Attention and Intention: How being consistent with our healthy habits helps manage weight loss24/9/2024
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 Click ...or that's what I thought for a long time, and, to be perfectly honest, there's still a lot of truth in that. Google 'women's wellbeing retreat' and you'll see a lot of thin white women practising yoga, often in far flung, luxurious destinations. It is a fact that women of colour are still under-represented in yoga studios and the wellness space generally; the lack of visible representation of the women you would find in the general population definitely makes these spaces seem exclusive.
Let's add in the fact that some of these retreats have prohibitive price points...that's one way to attract a certain clientele and exclude others! When The Women's Wellbeing Collective started facilitating retreats, we did it for women 'like us'. We wanted space and time to grow and evolve and we couldn't find what we wanted. We wanted to create a friendly and welcoming space for the women we knew - working class, single mums, low income, new to the wellness space, never stepped foot on a yoga mat before... we wanted it to be diverse and representative...and, importantly, we wanted it to be affordable because we believe in the transformational potential of the retreat space and we don't think that women should be excluded from it because of financial barriers. We are proud of our retreat offer. We have worked hard to create a transformational space that welcomes all women who are ready to start their own journey. We have made a luxury seaside retreat affordable and offer a payment plan option so that women can spread the cost over a number of months. It is an honour to host this space for women as they shed and evolve and transform; and wouldn't it be wonderful if all women had the opportunity to experience that? Learn more about our luxury seaside retreat in September 2024- https://www.thewomenswellbeingcollective.org/nourish--flourish.html  My thinking today, on #internationalwomensday with the theme being to #inspireinclusion is that the significance of creating supportive and nurturing environments for women cannot be overstated. In this digital age - where it has never been easier to connect with others using technology - we are increasingly disconnected and isolated. Within these spaces, profound connections are formed, and empowerment flourishes. Women's retreats and circles stand as testament to the transformative power of communal gatherings, offering sanctuary for growth, healing, and self-discovery.
In recent times, the call for such spaces has grown louder, women need time, space and opportunity to come together. There is power in the gathering. I say this often, but I do genuinely believe it, when women gather, magic happens! These environments provide a refuge from the noise of everyday life, offering solace in shared experiences and solidarity in shared struggles. One of the most compelling arguments for the creation of women's retreats and circles lies in their ability to foster genuine connections. In a world increasingly dominated by digital interactions, the value of face-to-face communication cannot be underestimated. Within these intimate settings, women make connections, they share, they explore, they can be their authentic self, they feel empowered. Through open and honest conversation, they find validation, empathy, and understanding, creating a network of support that can extend beyond the retreat. These spaces serve as incubators for personal growth and empowerment. Surrounded by like-minded and like-hearted individuals, women are encouraged to explore their passions, confront their fears, and embrace their true selves. Through workshops, seminars, and shared activities, they gain valuable insights and skills, empowering them to navigate life's challenges with confidence and resilience. In this nurturing environment, self-doubt is replaced by self-assurance, and insecurities are transformed into strengths. Women's retreats and circles also play a crucial role in promoting mental and emotional wellbeing. In today's fast-paced world, many women find themselves overwhelmed by the demands of work, family, and society. These pressures can take a toll on their mental health, leading to stress, anxiety, and burnout. Retreats and circles offer a much-needed reprieve from the chaos of everyday life, providing space for reflection, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Through mindfulness practices, meditation, and holistic therapies, women learn to reconnect with themselves, each other and nature and they regain balance and recover the equilibrium. These environments offer women the opportunity to connect, grow, and thrive in ways that are both profound and transformative. By fostering genuine connections, promoting personal empowerment, and nurturing mental and emotional wellbeing, they empower women to become agents of change in their own lives and in the world around them.  If, like me, you grew up in the 80s and 90s, the low-fat narrative is probably ingrained in you! The pervasive idea that fat equals bad and should be avoided at all costs, and that we should always opt for the low-fat version of a product.
