With less than three months to go before we bring in 2020, it’s the perfect time to really step things up with your health, wellbeing, and fitness.
This week, we start our 12 Week Slimming Challenge and for this I’ve made the challenge very simple! For 12 Weeks, we have two objectives – the first is to exercise for thirty minutes everyday (yes, every day! – a simple walk is perfect so don’t stress about having to get into the gym or pool everyday) and the second part of the challenge is to meditate for ten minutes a day.
By incorporating just these two things into your daily life for 12 weeks, you will notice huge improvements to your weight-loss efforts. The exercise will help with your calorie expenditure and the meditation will help with decreasing cortisol (stress levels) I go into depth about this in one of the latest blogs, Slimming Tips: How to Slim Down and Stay Slim.
For this challenge, I’m going to be tracking my exercise and meditation minutes and I recommend you give it a go too. The whole point of this challenge is to really reduce stress, inflammation in the body and of course excess weight.
There is a reason though that I’ve focused this challenge on aspects outside of nutrition. Of course nutrition is a key part of weight loss, but something that I feel many of us neglect is our mental health and stress levels. If we are stressed we cause inflammation within the body and it is difficult to lose weight. For this reason, many of my clients have ticked all the boxes for successful weight loss – reduced calories, increased exercise ect..but they still struggle with shifting the kilos. This is when I really get them to evaluate their mental health, sleep patterns and stress levels. Stress is the number one cause of disease and leads to so many health complications not to mention it is a really horrible space to be in both mentally and physically. When we are stressed our body is constantly in fight or flight mode, and it is this mode that causes our body to eventually say “enough is enough” and we find ourselves with ailments and diseases.
To record my exercise, I will be writing out the total minutes of conscious exercise I’ve made. This can include a quick trip to the shops where I’ve walked instead of driven the car, when I’ve taken the stairs instead of the escalators and the total minutes of deliberate exercise choices I’ve made. For example, if I’ve got a spare four minutes here, or a spare three minutes there, I’ll use that time to do some squats, lunges or even run on the spot or walk around the block. The key is we want those minutes to add up to thirty minutes over one day. The reason for this is to take the stress out of exercise, and to switch our mindsets from thinking that we need to do a solid 30 or 60 minute block of exercise or else we can’t do anything. So many of my clients try so hard to get into the gym or head out for a run, but with life being so busy they run out of time. For this reason, I want us to start thinking about maximising those few minutes we have throughout the day where we can do something really good for both body and soul.
The reason why meditation is also a huge part of this challenge is because I would love to help my clients reduce their stress as much as possible. Meditation is an amazing help with this, and don’t worry if you’ve never done it before, it is something everyone can learn to do.
If you are interested in learning more about meditation I recommend the book “Becoming Supernatural” by Dr. Joe Dispenza or any of the work by Dr. Joe Dispenza, he is a fantastic meditation teacher and his work is all backed by science. If you’re just starting out with meditation, try this: sit quietly in a dark room, close your eyes and focus on your breath. Focus on the air moving in and out of your body and focus on your heart, feel your heartbeat slowing down to a calm, gentle rhythm and imagine your best self. Hold in your mind an image of who you want to be physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally and feel the feeling of what it would be like to be that version of you.
By incorporating just these two simple commitments into your every day for the next 12 weeks, I guarantee you will finish up this year a happier, healthier, slimmer and fitter self. If you would like to boost your weight-loss efforts, please do get in touch about the Herbs Online Shop Slimming Herb Extract, it is designed to help you as you trim down and become a slimmer self! We also have a wide variety of herbs that can assist you on your journey including pre and post workout herbs and Gymnema Herb Extract which is designed to help reduce sweet cravings and balance blood sugar. As well as being a well used weight loss remedy, Gymnema has a therapeutic use as an anti-diabetic aid because it blocks intestinal absorption of sugar and lowers blood sugar levels gradually and naturally. Please do get in touch via the website or give us a call on 02 9555 5117.
Over the next 12 weeks I’m going to be posting lots of blogs and content on Instagram and Facebook that can assist you with your weight loss goals. Remember that your goals are so important and that here at Herbs Online Shop our number one priority is to support you to achieve your healthiest, happiest self!