September 2011 - Your Body Can Talk To You!

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When it comes to losing weight or eating healthier, wouldn’t it be great to be able to ask you body exactly what it wants to eat or if a particular food is beneficial for you? With this great little tip you can learn to dialogue with your body and most importantly honor what it wants and needs.
                                        
When you think you’re hungry who is it that’s actually hungry? Is it your body or your emotions? Many times we eat for wrong reasons. For example, you may eat because you’re bored, stressed, feeling emotional, tired, had an argument with someone or perhaps you feel you’ve worked hard all day and deserve to reward yourself with something caloric. One interesting little side tip is true hunger usually sneaks up on you. You will notice as time goes on that you’re becoming hungrier and perhaps there’s a gnawing sensation in your stomach. Whereas, if you suddenly think to yourself: “Gee, some potato chips or a chocolate chip cookie sounds really good about now”, you’re most likely eating for emotional reasons or just because it tastes good.

So, how can you make friends with your body and develop a life long dialogue with it?
Have you ever heard of kinesiology? It’s also called muscle testing. If you’ve ever gone to a chiropractor or alternative practitioner they often use muscle testing. Typically they might muscle test you for a particular supplement or to ask your body a yes or no question about your health. If you’ve had it done they would typically hold your arm out straight to your side and gently push your arm down, asking you to resist his/her pressure on your arm, while asking you a specific question. The idea is that you can dialogue with your unconscious mind, the part of the mind we talk to during hypnosis, and ask it direct yes or no questions. The concept is that your unconscious mind knows the correct answers and can bi-pass your critical conscious mind that often gets in the way. Typically if it tests strong while the practitioner pushes down on your arm, the answer to the question is “yes” or true. If your arm is weak it indicates a “no” answer.

There’s a similar way you can self-test, but in this case you will simply use your whole body. Here’s how it works: Stand straight up with your spine straight, and your feet evenly close together with the insides of your feet gently touching together. You can do it with shoes on or off. You want to make sure your body is evenly balanced. In other words, you want to make sure that before you test, your body is neither swaying forward or backward, but just balanced.

What you will be doing is holding a particular food in both hands and touch your heart or Thymus area with the food/snack while you allow your body to remain balanced. Then ask your body the question. Example: “Is this food beneficial for me?” or “Is this what my body really wants right now?” “Will this food help me to lose weight?” As you can imagine there are many questions you could ask.

Typically if your body moves or sways forward the answer is “yes” and if your body moves or sways backwards the answer is “no”. Try to hold a neutral thought about the outcome and just let your body respond. After a while you’ll get so good at this that you might not even have to do the muscle testing, you’ll just know right away.

If you practice this on a regular basis and honor your body’s responses and not override them, you will develop a life long dialogue with your body and achieve the results you desire. This process is great for helping you lose weight, or to just eat more in alignment with your body’s needs for greater health. Your body is your best friend when you listen to it.

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