Weight Management: Demystified: Part 1

This is one big topic which can’t be covered in a single blog. I am going to cover this topic in multiple blogs. I am planning to share my firsthand experience of how to achieve optimal weight reduction in a very natural way. Trust me, it is really easy.  It is a cakewalk for those who have understood the fundamentals and techniques that will be defined in the subsequent series of blogs.

Please read this paragraph for those of you, who do not know about my history. I was an obese person at one point of my life and I lost quite a substantial weight in a very short duration of time. Ever since, I have been in my ideal weight. It appears to be a miracle for quite a lot of those who do not have a clear understanding of the intelligence of the body and the underlying physiological and psychological factors that govern the body functions.

Weight Loss is such an alarming problem worldwide & it is quite scary if one comes to know the after effect health issues related to weight gain. Weight loss programs operate on many different themes and the businesses that revolve around generate multibillion dollar revenues.

With my own experience and after having experimented my techniques with some of my clients, I can confidently say that it is quite easy to manage our weight provided that if we have a clear understanding of WHAT, HOW and WHY we do certain things in certain ways.

First, let us understand the causes for weight gain. This is mainly due to

Improper diet,

Poor lifestyle without proper exercises for the body,

Hormonal imbalances and

Psychological stress factors.

Almost all the weight loss programs target on one or more of the above components to work on weight management. Either the program makes you control your diet, work on an exercise regime, correcting hormonal imbalances, reducing the stress or combination of the above components.

This is one way of dealing with weight loss. It is obvious that those who have attended any of the weight loss programs with strong determination would have achieved the desired result after completing the program. But, were they able to sustain this ideal weight on the long run? In most cases, the answer is NO. Based on my research with my clients, most of them were not able to survive and carry on with the modified diet, workout plan, etc on a lifelong basis. Weight comes back when the commitment breaks.

There is another deeper level of dealing with our body which works by understanding the underlying intelligence of the body. When one aligns his strategies with his body intelligence, he not only achieves the ideal weight, but can able to sustain the ideal weight forever. This is the way in which, I worked out to reach my ideal weight by understanding and aligning myself to my body intelligence. I have sustained with this weight for more than six years. Here is a quote which is my winning mantra.

“Whatever changes one tries to do to the body, the BODY always WINS on the long run. So, just align yourself to the higher intelligence that governs the body to set the body in equilibrium.”

It sounds philosophical, but it works great if one invests time in understanding and tapping the intelligence built inside us. YES, you are right. I am referring to the same intelligence, which is governing your heart beat & breathing. You know that both of these automatically happen without your conscious knowledge even as you read this blog but WHO controls these actions?

Is Workout working out for you? : Part 1

Body is a temple and soul is a deity residing inside the temple. It is our duty to keep our temple, the body well maintained so that the soul radiates inside us. Body is also equivalent to a car that requires the maintenance and service to keep running at optimum performance.

“To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” -Buddha

Body can be energized and nourished in three ways. Firstly, one of the components for our body metabolism, oxygen is drawn from our respiratory system and circulated by the cardiovascular system. Secondly, nutrition in the form of food through the food pipe and finally our mental state of ‘feel  good’ factor that keeps our psycho immune system at high performance.  A balanced life style can be established when one balances all of these three energy components.

Exercise + Diet + Mental state.

Correct workout to muscles and joints gives the structural balance to the body. Right body movement of joints and muscles combined with proper oxygenation thro’ respiratory system activates the cardio system and optimizes the blood circulatory system. Optimum metabolism of our body can be obtained by well balanced hormonal system and good digestive system. Our nervous system activates the sensations such as pain & pleasure circuits so that it helps in keeping balance without overdoing or underperforming our daily exercise routine.

A great workout is the one which yields good movement of muscles and joints activating every fibers of your body, achieving good flexibility, good strength, great balance, endurance level and well toned up body.

Formats of workout vary from simple walking, jogging, running, gym workout, interval training, weight training, cardio metabolic workout, resistance exercises, TRX suspension training, Yoga flow exercises and so on. It is left to the preference of an individual to take up any exercise format that suits him the best.

 One sees the effectiveness of the workout when he notices good level of results in the body toning, flexibility, agility, etc, feeling replenished after the workout instead of draining out and finally a mental state of feeling good.