We become reliant on ultra-processed food, marketed as low-fat and zero-sugar. We follow traffic light systems and opt for the ‘healthier’ version every chance we get. Yet, these products are packed with dubious ingredients, artificial additives and sweeteners that affect our appetite, satiety and hormones. In the ever-evolving landscape of weight loss strategies, intermittent fasting has emerged as a powerful tool with remarkable benefits. Contrary to conventional wisdom, embracing full-fat foods within an intermittent fasting regimen can be a game-changer for those on a weight loss journey. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but let's explore how indulging in full-fat goodness can coexist with a weight loss journey. Understanding Intermittent Fasting Intermittent fasting (IF) isn't just a diet; it's a lifestyle approach that alternates between periods of eating and fasting. Common methods include the 16/8 method (16 hours of fasting, 8 hours of eating) or the 5:2 approach (regular eating for five days, followed by two days of reduced calorie intake). The Full-Fat Advantage:
I have lost seven stone using intermittent fasting and continue to lead an IF lifestyle because it enables me to maintain a healthy weight. I never eat low-fat versions of products, I eat real food to nourish my body and that includes meat with the fat on, avocados, nuts, cheese, full-fat greek yoghurt - all the things that are ‘banned’ on other ‘diet’ plans! Importantly, I count chemicals and not calories and I avoid low-fat, zero-sugar like the plague! Intermittent fasting offers a unique approach to weight loss, and eating a real, whole, nutritious diet that includes good sources of fat can make us feel satisfied, manage blood sugar, stabilise energy and help the body absorb nutrients effectively. Not depriving ourselves and experiencing a varied diet within a fasting window can help us succeed on our weight loss journey. It's time to debunk the myth that fat is the enemy – when harnessed wisely, it becomes a valuable ally in achieving sustainable and satisfying weight loss.  In a world obsessed with quick fixes and fad diets, the allure of low-fat products has long been a prevailing force. The idea that cutting out fats is the ultimate key to health and weight management has been ingrained in our minds. However, it's time to peel back the layers of the low-fat facade and embrace the truth: whole, nutritious foods are the real superheroes in our journey to a healthier life.
The Low-Fat Myth: The low-fat craze gained momentum in the late 20th century, with the promise of a leaner physique and improved heart health. However, as we now know, not all fats are created equal. Healthy fats, such as those found in avocados, nuts, and olive oil, are essential for bodily functions, including nutrient absorption, brain health, and hormone regulation. The Pitfalls of Low-Fat Products:
 Gut health is a huge topic right now! Like most things in the wellness industry; it has been packaged up and is sold to us as a hundred different ‘cures’. Let’s take a look at what good gut health is and how we can support our holistic health by looking after the gut.
There is magic happening in our microbiome – the trillions of microbes living in and on our bodies. Think of it as your personal ecosystem of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microorganisms that live in places like your gut, skin, and mouth. They're not freeloaders; they're actually pulling their weight, helping with digestion and boosting the immune system. Why Does Gut Health Matter? Your gut is like a bustling city, home to a diverse community of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. These tiny residents play a crucial role in digestion, nutrient absorption, and even influence our mood and immune system! Gut health is so important to overall wellbeing and here's why it matters so much:
Nutrition: Even if you're eating the healthiest of foods, your body won't benefit unless your gut is absorbing those nutrients effectively. A healthy gut ensures that all the good stuff you consume gets put to good use. Eat the Rainbow! Want to keep your microbiome happy? Feed them a rainbow of nutrient-rich foods! A colourful plate means a variety of fibres, prebiotics, and probiotics – the fuel for a thriving microbiome. Try to eat 30 different plants per week and include a range of prebiotics (foods that feed the good bacteria in the gut) these include:
Say NO to UPF! UPF stands for ultra processed food. Processed food and excessive sugar can throw your gut balance out of whack, leading to inflammation and an unhappy microbiome. Opt for whole, real foods to support a healthy gut. Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate! Water is the elixir of life, and your gut loves it too! Hydration keeps things flowing smoothly and helps maintain a healthy balance in your digestive system. Eat Mindfully Slow down, savour each bite, and give your gut time to do its job. Mindful eating not only supports digestion but also helps you appreciate the flavours and textures of your food. Listen to Your Gut Literally! Your gut communicates with you. Pay attention to how different foods make you feel and adjust your diet accordingly. Your body knows best! Remember, a happy gut is a key to overall wellbeing and some easy lifestyle changes can make a huge difference. You don't need to spend a fortune on supplements and wellness fads, you can choose to eat proper food and nourish yourself in a holistic way. Amy x  Why is it essential to take a holistic approach to health? Because it’s all connected, the different dimensions of wellbeing are interconnected, overlapping and dependent on each other. We tend to experience life as though mind, body and spirit are separate entities, they aren’t, they are interdependent parts of the same whole.
