This spring I lost 12 pounds.  I wanted to wait until I kept the weight off for 6 months before I wrote about how I accomplished this feat.  Following are the principles I used to take the weight off and to keep it off.

1.   Let the love in.

This is the simplest principle and the hardest one for me to get.  It took recognizing that I was pushing love away from me over and over again before I was able to stop and see that the best relationship I ever had was standing right in front of me.  Of course, I had to leave the relationship first before I could come to that awareness.  Once I made the decision to let love in (in this case in the form of a romantic relationship) the weight started to shift.  Many of us gain weight to keep love away or to protect ourselves.

2.   Mindfulness.

Being fully present with my food is a challenge to this day.  I'm a multi-tasker.  I want to read or watch a movie when I eat.  When I'm fully present while I eat I can recognize when I've had enough.  If I'm distracted while I eat I will invariably eat more than my body wants or needs.

3.   Conscious eating.

One of the things I learned on this journey is what a serving looks like.  It's much smaller than what this society is accustomed to providing.  Deepak Chopra in his weight loss book states that a serving is about the size of the palm of your hand.  I looked at labels to help me figure serving size out.  Do you know that a serving of lettuce is 1 1/2 cups vs. a serving of pasta being 1/2 cup?  That's without anything on it!  Conscious eating means I'm aware of not only portion size but the kinds of choices I'm making around food.  I ask myself how will eating a particular meal or food make me feel afterward.  Is a moments pleasure worth the emotional or physical fallout once the foods been eaten?  Nine times out of ten it's not.  But don't forget that other one percent because we do need to indulge once in awhile lest we forget pleasure altogether.

4.   Let go of the scale.

Being a certain weight doesn't really matter in the big picture.  What matters is how I feel in my body.  I had to let go of weighing myself every day because it just made me anxious.  Once I let go of the scale I could more easily settle in to how I felt in my body.  If I feel comfortable in the clothes that I'm wearing than I know that I'm at the perfect weight for me no matter what the number on the scale.

You will notice that very little of this has to do with counting calories or carbohydrates.  I will be honest and say I don't eat a lot of things with sugar in them as it affects my body chemistry in a negative way.  But I do have some high calorie indulgences.  I can not eat popcorn without it being drenched in butter.  I simply eat it with full awareness and not very often.

I also would be remiss if I did not mention exercise.  There is rarely a day that I don't either do yoga, walk, or dance.  Not only do I exercise for weight stabilization but for mental stabilization as well.  Exercise, for me, is meditation.  Exercise calms my mind as well as honors my body.

I didn't come to these principless over night.  It took many years of struggling with my diet and body image before I got where I am today.  It is important not to look at my body and see only parts.  I am not my body.  I am much more.

I was talking to a coaching client recently and telling her that she was at a crossroads.  She needed to make a decision about whether she was going to do the work involved in progressing forward in her life or choose to stay stuck where she was at.  Rarely do I give a client a message that isn't meant for me as well.  I realized I too was at a crossroads in my own life.  I either was going to believe in prosperity or believe in lack.  Since I've really had it with experiencing lack in my life I decided it was time to to start manifesting prosperity.  The only thing is that all the prosperity tools I've been taught over the years never seem to work for me.

 
Many of the manifestation materials out there talk about changing your thoughts to create the reality you desire.  They even go so far as to include the emotions in the process.  But I've never undersood how to get from a to b.  I for one can not access the emotions I need to manifest prosperity from my head.  I need another way.  The other day  I woke up and I was in such a beautiful state of grace.  I was completely in my heart center.  I didn't need to do anything to get there.  I already was there.  I had several experiences throughout the day which would have normally sent me into a lack spiral:  fear, anxiety, panic, etc.  Because I was in my heart space I was able to navigate those experiences easily.  The next day the state of grace was gone and I had to get into my heart space on my own. 

I had to make a large purchase this day and the fear around money came up.  I started to practice a kundalini yoga breathing technique right in the store and was able to immediately get back to center.  I made my purchase joyfully and haven't regretted the purchase since.  Normally, I would have beat myself up for spending the money.  "I should have never bought this.,"etc.

This meditation is on page 125 of Transitions To A Heart-Centered World by Gururattan Kaur Khalsa, Ph.D.

You can purchase this manual at www.spiritvoyage.com