Positive visualization and meditation to change habits

I'm excited about today's post.  Very excited because I've hit on something extraordinary.

As you may be able to tell if you've read any of my past posts, I love educating myself; reading and researching to find answers, and following myriad rabbit holes to see where they lead.  I believe that every discovery I come across just gets me closer and closer to the way of optimal health- and kicking addictions and habits.

Last week I found something called The Gabriel Method, through this article.  I was intrigued, and visited the website http://www.thegabrielmethod.com to learn more about this extraordinary story.  To give you a basic summary, the author, Jon Gabriel, found himself extremely overweight and frustrated that nothing he was doing was working.  He had a life-scare experience with the 9/11 tragedy, which changed his life and prompted him to find ways to release stress and convince his body to heal.

Now, I have always leaned on positive visualization for all sorts of things.  I visualize a procedure going well (when I perform veterinary surgery); visualize myself with abundance; getting the job I want, the apartment I want, the list goes on.  I don't just "believe" that it works, I know.  I have known for  many years. Why is it I never applied it to the subject of kicking sugar, or losing this extra 15 stress pounds I'm carrying around?  Wild.

I've read the book already (I devoured it in 2 days) and have used his nighttime meditation MP3 every night for 3 nights now.  I already feel incredible.  He isn't just using visualization to convince the body to drop excess weight, he also believes that life can be more positive and fulfilling.  I've got more energy, I feel happier when I wake up, my body feels alive.  The premise he bases his method on is that our bodies "want" to be fat, for many reasons- to protect us emotionally, or from perceived famine (which is how our primal brain interprets money woes and so forth), or from low self worth.  Convincing your body and mind that you're safe, you're awesome, successful, energetic and love healthy food is the way to go- not deprivation.

So how does this relate to kicking sugar, the entire point of this blog?  Well, if you convince your body to want and crave healthy foods, natural and whole foods, and to shun processed crap, you will eventually just not care for super sweetened things.  They will taste terrible in your mouth.  Even in the past 2 years I have trained my body to prefer dark chocolate that is not that sweet- I  no longer care for the intense sweet commercial candies that are everywhere available.  If you train your mind to prefer fruit, veggies and grassfed meats, eventually the other stuff will lose its pizazz.  Especially if you aren't making them "forbidden", just cutting out the desire to eat them.

Well that's revolutionary, isn't it!  For years I've been trying the denial method, only to fall off the wagon and go for it whole hog.  I'd feel bad about it, use logic on myself, to no avail.  A craving is a craving.  What I do know is that I particularly crave sugar when I am feeling very stressed out, lonely, sad, unheard and so on.  Perhaps this is my body's way of helping me make a layer of fat to insulate myself from the bad feelings or situations, who knows.  Either way, when I eliminate stress or retrain my mind and body to crave a run in the wood instead, I'm only picking a win-win situation.

I'll keep you all posted.  I'm still of course following the feminine 28 Days Lighter, as I want to feel my cycle calm down (another culprit in the sugar binging), tracking my energy and mood.  I am excited to see how the Gabriel Method will assist in this other idea, as well as in my desire to kick sugar for life.