OHC Honoring Your Body

1. Wake up early - Make time to treat yourself well in the morning. Create a ritual for yourself that puts you first each day. Simple things like, take a walk, journal your thoughts, pray, meditate, read the paper, do your nails. Find something that speaks to the inner you and spend at least 15 minutes paying attention to that essential part of you
2. Make your own meals - The most success you will achieve on any nutrition plan is avoiding fast food, eating out and intense hunger pit falls. Make your meals each morning, or even the night before. Take time to write in your journal what you will eat and when, then check it off each time you follow through on honoring your eating habits. Make your drinks too and plan to carry them with you throughout the day to insure you stay hydrated.
3. Take your food with you - avoid drive thru food and peer pressure at the Mexican food place that the work gang wants to visit for lunch. You can take in your meals and let the proprietor know that you are on a special meal plan. They usually are ok with you bringing in your own food if you are with a few other people.
4. Learn to say ‘no’ to empty calories and ‘yes’ to green foods - avoid the sugary temptations that lurk everywhere we go. Carry snacks in your car like nuts, carrots, celery sticks, or a low sugar protein bar. Make sure you eat every 2 and ½ to 3 hours, even if you are not hungry. This will keep your metabolism high and your hunger pains at bay.
5. Journal what you eat, when you eat it and how much you eat - As a rule you want to become conscious about your eating habits. Sometimes it is a painful picture to paint but the more we reveal about ourselves, the more likely it is that we will change those habits that we know we no longer want in our lives. Write down when you eat, what you eat, how much of it you ate, and what mood you are in when you eat it.
6. Remember to breathe - before, during and after your meal, take deep cleansing breaths. This will slow down your body to be able to receive the meal and also to signal when it is full. You may also notice that you are not really hungry but more thirsty and in need of a break to revitalize yourself. Before you reach for the coffee or donut, take a breath and get back in touch with your body.
7. Be willing to take a good look at yourself and your lifestyle - If you really want your health back or to maintain it - be willing to admit where you can make changes. Seek out supportive help and believe in yourself. You are worth it!
8. Accept yourself as you are - No reward and punishment will motivate in the end. Loving yourself fully as you are in every moment releases stress and gets you off your own back. Much of our weight is due to us ‘being on our backs’. Imagine two of you, one in front, and one in back burdening the other. Feels heavy huh? Well then - get off your back and love yourself. After all - you are doing the best you can with what you know and with where you are right now. When you make shifts you move forward. Telling yourself you ‘ought to’, ‘supposed to’, should’, or making excuses or blaming others for where you are and the choices you have made does nothing for you. Stand in your own skin, accept your choices, and decide in every moment how you will be. In weight loss, surprisingly, it is the ‘being’ that is more powerful than any ‘doing’.
9. Pray at your meal - In any manner that we may pray, pause or be still before a meal, not only serves to center us at each meal, bringing us to the present moment but it has been proven that taking time to linger with your meal prior to indulging in it, actually starts the digestive process. Allowing the body to turn on its internal signals that a meal is coming helps the enzymatic process and assures greater absorption of our nutrients.