Humans are more than a bundle of symptoms, and a provider exclusively focusing on aspects of an illness may miss the forest for the trees. Self-love and self-respect, regardless of body weight, shape, or size, is the overall goal of a holistic point of view.

And this can also promote the kind of organic and sustaining happiness and self-esteem that can help maintain recovery. Holistic health can also be used as a weight management tool, helping people reach a healthy weight without putting so much pressure on themselves to abide by specific societal standards.

Using these types of techniques has also been shown to help with sustainable weight loss. There are many ways to practice holistic health for better physical, mental, and emotional health.

Some of the top techniques you or your loved one can try include:. Mindfulness describes a group of practices that help people focus on the current moment. That includes any thoughts, feelings, or sensations someone may be experiencing, as well as outside situations.

In mindfulness practice, people are asked to remain separate from these experiences. The idea is that taking a step back to observe without judgement can help create mental breathing room and clarity, by allowing people to separate their thoughts and emotions from reality.

Just as mindful meditation asks you to bring awareness to the sensations of the present, mindful eating asks patients to bring that same conscious observation to the act of eating. Savoring the touch, taste, sight, and scent of food can help someone learn to enjoy or appreciate it more, and work on healing their relationship with food and eating.

The Health at Every Size HAES movement was founded on holistic philosophies. It promotes the idea that weight and health are not mutually exclusive, and that health instead exists on a continuum, with varying considerations for each individual.

Incorporating these types of philosophies into everyday thinking may make holistic approaches feel even more intuitive, helping someone understand that weight gain or weight loss are far from the only concerns in life, and that the best approach to holistic weight management is to learn to love and trust your own body, and work on making yourself happy.

Most practices that are built on a holistic point of view work to de-emphasize weight loss as an overall health goal. In fact, the idea behind holistic health is that people are much more than their weight. Weight loss may result from eating nutritionally well-balanced meals, incorporating joyful movement, and practicing relaxation techniques, but holistic medicine says this should not be the overall goal.

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Need Help - Find A Treatment Program Today. What is Holistic Health? How Does Holistic Health Work? Emotional factors: Understanding and healing from any underlying psychological issues can be helpful to a person who is looking to make peace with themselves, their body, and food.

Social factors: Having the support of family and friends and maintaining healthy relationships can be a key part of holistic health.

Setting appropriate boundaries, practicing honesty, and connecting to support are all aspects needed for wellbeing. Some holistic approaches to promote a healthy lifestyle include: 2 Acupuncture: To help reduce stress and complement other types of eating disorder treatment Herbal medicine: This practice is aimed at creating physical, internal balance for a patient.

Homeopathy: A modality that examines, and works to correct, imbalances in the body Meditation: A help for alleviating stress and anxiety, as well as finding mental and emotional acceptance Relaxation therapy: Massage therapy and similar modalities which can help flush toxins and stimulate the release of certain hormones Benefits of a Holistic Health Outlook The biggest advantage of holistic health is the prevailing mindset it promotes.

Tips for Practicing Holistic Health There are many ways to practice holistic health for better physical, mental, and emotional health. Some of the top techniques you or your loved one can try include: Mindfulness Mindfulness describes a group of practices that help people focus on the current moment.

Health at Every Size The Health at Every Size HAES movement was founded on holistic philosophies. Can holistic practices aid weight loss efforts? Resources: Thornton L. A Brief History and Overview of Holistic Nursing.

Integrative Medicine; 18 4 — Smith F. How Naturopathic Physicians Support Eating Disorder Treatment. National University of Health Sciences. Accessed October Nelson JB. I wanted to know EXACTLY how long it would take to lose weight, to stop bingeing, not to eat emotionally, to like my body.

For some people, they see changes in a few months. Other people take years. It depends on where you are in your journey. Other people feel more ready to explore weight as a topic very early on. The new way is to learn what your body needs, how much and when.

I typically recommend eating every hours as a start. From there, you can change as you get feedback on what most energizes your body, what helps you feel most balanced, and how much structure or permission you need. My approach is four-pronged, so we work on ALL aspects that impact weight.

I use the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual pillars to guide me. This is done from a curious, compassionate perspective, not the old critical diet space. From the physical, we move into the three deeper prongs of mindset, emotions and spirituality.

It depends on where you struggle and what is keeping you stuck. We may also talk about limiting beliefs, self-sabotage, how to approach sugar and carbs, learning to trust your body and everything in between!

But one of my favorite stories is about a woman named Lori, who I worked with for about a year. It was discomfort from gaining a lot of weight during Covid.

She longed for the days when she could easily move around without pain and discomfort. As we worked together, her food choices began to shift and even out. She had a fear of getting attention if she released weight. As we began making serious progress, we looked deeply at her relationship with sugar.

She wanted to explore a healthier way to have sugar. So she experimented with allowing AND limiting sugar—how about that for a paradox! It was a dance of structure and permission. At the end of our work, she not only lost weight but felt she had the tools to cope with emotions, trust herself around food and understand on a deeper level how weight is a reflection of so many other things!

