Meditation is fantastic for stress relief, and even as little as 5 minutes a day helps you have a clearer mind and feel more focused.
But meditation for weight loss helps you become healthier both mentally and physically.
Experts suggest that meditation can help you manage your weight by lowering your stress levels -reducing cravings- and making you stick to healthier habits.
Meditating can also help you avoid emotional eating, feelings of guilt, and weight gain.
Some studies show that meditation can be more effective than dieting for long-term weight loss, helping you feel more relaxed and helping you keep any extra weight off for good.
And if you need help or guidance to stick to healthy habits beyond stress relief or weight management, we’ve got the tool just for you.
Miboko’s program offers a variety of training and support to help you be as healthy as possible.
You’ll find activities to improve your sleep, lower your stress levels, and eat better.
On top of that, Miboko’s sensor analyzes the way your body reacts to different types of food and gives you personalized suggestions based on real data taken directly from you.
This data helps you build a program that works, helping you develop healthy eating habits and stick to them.
But don’t be fooled.
This is not a diet.
You don’t have to ban any foods from your list, and you don’t have to hit the gym unless you want to.
You’ll also have access to world-class experts to help you hit and maintain your goals.
Miboko helps you become the all-around healthiest version of yourself you always wanted to be.
This delicious meditation is great for stress and weight loss
Whether a beginner or an expert, you can try this delicious meditation technique. It grounds you in the present moment, helps you relax, and helps with weight loss.
This meditation technique involves chocolate.
As with any other stress-reduction technique, chocolate meditation helps you lower your stress levels, build resilience, and feel calm.
But because it’s also based around mindfulness, chocolate meditation helps you develop healthy eating habits and control your weight.
To do this meditation, you need a piece of dark chocolate and a quiet space.
This is a perfect exercise for beginners and experts alike.
Let’s see how it goes:
- Take a piece of the chocolate of your choice – we recommend a piece of dark chocolate – and find a place where you can be undisturbed for the next 10 minutes.
- Relax. Use deep breaths to loosen your body and feel calm. Take as long as you need to until you feel fully relaxed.
- With your eyes either opened or closed, smell the chocolate. Really focus on the smell, and take a few breaths to really take in the smell.
- If you closed them to smell the chocolate, open your eyes now and look at the chocolate. Take a few deep breaths and take in how it looks.
- Take a small bite of the chocolate. Focus on the taste. Notice all the different flavors and keep up with the deep breaths.
- As you swallow your small bite of chocolate, notice how it feels. Notice your mouth getting empty, and focus on the leftover taste of the chocolate in it.
- As you take another small bite, focus on the feeling of your arm moving, and your hand getting closer to your mouth. Focus on the chocolate again the same way you did before your first bite.
- If your mind wanders at any point, gently refocus on what you’re experiencing in the present moment.
- Continue deep breathing throughout the whole meditation.
- Once you finish your chocolate, you can either keep the meditation focusing on the chocolate’s aftertaste in your mouth, or you can go about your day.
If you’d like to see what it looks like, here’s a video to walk you through this delicious meditation technique.
Are you into walking and meditating? Combine them for a simple stress meditation
Walking meditation connects your body and mind, helping you destress while improving your overall health and keeping your weight under control.
Walking meditation goes beyond meditating while walking.
This mindful technique helps you relax and physically move away from your stressors while working your body and strengthening your immune system.
You can do walking meditation on your own or with a friend, and you can walk wherever you want – in the city, in a park, in your house –
You can take as long as you want with this meditation, but we recommend a minimum of 10 minutes a day. This suits even the busiest lifestyles!
The important thing is to keep moving, keep breathing, and keep focusing.
There are many ways of doing a walking meditation, and what we’re about to show you is just a suggestion. Feel free to use or adapt.
Let’s take a look:
- Choose a place where you can be relaxed, whether outdoors or indoors. Make sure you have enough space to walk at least 10 steps.
- Start walking and pay attention to how your body feels. Does it feel heavy? Tired? Agile? Check your posture and adjust it if you need to.
- Take deep breaths as you walk, and focus on the way you are letting in and releasing air.
- Focus on what’s happening around you – traffic, animals, birds, the washing machine doing its thing – and try to identify how many things you can hear.
- While keeping up the walking and breathing, focus on the things you can smell around you, and see how many you can notice. Some smells may bring you memories: acknowledge them, and let them go.
- Focus on the things you can physically feel – the soles of your feet, the way your skin reacts to the weather, or how the light affects your eyes –
- Focus now on what movement is doing to your body. Are your arms swinging side to side? Are you moving your hands? What are your feet doing?
- Focus on your rhythm. How does it feel? Is there a rhythm to it? How fast is the pace? Do you need to adjust it?
There are plenty of online guides for walking meditation, as well as podcasts you can listen to while you’re at it.
Give them a try and let us know what you think!
Relax and control your weight with weight loss meditation mantras
Despite not being a meditation technique per se, mantras help you relax, destress, and slow down.