All of us try one or more of the above formats of the workouts. Some of us, we don’t see the effectiveness and the anticipated results in spite of our efforts. What are the reasons for such an effect? I found out some common problems based on my interaction with few hundred clients and further researching with them.

1.     

  Lack of Awareness:

a.       Body: Body is a complex and highly coordinated system with vast network of signals processing inside us every split of a second. Most of us do not have proper understanding of physiology of the body & the underneath functional psychological factors that govern the physiology of the body.

b.      Exercises: Lack of awareness on what types of exercises suit us, how to proceed with the exercises and how to apply to our body.

2.       Too many options & information: In today’s world, information and options are abundant and confusing many times. Because of this, we don’t get expected result when wrong selections of workouts are applied to our body.

3.       Great starter & poor finisher: We come with great motivation and strong will power at the start and as the days progress, the interest level declines and we finish off poorly or quit at the end.

4.       Quick fix: Some of us, out of ignorance fall to the marketing gimmick that proclaims a ‘quick fix’ solution. Body is highly intelligent and has the adaptability factor to it. Because of this, body can’t understand quick fix solution and in reality always body becomes the winner on long run.

“Whatever changes we try to do to the body, on the long run body always WIN& get back to equilibrium. So, just align to this higher intelligence that governs the body.”

5.       Start point & Enjoyment: Exercise becomes effective when we make it fun and enjoyable. If our entry point of exercise is due to some of the health issues then the effectiveness declines when our concentration is more on getting rid of the disease rather than enjoying the exercise. Is it not true that when we don’t enjoy the workouts, we often look at the clock to see the workout time instead of looking out the signals from the body?

6.       Desperation:  To reduce that extra flab’s and get rid of the nagging health issue, some of us try at the start with great intensity, giving it all and expecting result at once .When that does not happen, we tend to lose the interest to move further.

7.       Regularity & Discipline: How many times have we registered to a yearlong gym subscription and how many times have we really visited the gym in that particular year? When we don’t enjoy the exercise, we tend to give some lame excuses for not being regular to the exercises. This is a game between our intellect and our mind. Intellect asks the questions and mind comes out with some good excuses.

8.       Injury: Some time, we spoil ourselves in the name of affordability. For example, watching the TV in the gym instead of watching your muscles and joints during workout. When the concentration is not there at the time of exercises, we are bound to have injury.

9.       No Math but just Biology: Sometime, we are obsessed with in Maths with too many numbers as calories burned out, how many Kilograms of weight to lose etc.  Body understands Biology and not Maths. It is good to have targets but do not get obsessed with numbers.

When we have the health issue, it is certain that we can’t have a free mind and can’t enjoy the life. So, here is the MANTRA.  Do the exercises for the purpose of keeping the body machinery clean. Do not live in fears & worries.

Develop awareness, listen to the body, enjoy the exercises and maintain regularity & discipline. Give up ‘great start and poor finish’. Begin with a great start, be consistent in the middle and have a great finish. Perform workout as a daily ritual and make that as your habit.

It is impossible to come out with the solutions when we do not know our problems. Now, we know the problems and so it becomes easier to work on solutions. I will post a separate Blog on the possible solutions for the above factors that influence our progress.

9 Practical ways to stay POSITIVE: Handle the day today challenges!

This blog is in response to the interest raised in recent times by one of the participants of my session.

“How to stay positive and handle the day today challenges of life?”

Let me thank her first for raising such a great question.

Let me try and explain this based on what I practically follow in my own life. But, before doing this, first let me pose you with two primary questions of this topic.

First,are we, as human beings positive or negative thinkers by nature?

Secondly, are challenges good or bad?

You will find out the answers towards the end of this blog, but I give here 9 ways to practically stay positive in life.

1. According to research, on an average, we have 60,000 thoughts/day and 95% are repetitive thoughts. Surprisingly, out of these repetitive thoughts, 85% are negative by nature. Apart from this statistics, what is more important to understand is that we as a human beings are programmed automatically to think negatively (ATN). There is a good reason for this. Human beings are weak animals by nature who can’t fly or run faster. Million years ago, because of such weakness, primitive men lived and survived in fear due to constant potential dangers/threats around them. Because of this survival mechanism, our brain especially the limbic brain, the so called emotional center is hardwired to ATN and has not changed much in spite of the many years of evolution. This is the bad part of the story.