They say that you can’t out-train a bad diet. If you’re busting a gut at the gym then going home and eating rubbish, you’re undermining your efforts. Think also about how food and mood are connected; how the food you eat affects your mood. Eating a diet of proper food, not addictive, food-like products designed to hook you into a habit, is one of the best things you can do for yourself- your whole self. Feeding yourself like you love yourself, like you want to nourish yourself because you’re worth nourishing, is an important act of self-love. Whether you’re a hare or a tortoise when it comes to exercise, moving your body and keeping a regular exercise routine is good for more than just the body. Yes, you’re working the cardiovascular system to keep the heart and lungs healthy, building and toning muscle, and burning excess fat, but you’re also creating a healthy mind. You’re creating space in the mind to reflect and think- making room for creativity and ideas, you’re building mental strength and self-confidence, you’re nurturing the mind-body connection, you’re releasing tension and trauma that is stored in the body, and you’re reducing stress. Losing weight is more than eating less and moving more - and this is where our holistic approach really kicks in. You can be eating well, following a fasting routine and exercising regularly but not seeing any movement on the scales or in your body, why? Analyse your stress and sleep habits. Stress in the mind can manifest in the body as illness. Anxiety, sleeplessness, skin conditions, hair loss. The pressures and stresses that we experience in our environment are internalised and the body responds with these symptoms. If we were in the habit of listening to our body and living intuitively, we would see what's happening in the body as symptomatic of what's happening in the mind. We can nourish and improve this mind-body connection to make us feel more embodied with practices like yoga, pranayama and meditation, as well as listening to and trusting our body. In times of stress, the stress hormone cortisol is triggered and there is a link between stress, cortisol and abdominal fat. Continued high levels of cortisol causes the body to deposit fat in the abdomen - leading to that stubborn belly fat. This is why only eating less and moving more is never going to be the solution to sustainable weight loss; we also need to manage stress. Finding strategies to relax, unwind and practise regular self-care is a great start; increased resilience, self-love and self-worth will be longer term strategies. Think also about your sleep - the length and quality of your sleep will affect mind, body and spirit. If sleep is an issue for you, and you’re not able to nourish yourself with restorative and refreshing sleep you will experience fatigue, irritability and stress. Studies also show that good sleep is an important part of a weight loss plan and that poor sleep can hinder weight loss and lead to overeating. It’s easy to see why; your body is tired so your brain will trigger it to seek out a food source to provide some quick energy - you’ll eat the crap or drink the coke- and you’ll feel worse for doing so. Trying to embed good sleep hygiene habits is great for holistic health. Finally, how is your social health? Do you have positive, nurturing relationships with friends, family and loved ones? Do the people around you lift you up and make you feel happy, confident and supported? If the answer is no, think about how these relationships affect other areas of your life. What could you do to improve or change them? A holistic health journey, then, is a whole- life MOT, an analysis of all aspects of our life in order to live in a more united, authentic and whole way.  Why do we fall back into old habits? Why do we return to old patterns? Why do we re-run old narratives? I guess the big question is, why, when we are trying to do something new, do we often go back to old ways of thinking and behaving?
