When I think of the term “fitness”, it covers so much more than a number on a scale, the size of your biceps, or how many minutes you spend each day working out.
Yes, when your body is trim and fit because you get regular physical exercise and eat healthy fuel/food, you are certainly considered fit.
However, do you also take into account your mental fitness and the connection between your mind and body?
When I was going through the creative process of picking a domain name for my blog, I went through hundreds of names. Some were taken, some didn’t really “fit”, and some just weren’t good; they didn’t “pop”.
I kept going back and forth with some names that I liked, and I also had the intention of starting a general self-improvement (a.k.a. personal development) site. However, I have had this issue with weight, food, exercise, etc. for most of my life, and I do feel that in order to attain higher levels of consciousness and enlightenment, that you need to work through your physical issues first.
Because of my interest in self-improvement (I began reading my mom’s self-improvement books when I was 10, have done workshops as an adult, and my own inner work — I’m still not a perfect specimen, though! 🙂 ), this is why you will find that I approach weight loss from a mind/body/spirit perspective.
I am highly interested in working through and solving my issues with food and weight once and for all, and if I can also help you by what I learn and experience, then that is even better! 😉 Therefore, I decided to focus on these issues in this blog, and build on the comprehensive topic of food related to health, weight, and both physical and mental fitness and well-being.
Now, back to the topic of naming my blog… one morning the name “Fearless Fat Loss” popped into my mind. It really clicked with me so I went with it. Now that it’s been almost 3 months since my first post, I notice that I haven’t written very much about physical fitness/exercise, which could possibly seem unusual to you (especially if you are new to my blog), since I have the word “fit” in my site name. While I will write more about this topic, I’d like to explain how I am defining fitness on this site:
I think of fitness in a broad sense to incorporate not only the body, but also the mind and emotions. While it does take physical action to accomplish your goals in life, if you do not have your mind and emotions in sync with your physical actions, you won’t end up getting very far in the end. Your mind and/or subconscious beliefs will sabotage you, because in essence, you are forcing yourself to go through the physical motions if your inner beliefs, thoughts, and feelings aren’t on the same page as your physical self.
I do believe that practically any diet out there will work to take off the weight, although that certainly does not mean that all diets are healthy, or that they will teach you how to live thin and fit for the rest of your life.
Let’s say though, that you are successful with a diet, you get down to your goal weight, you worked hard, but in your head you still think of and see yourself as an overweight individual. Or, what if you never healed the reasons that drive you to overeat or eat over emotions? The original problem that caused your overeating and overweight was never solved; only the physical aspect of dropping the excess weight took place.
If there isn’t a shift in your thoughts about how you relate to food and use it to stuff your emotions, to make yourself feel better, or abuse it by eating when you aren’t hungry, how will this change simply by dieting down to a lower weight?
What is even more maddening (I’ve done this before) is trying to play a balancing game: “I ate such and such, what does the scale say now? I’ll cut back the rest of the day and put in extra time exercising”. This is no way to live, and if you weren’t overeating or eating when not hungry in the first place, then you wouldn’t need to play these games with yourself.
This goes back to solving those bottom-line issues though, of what is driving you to overeat. This could be habit, food addiction (cannot stop eating certain foods because you are driven by chemical changes in your body triggered by the food), strong emotions that you have never dealt with, or self-esteem issues (you cannot picture yourself deserving to be thin and fit).
I think that the reason that there are so many repeat offenders in the dieting arena is because the bottom-line issues that caused the overweight were never addressed. There are diets that you can go on that still include foods that contain sugar, flour and fat. If you are addicted to these substances, how can you moderate your food intake long term?
There are also diets that allow you to eat unlimited amounts of protein, however what kind of fats are you ingesting, what is this doing to your health, and more importantly, just what kind of weight are you losing? The healthy goal of weight loss is to burn and lose fat, not muscle tissue, or simply water weight. Burning off fat takes time, and it is important to learn how to eat in a manner that you will continue for the rest of your life so that you can maintain your loss.
There are diets that tell you to stop eating carbohydrates. Your body, and most importantly your brain, needs carbs to function. There is a large difference though, between the simple carbs found in processed foods, and whole food carbs such as oatmeal, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, and bananas.
So, my point is that you can get the weight off, but if you do not learn how to live thin by incorporating your mind, body, and soul, the entire package, then it’s highly unlikely that you will be able to maintain your loss and achieve excellent health for life.
This is why I am writing about all of the topics that I believe can attribute to overweight instead of only writing about diets and exercise. Unconscious, negative belief patterns, the lack of knowledge of what is in fast and processed foods, emotional eating, self-destructive behaviors, and food addiction are some of the topics that contribute to overweight.
My goal is to continue writing about these topics, as well as continuing to include tools that you can use to help you lose the weight, such as motivational thoughts, the power of your mind, and the use of affirmations and visualization. I will write more about physical fitness. 🙂 I also will be reviewing some of the diets that are out there on the market, although when it comes down to it, I truly believe that lifestyle changes must occur in order to effect a lasting change in weight and weight maintenance.
I hope that this information serves to tell you a little bit more about where I’m coming from and my intentions for this site. Things may still change in my long term intentions, especially since I haven’t been blogging here very long; however overall, what I’ve shared with you here is the direction that I see this blog taking currently. I do know that as I change I will be doing more writing from the perspective of maintaining the weight loss that you have worked so hard to shed, which is where I think the real work begins.
While it certainly does take work to lose weight, the true work is in maintaining that loss for life, and living in balance and harmony with yourself, your weight, and food. I haven’t gotten there yet, and I will have much more to say about it once I do, however I am already aware of some of the reasons that I have not been able to maintain my losses yet (upcoming topics).
I sincerely wish that you might learn from my experiences and the topics that I research. I do believe that it is possible to heal the issues of overweight, obesity, body image, food, weight maintenance (etc.), however it is not a quick fix and does take some inner work and exploration on your part. If you are willing to do the inner work, as well as take the physical steps necessary to shed your excess weight and keep it off, I know that you can be successful, and be an inspiration to others in your life.
