If you’re experiencing a gnawing sensation that something is wrong, but ignore it or can’t quite figure out why you’re having that feeling, you aren’t tuned into your body. There’s a lot of reasons to get in touch with the messages your body sends you. It could be it needs something to remain healthy or get healthy. It could be a warning to investigate issues before they become too advanced to handle or help in losing weight. Those are just a few situations that learning more about your body can help and exercise can help you tune in to your body. I’ve heard it many times from clients in Irvine, CA. Once they begin the program of exercise, they are more aware of what and when they eat and when to take action if they start to feel ill.
You may not recognize you’re out of shape if you’ve never been in shape.
Seriously, most of my clients are amazed at how good they feel after they work out for a while. They never knew how good they could feel, because they’ve never been in shape or it’s been so long, they’ve accepted feeling bad as part of their normal. One of the biggest way exercise helps you get in touch is to help you find what your real “normal” should be. It shouldn’t be dragging out of bed and always tired. It should be feeling energetic and since exercise improves your mood, feeling great about the day.
Exercise helps you get in touch with your body and with your appetite.
As you workout, you’ll start recognizing specific muscles in the body that either hurt or don’t hurt anymore. You’ll notice that you aren’t as hungry as you were before you started a program of working out after a few months. That’s because you’ve come to identify that sometimes you weren’t really hungry, just filled with stress and eating was a way of stuffing that stress back down inside so you wouldn’t be bothered by it. Exercise helps burn off the stress and the stress hunger or stress eating disappears.
The more in touch with your body you are, the more you’ll learn what the body needs.
Eating should be a pleasure, but for most people, it’s simply an act of putting food—any type of food available—into their mouth, chewing a few times and swallowing. There’s no pleasure in it. It’s a habit and often doesn’t entail eating healthy foods, but quick junk food that’s readily available. When you’re in touch with your body, you’ll be more mindful when you eat and find you not only eat less and healthier, you’ll enjoy savoring the flavors of whole natural foods.
- Exercise helps you sleep better at night. The more in touch with your body you are, the more you’ll recognize its need for adequate sleep. That helps you be more productive and eat less.
- Exercise helps eliminate the effects of stress in your life that can cloud your thinking. You’ll be more aware of what’s actually causing problems and whether the effect was caused by emotional pain or real physical pain.
- The body is constantly informing the brain of everything that’s taking place and sending valuable information on your state of health. When you clear out all the trash and stress from the outside world, you’ll be able to hear what it’s telling you.
- Knowing when to act on the messages the body is sending is important. When you exercise and become fit, you’ll have a benchmark to help you do it.