Whether we are quitting smoking, giving up drinking or starting a ‘diet’, why do we ‘fall off the wagon’, hit the bottle or give up on giving up? Because humans are lazy! We like the path of least resistance. Why work hard when we can work easy? Perhaps we are biologically programmed to conserve that energy, lest we be chased by a sabre-toothed tiger, so we find ways to work smarter, not harder. The unconscious mind, a vast warehouse of processes outside of our conscious awareness, is like the software running in the background on a computer. We are not consciously aware that it is running, but it’s getting on with it, running different programmes and making sure things that are supposed to happen are happening. Like the internet cookies that track your activity online, these little trails of cookie crumbs also enhance your experience; they remember that you’ve been to that page before, they remember your log-in, they know what kind of trousers you like and make recommendations. The unconscious mind works in a similar way - it says: I know you are a smoker, you identify as a smoker, you call yourself a smoker, you see yourself as a smoker and you buy and smoke cigarettes. I know that you usually smoke a cigarette with a cup of coffee in the morning and after every meal. Ooohhh… you’ve just eaten dinner, time for a cigarette. Cue craving. The unconscious mind ‘cookies’ are working, they’re doing their job. They are working to remind you of your thoughts and patterns and to trigger behaviours. We’ve been here before. This is what we’re supposed to do. Ah-ha, the unconscious mind says, there’s a Burger King. You love Burger King and you always order the Whopper with a vanilla milkshake. Cue craving. The unconscious mind doesn’t yet know that we’ve given up Whoppers! The unconscious mind hasn’t yet accepted a new routine (because it hasn’t been embedded yet) or appreciate that actually we started a new diet on Monday! The unconscious mind is prompting you to do what you’ve always done and triggering thoughts and cravings to elicit the associated behaviour. Like the internet cookies; we’ve been here before. When we think about behaviour change, about embedding new healthy habits, imagine the landscape of the brain with all its criss-crossing neural pathways as a large green field that you want to cross. There is an obvious path in front of you. Well-trodden, clearly defined, you can see that people have walked that path for years. It is a grass-less groove of an easy path. There are a few smaller paths too - but they’re less defined, uneven and grassy. Which path are you going to take? The wide, flat, well-worn and obvious path or the narrow and uneven one? Do you want an easy walk or a challenging walk? Most of us would choose the former, the path of least resistance. Now think of this in terms of trying to embed a healthy eating habit. Shall I order pizza, get a Whopper from Burger King or chuck something in the microwave (the old, well-trodden path and a web page with existing cookies) or shall I buy, prepare and eat something new that is much better for me (a new or non-existent path and a webpage with no cookies - never been here before!) and you can see why old habits really do die hard. The mind can’t distinguish between good and bad habits, it will just prompt you to do what you've always done. Some habits, patterns and behaviours are profoundly unhelpful and unhealthy but the mind doesn’t know that - it just knows that this is what we do. That is why sustainable habit change can be such a challenge and why it is just so much easier to fall back into old habits and re-run old narratives. The internet is undecided on how long it takes to change a habit - anything from 18 to 254 days apparently! But one thing is clear. Like the paths across the grassy field, neural pathways in the brain have to become established. To become an effective path - one that you can walk without breaking an ankle- they have to be walked on, trodden in, ground down. Habit change isn’t quick. It takes conscious awareness and consistency. In the early days of my intermittent fasting journey, I would catch myself mindlessly throwing something into my mouth or picking at the kids leftover chips. I say ‘catch myself’, because I would notice it and snap back with conscious awareness, thinking ‘hang on, we don’t do this anymore’ and quickly spit it out. That awareness and consistency is the walking of the path, to embed the new habit. Soon enough, by consciously showing up for yourself, you reach a point where you are no longer the smoker, the boozer or the person who binge eats Whoppers! Change is always possible, new habits are always available and you can choose which path to take.  
 I’ve been reading a lot about the overprescribing of benzodiazepines to deal with anxiety, especially in the US, but, with fewer doctors, limited resources, time pressure and the power and influence of pharmaceutical companies here in the UK, there can be a tendency to prescribe pills as the first option.
