Fat Loss
Eat less, exercise more, and you’ll lose weight, right? It works, except when it doesn’t. At some point you can only eat so little before becoming malnourished. Same goes for exercise, too much can cause more harm than good. Most can understand that too much or too little of anything can be counterproductive.
Make no mistake, there’s absolutely a need for exercise in the right dose and proper nutrition for the individual. This month we are going to talk about a few strategies we recommend including if you’re looking for healthy weight loss and life long sustained health.
Sleep | Sunshine | Breathe | Sensory
Sleep & Sunshine
If you want to change your body, you have to change your brain. It’s a little oversimplified, but this saying helps depict its importance: “Training is why the brain changes, nutrition is how, and sleep is when.” Particularly during deep sleep, our brain goes through a cleansing or flushing process that allows the room and circulation needed to lay down new neural structures and remove plaque buildup. Know that to get better sleep, what you do during the day will largely affect your night time zzz’s. Sunshine first thing in the morning helps your brain know when to “start the clock.” So being outside for a period of time after waking up can help you reset your circadian rhythm.
Breathe
Breath work can also help you get enough resources in and out of your cells. Just like any other muscle in the body, the respiratory muscles can be strengthened and improved. Try changing how fast/slow you can breath through your nose, then your mouth. Then try holding your breath for as long as you can comfortably while you move. There are many more ways that you can increase your breath capacity. The more fluent you are in breath work, the more your brain has the resources it needs to support you in your body recomp journey.
Sensory
Plateauing is a natural part of the process. Our brain actually has a map of our body, down to the very last millimeter on your waist. When you lose weight, that map must have adequate time to update. Ever finally get past your plateau only to wind up back where you were before despite all your efforts? That’s because change is metabolically expensive, and you have to have enough resources to update your brain’s map of this new space in order to keep it there. There are several ways to help update these maps. Sensory (like 2 point discrimination and deep pressure) and spine movements are a great way to help remap your waistline and keep the progress on the right track.
Fat loss is one of those things that is extremely individual, and deserves careful guidance not just to the particular goal, but afterwards as well. Behavior change is a crucial part of keeping the weight off. So if you feel like you need that careful guidance, give us a call. We can help you feel empowered to safely get rid of the weight while protecting your body and keeping longevity at the forefront of your mind.
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