dietary supplements and superfoods can improve your digestive health, which enables you to absorb nutrients more readily. Some supplements can give you more energy, which may strengthen your motivation to exercise, as well.
Practices like yoga and tai chi are not only physical activities that improve your strength, but they also reduce stress and teach you mindfulness strategies. Other forms of meditation, including walking meditation and meditative movement, are great for focusing on mental as well as physical health.
Using alternative practices to boost your weight release efforts may not only help you shed more weight, but engaging in these habits can also help you learn to keep your new habits long-term, which can lead to keeping your weight at a healthy level in the future.
The more you can address the issues that led to your weight gain, the more you will be able to release weight successfully and maintain your ideal weight in the future.
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