Good part of the story is that our brain has increased its size from 0.5Kg to 1.5Kg as we have evolved. This massive three fold growth has happened primarily in the Prefrontal Cortex of the brain, that is, the thinking part of the brain.

So, the first technique is to take advantage of the thinking brain to our benefit to overcome the shortcomings of the emotional brain.

Now, in the modern world, threats happen in small doses, but many in numbers. For example, financial issues, traffic jam, meeting deadlines, house maid not coming in time and school admission of your kids, etc. This is in sharp contrast to the experience of the primitive man. Primitive man had faced big threats, but fewer in numbers.

Threat response of the limbic brain is designed in such a way that it instantaneously excites energy to cope up with the threat. Subsequently the energy subsides back to normal. So, in the modern world, the small but many number of negative doses of threats that we encounter on a day today basis results in generation of a train of pulses in the limbic brain, which on long run results in a stable high alarmed negative state. This means that we have constant worries, fears all the time, bad health & bad perception of the world around us.

Now, instead of negative doses, if one provides positive doses to this circuit, then one can soon reprogram the brain to move from ATN to automatically to think positively (ATP). So, here is the exercise which works out well. Every day, think of at least 5-10 events which have given you small positive feelings in life. By doing so and bringing those to our awareness, one can feed into the same brain circuit small doses of positive thoughts. This, on long run rewires the emotional center of the brain permanently to think positively.

2. We need to intentionally create right positive ambiance to stay positive all the time in our life. Create a pool of friends who think of life in a positive way, keep good role models and teachers in life and mimic their behaviors & surround yourself by right kind of books. Read ‘wise men’s sayings’ before bed and after bed. These are the ideal and perfect times to program your subconscious mind. Anything that got programmed in our subconscious mind becomes our habit. Soon, positive thinking becomes our habit!

3. Train yourself to come out of your comfort zone. Staying within comfort zone is not good and it is a ‘no growth zone’. We don’t grow. Push yourself with certain limited risks and intentionally train the brain to handle some uncomfortable situations. This training helps later on in life when we may have to handle some uncomfortable events.

Do you know why the driving skill of an Indians is very good? Or, why an Indian stomach is adjustable to all kind of foods when compared to that of a person from another part of the world? Indians can effortlessly drive smoothly and eat any kind of food in any part of the world. This is because we as Indians have been exposed willingly or unwillingly to such harsh conditions, which have given us the privilege to handle other situations much better.

4. If at all we could control one thing in life, then it shoul be nothing but our attitude and behavior. It is clear that we can’t control the events or people around us. This is a fact and we can train our mind to think this way. So, our perception regarding the event or people around us is at our disposal. It is our choice and is in our control.  We get hurt provided we allow ourselves to get hurt. For example, even if someone screwed me for some reason, I get hurt provided I allowed that to happen to me. This acts like a positive shield & it makes a very big difference to stay positive.

5. Things become ambiguous when the mind is filled up with too many engagements, worries, thoughts & occupations. So, there is no empty space in mind to think differently.  Create a free space in the mind. Please press STOP button for the mind every day at least for 10 minutes to go to NO THINKING zone. Use simple concentration, contemplation or some meditation techniques that work good for you.

6. When we are disturbed by day today challenges and when we feel that we have lost the direction, it is important to have our own light house which gives direction to continue our life journey. This comes in the form of setting up clear goals in life that act as the driving force to see the bigger picture of our life. By doing so, say when a situation happens where we are disturbed by some external forces, we don’t give due consideration if those do not serve our specific goals.

7. It is normal and natural that each one of us has problems. It is okay to stay in the problem zone for a short period of time to understand the details. If we stay longer thinking about the problems, then we are allowing the mind to fill up with just the problems. This is a problem thinker zone. One needs to switch the focus to solutions and spend time in coming out with various solutions. Successful people are mostly solution thinkers and create solutions. When in action, they focus on what they can do rather than focusing on what they can’t do.

8. Mind is like a garden. Do not allow bad seeds to get into your mind garden. Plant a good seed. For example, “I talk always positive about others & I don’t encourage and listen to others who talk bad about others.” You can put such a strong shield to protect you from planting a bad seed which otherwise germinates within you as a weed in your mind garden. This is one such powerful practice which I personally follow all the time. You are in control of your action. Take such a strong action to protect your garden.

