How to Lose Weight and Be Fit?

I am writing on this topic because, at the heart of it, personal leadership needs to be strengthened to have the ability to lose weight, be fit and maintain it. Also, this is one of the by-products that my clients have experienced. So, I feel I am qualified to write on this subject :-)

Let's first deconstruct. The Being of the Human Being has not one, but four bodies. None of your intentions will get fulfilled with power and velocity, if you do not recognize that. So, what are those 4 bodies -
1. Spiritual Body
2. Emotional Body
3. Mental Body
4. Physical Body

If you are seeking mastery, professionally and personally, you need to strengthen each of your 4 bodies. If you research masters, people who have cut-over to the other side of greatness leaving the ashes of mediocrity behind, they have grown at all the 4 levels because that is part of the process, part of the inner strengthening for creating the outer success.

Therefore, in order to lose weight, we need to do the work at all the four bodies:

1. Spiritual Body - This part of us is about our highest purpose; about our being connected to our purpose through the work we do and through the way we live; about living purposefully moment by moment; about experiencing deep connection with ourselves, with each one around us and with the Universe itself. You can assess the health of this body by giving yourself a rating out of 10 for the questions - Why am I doing all of this? What is my purpose?

Linking it back to being overweight, be in the inquiry of the questions - Why am I allowing myself to be fat? What is my purpose in letting me be fat? The importance of an inquiry is not that you get clear answers but take responsibility and experience that viscerally, rather than hide behind numerous excuses. The reality is that you are fat / unfit and it is your choice to be like that. 

One of my clients wanted to quit smoking. In our coaching conversation, he had a powerful insight that he was using smoking to push emotions, that he didn't want to confront, under the carpet. It was his way of numbing his emotions. He learnt to feel gratitude for smoking instead of feeling guilty and powerless about it because he found the purpose behind his smoking habit. It was to teach him to love himself unconditionally and to get the strength to face his emotions to evolve to the next level. He learnt to use his cigarette as a partner in progress to point towards parts of him (his emotions) that he did not want to acknowledge, rather than as a crutch to escape parts of himself. Smoking quit him, instead of him struggling to quit smoking because it had fulfilled its role of supporting him on his human journey to learn, grow and evolve to his highest self.

2. Emotional Body - High Performers spend their entire lifetime turning their face away from their emotions, so much so that after a point they lose the ability to feel real emotions. Oh yes, we can pretend to be happy with all the success and wealth we have created. We are also so super smart that we end up fooling ourselves to believe that this happiness is the real thing and keep ourselves distracted with exciting hobbies we take on, going to exotic destinations for vacations and take up meditation. The experience of loneliness is acute and we hide that by working even harder, by becoming even more busy being busy. The first questions all my super successful clients ask me is - What is fulfilment? How do you define success? How do I feel intimacy with my loved ones - my spouse, kids and parents? 

I learnt the answers the hard way. The only access is to first acknowledge that you do have an Emotional Body, that emotions are like little children who will hide in different parts of your body (causing dis-ease including fat) if they experience you pushing them away.

Fat, as per Louise Hay, often represents Fear and shows a need for protection. As per her, the Fear may be a cover for hidden anger and a resistance to forgive. Isn't it interesting? What's more interesting is that men usually have belly fat and women usually collect fat in their hips & thighs. Belly fat is anger at being denied emotional nourishment. Hips & thigh fat is packed childhood anger, often rage at the father.

Work at the emotional level is needed to remain fit and allow fat to leave you.

3. Mental Body - I won't spend much time here because we spend our lives entirely in this body. At this body, what is needed is to recognize the limiting thought patterns that underlie the emotional state described above. It is not about forcibly stopping your thoughts, or trying to drop them. That doesn't work. It is about allowing the limiting thoughts to let go of you. This is a 4-stage process from being unconscious of your limiting thought patterns, to being conscious, to being aware and finally transformation takes place when you find yourself free from the grip of your limiting thought patterns.

Byron Katie in her powerful book 'Loving What Is' shares a step-by-step process for this. 

Meditation is a powerful process for stilling the mind. Don't use this to escape your emotions, use the process for self-observation. I find Vipassana very powerful and personally use it. There are numerous other approaches. You need to find one that you connect with.

4. Physical Body - Here you need to work at three levels: 
a. What you are eating, how you are eating and when you are eating? I find Ayurveda, the ancient healing system of India, very comprehensive and scientific. Infact, most spiritual organizations run their own version of Healthy Eating Programs.

b. Which physical exercise regimen you are following? How consistent are you? In my experience, Yoga (the ancient physical disciplining system of India) is the most structured exercising approach to health and wellbeing. 

c. How are you breathing? Pranayam, part of the Yoga Practise, teaches highly effective breathing exercises.

You may choose to love being fat or choose to use it to find your way to greater freedom, greater performance & productivity and greater outer success by starting your inner journey of personal transformation.

Whatever you may choose, know that you are whole, complete and perfect the way you are. Without experiencing that, you will not make progress.

Love, Jyoti.