Now, I’m not anti- meds! Some conditions absolutely require medication and it would be irresponsible to suggest otherwise. But some, I would argue, could be positively affected by reflection, connection and non-pharmaceutical interventions. Sometimes anxiety and depression is situational. A person is experiencing low mood, increased anxiety or symptoms of depression because of the state they are in at that time, perhaps influenced or exacerbated by a challenging situation. It could be that a lack of resilience, a lack of familial support or support network makes it harder to deal with life’s challenges at that time. Feeling low, lacking motivation, struggling to function in day to day life, this person goes to see the GP. Feeling stressed, struggling with anxiety, feelings of panic and overwhelm, experiencing heart palpitations or panic attacks, this person goes to see the GP. Both of these people are finding it difficult to cope with their daily life. The GP tells them that counselling or CBT would be a good idea, but the NHS wait list is six months minimum. Without the resources to pay for this privately, what options do they have? Feeling like they need ‘help’ now, they may well feel that medication is a good (or only) option. I love the idea of social prescribing and hope that this becomes more and more routine as an alternative to medication. Imagine the personal and societal benefits if people were more invested in their own health and wellbeing and less reliant on the external. The wellbeing journey is a very personal one. The industry that has grown up around it is completely crazy at times and is in danger of losing its way, but, at its very core, looking after yourself in a holistic way will take care of your mind, body and spirit. If ‘health is wealth’, let’s make the right investments and put our time, money, energy and attention where it needs to be. Connection is a fundamental human need and we, as a society, are more and more disconnected. Connecting with people with similar interests, reducing isolation and social exclusion, has multiple physiological and psychological benefits. It’s also a good idea to consciously disconnect from sources of negativity- the instagram accounts that you unconsciously compare yourself to, or the influencers that make you feel bad about yourself- declutter your digital space with a regular detox. Keep your online communities and feeds positive, fill your cup with good stuff and follow people and accounts that add something to your life. Bringing conscious awareness to what we eat, how we eat and when we eat will nourish the physical and energetic body. Most of us eat mindlessly. We eat too much of the wrong food at the wrong times. Cultivating a positive relationship with food, learning to nourish the body with nutritious food as an energy source, rather than dulling the body, mind and emotions with a surfeit of empty calories will be transformational and will lead to healthy weight loss and, more importantly, a healthy relationship with food. Cutting out diets and avoiding toxic diet culture is a great first step. Learning to embrace, love and accept the body that you have now, while working to embed healthy habits, will help you to embrace your body and achieve your goals. Most importantly, pay attention to your body, get to know it and nourish it in a mindful and intuitive way. Also, don’t be afraid of being hungry. You’re meant to feel hunger- it kick starts the body’s systems and allows it to do its job. Moving your body daily is essential for physical and mental health. Find activities that you enjoy and will be able to sustain. Forget punishing HIIT routines or daily workouts at the gym - that is so hard to maintain and won’t last long enough to make a difference. Achieving a daily step target is much more effective and sustainable than a fancy new training programme. Seeing exercise as self-care, self-investment and prioritising your health is the best way to affect a mindset shift that will stay with you. So…I'm hoping that we routinely get to a place where overstretched, under-resourced GPs don’t send people away with a pack of pills and a vague promise of underwhelming group CBT. Instead, they prescribe rest, reflection and reconnection. Rest to reset, re-focus and prioritise self-love and self-care. Reflection to talk, journal or write therapeutically to start to understand the self better and unearth personal barriers. Reconnection to connect with like-minded, like-hearted people, to connect with nature, and to connect with the self. A prescription for a long walk in nature with a friend, a good chat over a cuppa, followed by some yoga and meditation could be exactly what many of us need! Amy x Amy is the founder of The Women’s Wellbeing Collective. She is a Wellbeing Coach and yoga teacher who runs events, workshops and retreats. Amy runs Walk & Talk, a weekly walking group that includes yoga, guided meditation and coaching. |
AuthorAmy is the founder of the Women's Wellbeing Collective. She is an educator and mum of three with a passion for holistic therapies and women's wellness. Archives
September 2024
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