9. Pain circuit in the body is good to protect our body from danger. A person without proper functioning of pain circuit can’t survive in the world. For example, when he can’t feel the burning sensation, he will lose his feet when he steps in fire. On the other hand, one can’t live in the pain all the time. Same way, bad emotions are a good protection mechanism to understand the nitty gritties of life. Only thing is that we need to move away from the emotions without staying with them for a long time.

Now, have you got the answers for the two questions posed at the beginning of the blog?

YES, you are right!! We are by evolution an auto negative emotion generator, but can be programmed to become a positive thinking machine. Thanks to the new 1kg jelly mass in the brain that accomplishes this transformation. Challenges in life are great vehicle engine for our growth irrespective of whether they are bad or good.

Most of the above points can be practically applied to improve our cognitive health development. This is completely in our control. We can do only the stuff that is in our control. So, make a commitment to work every day on few or all of the above practices that make sense to you & importantly take at least one ACTION RIGHT NOW.

By doing so & reconditioning yourself, I guarantee you that you will watch good mental movies with good mental dialogues in you and in your head.

BEING GOOD: Am I at the receiving end sometimes?

The idea of this topic came in one of my yoga sessions .First, let me extend my gratitude to the participant who asked the question.

“Do people take advantage of your situation when you are being good to others?”

Let me give some insight into this topic based on my experiences. First, let us understand,’ what does being good mean to us?’  It simply means that you are making another person or a group of people happy. This can be done by extending your resources to others so that they benefit from your resources. The resource could be your acquired skills, acquired material wealth, your time, extending your love to others or it could be any kind of resource where the receiving person lacks what is being offered to him.

Greater goodness happens when you are extending your resource to others, especially when it is in great demand by others. You feel complete and good about yourself. In this process, you are subjecting yourself to wider opportunities to grow further. This is like a natural water spring. More water is generated, when more the water is taken out from the spring. Also, it is similar to the generation of blood. More you give out your blood, more a new stream of blood flows into your body. For example, my knowledge on Yoga improved greatly once I started disseminating this knowledge to others.

When do we feel that someone is taking advantage of you for being good? In general, we feel good when you extend your resource to the others for the first few occasions. If the same person keeps coming back to you for the same kind of help then we may get a feeling that he is taking advantage of the situation. In this case, the energy is STUCK and there is no FLOW. Let me explain this with the example of multiple streams of water in the river.

It is quite natural that the river branches into multiple streams, where water takes the easier path to flow- steady and easy. In this process, it branches into multiple streams covering wider areas. This is the reason that the running water is far superior to the still water, just because of the flow. Don’t you think that the health benefit of Cauvery water is far superior than the RO filtered ground water?

So, be assured that if our resources should be distributed in such a way, they would also get multiplied as they pass through different people. Show them the path and enlighten them with the knowledge of how to develop the skills for acquiring the resources that they lack. This resource exchange may also be bidirectional from both parties. This is a FLOW and it is good.

If you feel that the flow is not happening and is stagnant due to others then one needs to become tough with others. Lord Rama physic was normally defined to be as soft as flower but when in needed to break a bow, he became tougher and harder as a diamond in that given situation. But caution! When you make a tough call, you need to be completely clear & balanced and abide by your actions based on the law of nature. By following this, I can assure you that you won’t feel bad about your decision ,even though you made a tough call!

Having said that, the greatest wisdom that we should remind ourselves of is that each and every one of us is innately GOOD by nature. This is our original nature & our true state of being. If you feel that you are apprehensive in any given situation and not feeling good about yourself, then become TOUGHER with YOURSELF and go back to your original state of ‘BEING GOOD’. 

Stay in the STATE OF FLOW!! 

In Mind or Awareness Zone: Where are you NOW?

Now, you are here browsing and reading this blog post. Let us play a simple game. Let us rewind freely and recollect your activities that you have been doing for the past 5 minutes. What activities have been doing & how the mind has influenced you? In other words, were you fully involved on that given moment of a particular activity or were you under the influence of mind with certain random thinking? According to neuroscientists if one involves in an activity which is boring, not that interesting or casual then the brain switches to a mode called ‘Default Network’. Or simply ‘mind wandering ‘in simple words.