Mantras are connected to mindfulness and can help around issues such as obesity, emotional eating, depression, and anxiety.
Weight loss mantras are very easy to introduce to your routine, and if you combine them with any meditation technique, you’ll be in for a win-win.
Mantras are sentences you repeatedly chant.
Scientific studies show mantras synchronize the left and right sides of the brain, releasing relaxing brain waves.
There are tons of different mantras out there to choose from, and you can also create your own.
We’re giving you a selection of weight loss mantras to add to any meditation routine, and we’ll throw in some guided steps in case you want to follow this technique to the letter.
Here are some of the mantras we chose:
“Aim for progress, not perfection”
“Everything in moderation. There aren’t bad foods, just better foods”
“I want to be the healthiest version of me”
“Face your stuff, don’t stuff your face”
“Just keep swimming”
You can use or adapt any of these mantras, choose a completely different one, or make one up yourself.
The important thing is that it resonates with you and motivates you.
Here’s a guided meditation technique where you can introduce your newly found mantra:
- Find a calm place where you won’t be disturbed, and set a time limit for this session (anywhere from 2 to 20+ minutes)
- Sit down in a comfortable position and take deep breaths.
- Focus on your breath for a bit, notice how your lungs get full and empty.
- Start using your mantra. You can say it out loud or repeat it under your breath. It’s important that you try to synchronize it to your breathing as much as you can.
- Redirect any wandering thoughts to your breathing and your mantra.
- Close the session. Check how you feel. Check how your body feels. Are you feeling relaxed? Focused?
Mindful eating builds your self-awareness and boosts your health
Mindful eating helps you improve your habits beyond just eating healthier. Keep reading to find out how!
Mindfulness helps you improve your mental, physical, and emotional health with very little effort.
Studies have shown how mindfulness increases self-awareness and helps control habits to lower stress and anxiety.
Mindful eating is another technique that helps you feel better while keeping your eating habits in check.
Mindful eating involves a series of factors:
- Get rid of anything that distracts you from your food – phones count!
- Look at your food before you eat it. Take everything in. What colors can you see?
- How does the look of the meal make you feel?
- Smell your food before you eat it. What smells can you notice? How do they make you feel?
- Taste your food slowly. How many flavors can you identify? How many textures?
- Take your time and notice everything around you – can you hear any noises? What else can you smell? Or see? Or touch?
- When you finish your meal, take a moment to scan your body and see how you’re feeling. Are you full? Still hungry? Satisfied?
The more you practice mindful eating, the more natural it’ll come to you until it becomes your default way of eating.
By being mindful of what you eat you’re taking care of your mind and body.
It doesn’t take long, it’s not a hard technique to try, and the satisfaction, focus, and insight you’ll get from it are just spectacular.
Loving-kindness meditation helps you see (and love) the real you
This meditation technique helps get rid of any negative feelings aimed at yourself.
It shows you how to appreciate and honor yourself, your body, and the journey you’re on.
Studies also show that people who practice this may be able to lose weight easier and in a more sustainable way than those who don’t include this loving care meditation in their routine.
This meditation helps develop your sense of kindness towards others and yourself and pushes away any feelings about guilt or “not being enough”.
To complete this meditation, all you need are a few minutes and a quiet space.
Let’s look at the steps:
- Sit down in a comfortable position, and close your eyes.
- Start taking deep breaths and relax your muscles.
- Visualize yourself feeling extreme happiness and inner peace.
- Thank yourself for all that you are – your body, your mind, your personality –
- As you exhale, let go of negative emotions. As you inhale, take in self-love and compassion.
- Repeat some mantras that resonate with you, some examples are “may I be happy” or “may I be healthy, peaceful, and strong”. Remember that you can make up your own mantra if you prefer.
- Sit down and focus on the feelings of love and self-compassion for a moment.
- Take some time before closing the session to notice your feelings. Do you feel calm? Loved? Grateful?
When you’re first starting this technique, try visualizing just yourself during the exercise.
The more you repeat this meditation, the better you’ll be at it.
When you can confidently complete this meditation for yourself, start visualizing friends and family surrounded by these lovely, kind feelings.
Can meditation really help you lose weight?
Meditation is a great tool to get in touch with both body and mind.
It helps you relax, focus, and put things in perspective.
And some specific meditation techniques are also a great tool to help you develop healthier habits and manage your weight.
But meditation alone won’t make you lose weight.
It needs to be part of a healthy routine that includes good foods and a moderate amount of moving about (or exercise).
If you struggle to follow through with weight loss or create healthy habits on your own, take a look at Miboko.
Apart from having a program designed by world-class experts and behavioural psychologists, it also offers you tailored recommendations regarding food, so that you can understand what different foods do to your body.
Miboko does this by using non-invasive sensors that monitor your glucose levels.
This information is then turned into personalized suggestions to help you build a plan that works for you.
And if you like checklists, you also have the option of logging your progress in the app.
Being healthier has never been easier.
Find more information about Miboko today.
