Mindfulness exercises to lose fat is the best way to get the results you want and reach your fat loss goals. What does mindfulness exercise mean? It means you are living in the present moment not in the future or past moments. It gives you control over your thoughts and actions including being able to move your energy away from a painful source while exercising such as, when having bad form during a squat and you feel a sharp pain in your knee. This feedback from your body can be a useful tool in getting you to connect with your muscles and joints so that you can have proper form and move away from improper placement of your muscles and joints. In order to really connect to your body you must by in the moment and feel what you’re doing to a deeper degree.
Have you ever done an exercise or workout that you sped through so fast, your form was terrible, didn’t connect to your muscles and don’t even remember doing it clearly? Most likely you had your mind on other things like your daily to do list, your daily complaints, irritations with your boss or spouse perhaps? You were living in the past or future but, not in the moment.
Being mindful requires you to simply ‘be’ without judgment. When you feel judgments they stem from something in the past you’ve likely experienced or, your ‘reality’ of your personal world. When you are being mindful you can lose sense of time, there is nothing but the present moment. It can be a difficult thing to do, we all have complaints, judgments, busy lives and think our personal story is the only one that matters.
I’ve personally had this experience of losing time while on vacations while hiking or doing some type of outdoor physical activity. I also find it when I exercise in general by myself and with music. It’s a great feeling, one of which I wish I could hold onto always but, it can be quite challenging at times when your life is lead by a clock and by timed events or circumstances.
Nonetheless mindfulness exercises to lose fat is the way to go and, is a more effective method because when you’re in the moment you connect to your muscles which, has been shown to recruit more muscles fibers. It’s important to do this because you can create more muscle development as well. If you want to sculpt your body you must connect to it and not be disconnected from it.
I sometimes talk too much about connecting but, it’s what I truly feel is missing in this technological driven age that we live in today. Not that technology is necessarily a bad thing… of course not but, in all things moderation and balance are important. If for example, you are always on your cell phone including while checking out at the grocery store counter you don’t connect to the person who is helping you which, can be quite rude as well as you may forget that you even paid or got your credit card back. Then you may have to go back later to find it which requires more time and a greater inconvenience.
Also, millions of accidents on the road are now caused by drivers not paying attention or being mindful because of all the distractions in their heads as well as in their cars – cell phones. They are thinking about their daily to do list, the kids chores, homework, what to make for dinner, work related problems, complaints about friends or family members and the list goes on and on. The more we stay disconnected and, in our heads creating stories that aren’t real the more disconnect from ourselves and from reality people become.
It is important to not only be mindful while exercising in order to recruit more muscle fibers and to use our muscles correctly but, to be more mindful with each other. We are a society who has forgotten how to communicate without looking at a clock and thinking about what the next thing is we need do be doing. We’ve forgotten how to listen and be in the moment with each other and this is effecting our relationships as well as our bodies. Look around you there are so many tired, unhealthy and overall disconnected people than ever before.
So, take a few minutes to try the following 5 steps the next time you do a workout.
1. Take a minute every morning to just be quiet and connect to your inner spirit
2. Pay attention to your breathing for 1 minute…inhale/exhale…if your mind wanders bring it back to your breath
3. During your workout use this practice and apply it to properly breathing techniques while you do an exercise
4. Think about the muscle you are strengthening and imagine how much stronger it is getting
5. Connect to your muscles when exercising, be in the moment….bring your mind back to your muscles if it wanders