Most of the time in a day, we are under the constant influence of our own mind. Yes, you are right! In some way, we become the prisoner of our own mind. This is quite natural & normal. That is the good part. But, the bad part of this is that we don’t live in the present moment HERE & NOW. We either live in past or future (so called the fantasy world) if we are influenced by our own mind. Unfortunately, both past and future are not real.

Life manifests moment to moment in the PRESENT here & now. If you stay in the field of awareness and not under the influence of mind then one can stay in the Present moment, experiencing the liveliness of life.

So, here is the question: where are you NOW? Are you under the influence of your mind or the influence of your awareness? If mind strength is strong, then the mind comes and grabs your awareness. If awareness strength is strong, then the awareness silences your mind. So keep your awareness stronger than the strength of your mind to experience the beauty of life.

How we may do this? Answer to this question is to practice any kind of mind body exercises as Yoga, Tai chi & meditation. One may witnesses a beautiful game that is happening in his internal world as he is engaged in any of the above practices. Throughout the practice, the winner of the game may be sometime mind, sometime awareness or sometime just mind/awareness alone.

All the successful people like Richard Gere, David Lynch, Russell Simmons, Bill Ford, CEO of Ford, Larry Brilliant, Former Director of Google, Sachin Tendulkar & Priyanka Gandhi do the above practices as daily rituals to stay on top of their life.

Regular practice yields two significant and prominent developments. It is the development of Attention faculty of the Brain and another is the reconditioning of the mind to stay in a positive state. These developments have influence in every dimension’s of our life, whether it is our career, productivity, relationship, personal life, etc.

It is alright to be under the influence of mind if the mind reminds to think, feel, and act in a positive way. This is a mental training process as visualization techniques, when practiced  regularly provides a reconditioned positive state of mind.

So, Stay POSITIVE & increase the strength of your AWARENESS to feel the liveliness of life and living every day to your highest potentials.

Are you living with your ideals governed by external forces?

All along in our life, we are constantly conditioning our mind with the values governed by the external means from the society, family & friends. Initially, at our younger age as a child, we didn’t have our own set of core values defined and so we started to adopt the values set from the external world. We were taught that those values by default were good values such as, going to good school, getting good grades, excelling ourselves in the academics & getting into  good employment, becoming comfortable with the living means and so on.

As we grow older, going through the different phases of the life as a child, teenage & as a grown up adult, every one of us has come to a stage where if not all, at least some of the values are not working well for us.

This has happened to me at one point of my life. After having all the luxuries of good family, great kids, higher education, good title in the company & many of the financial wealth, I expected a joyful and happier life .But, there was always a sense of incompleteness & I was not clear enough at that time to understand what was that which had become incomplete in me?

As I started experiencing the life, there was a stage where I had some serious illness which had given me an opportunity to slow down & review my life. As I realized the externally forced values had not given me the kind of life what I expected it to deliver & I reprogrammed my mind to pick up the values whatever deemed to be good based on my level of awareness and built up new core values which I thought would bridge the gap between my real life to my ideal life. Fortunately, it worked GREAT!! It not only cleared my health condition in more holistic way, but led me to perceive my life differently but in a good way.

This new perceived thinking created a greater space in my mind. This became the starting point of so called MY FREE MIND. With the free mind, new ideas started to surface out beautifully to me. Sometime, the ideas in a day were so overwhelming that I needed some way to capture and write down all those ideas as a journal. New ideas lead me to new way of thinking which lead me again to new actions. The world around me started to manifest in a different way, but in a very good way.

The above processes are still continuing in me on day today basis.  All, I can say for now is that life is more beautiful .I am leading the life with clear focused goals with higher ideals and thoughts.

So, to put my learning’s in simple terms.

Build  strong core values à Great Health à Free Mind à Great Actions à Perfect world  

In other words, when Health is not good in you, one can’t manifest a perfect world around you. This is a big idea & really a very strong statement.

So, here is my question to you. How your core values are defined within you? These values become the fundamentals in defining your belief system. Based on your belief system follows your thinking & action. This gives raise to the world that you create around you. If you see and feel the world around you is not an ideal one then please work on your core values and fundamentals. Throw away the values that do not serve you better even though those are imposed on you by the external force. Go by your intuition, build strong fundamentals, greater belief system that work for you and create a space in your mind. Let positive thought, action surface out from this free mind & provide a life that you love to live.

So, start to act on building your strong core values NOW & TODAY!! Build great Health & free mind that give raise to the manifestation of perfect world around you.