Working with an emotional eating coach and holistic nutritionist can help you get free from the frustrating binge and restrict cycle and stop yo-yo dieting. Ready to actually see a lasting change and experience true freedom?

Click here to schedule a minute introductory coaching call. Jenn Hand has been helping women like you become normal eaters since As a board-certified health coach and holistic nutritionist , Jenn knows how to support you in making real positive changes that last.

Her articles have been published on Mind Body Green, Tiny Buddha, Thrive Global and other local and global media platforms. Holistic Weight Loss: What It Is and How It Works May 30, Emotions and Eating , Freedom From Dieting , Holistic Weight Loss. Written by Jenn Hand , Holistic Nutritionist, Board Certified Health Coach, NBC-HWC Is Holistic Weight Loss for You?

Enter holistic weight loss! Table of Contents What Is Holistic Weight Loss? A New Way to View Weight How Does It Work? The Four-Pronged Approach to Holistic Weight Loss How Long Does It Take? Is There a Holistic Weight Loss Diet Plan?

What Is It Like to Work with a Holistic Weight Loss Coach? Next Steps Prefer to listen to the podcast? Check it out below. On the Podcast: Holistic Weight Loss What Is Holistic Weight Loss?

There is a delicate balance between weight loss and food freedom. What If There Was a New Way to View Weight? A way that was holistic and nourishing rather than depriving and punishing.

The best part? You can have both: freedom AND weight re-balancing! Not everyone is ready to approach weight from this space. The Four-Pronged Approach to Holistic Weight Loss: 1.

PHYSICAL: Blood Sugar Comes First Holistic weight loss is a re-balancing of our bodies. Experimentation is key. I asked myself: How did I feel? Was I wanting more? Did it feel like enough? Over time, you learn to refine your food choices with awareness, experimentation and feedback!

What rules are you following around food? How are they serving you? Are there any rules that would feel supportive if you let them go?

But if we ask questions like these instead… What would best support my body in moving back into a place of balance? How would it feel to allow my weight to normalize?

What does it look like to nourish my body toward a natural weight? EMOTIONS: A Big Piece of the Weight Puzzle Lies with Our Feelings Emotions are tied very closely to our relationship with food.

I often reflected in my journal on questions like these: What person or feeling sent me to the food? What do I not want to feel? Am I afraid of this emotion?

Instead, you will be lovingly convincing your body the war is over and gently encouraging it to burn fat naturally and effortlessly. Most people are overfed and undernourished, meaning they eat a lot but not foods that provide them with the nutrition needed by their cells to function optimally.

Just eat real food your grandmother would recognize, and keep it simple. Stick to the basics of a healthy meal: an appropriate amount of protein, plenty of whole-food carbohydrates from vegetables and fruit, and some healthy fat. Remove inflammatory foods as much as possible: sugar, gluten, dairy and other animal products, soy, hydrogenated fats, artificial sweeteners, and ultra-processed foods of any kind.

People often mistake dehydration for hunger, so you feel like you want a snack when really you just need a big glass of H 2 0! Staying hydrated flushes toxins, prevents constipation, reduces appetite, and can even break down fats [ source ] and increase metabolic rate [ source ]!

Pro tip: Drink 8—16 ounces of water 15—30 minutes before you eat to increase weight loss. Mindful eating is associated with weight loss [ source ]. It changes behaviors related to eating that contribute to satiety, such as paying attention to internal instead of external cues for hunger [ source ].

With your food in front of you, take three deep breaths in and out through your nose. Eat slowly, chewing each bite at least 30 times, and experience the tastes, textures, and aromas of your meal. It takes 20 minutes for your brain to register that your stomach is full!

This has also been shown in studies to reduce your snack intake later [ source ]. The three square meals a day approach trains our bodies to burn fat effectively.

If this is new to you, start with four meals a day and work down to three. Have a small, early breakfast, make lunch the largest, most satisfying meal of the day, and have a small, early dinner. You could even try what the subjects in a research study did, eating two meals a day, breakfast and lunch.

This was shown to result in greater weight loss than was seen in a group eating the same number of calories but split into more frequent meals throughout the day [ source ]. We hear a lot about what we should be eating, but minimal attention is given to when.

Your digestive fire is at its peak between 10 a. and 2 p. Our bodies love routine, so aim to eat at roughly the same times every day, e. As the digestive fire is weak in the evening, try to stop eating by 7 ideally, or 8 at the latest.

Studies have demonstrated an association between late eating times and increased body fat [ source ]. Fasting for at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast helps burn fat.

Fasting promotes the secretion of human growth hormone, optimizes muscle building, and normalizes insulin sensitivity. Gentle activity after a meal will mobilize the glucose you just ate to be burned as fuel instead of stored.

Prebiotic foods enhance short-chain fatty acid SCFA production in the gut. SCFAs increase gut motility, which reduces the calories your body extracts from food. One study found that prebiotics selectively changed the gut microbiota composition in obese women, leading to changes in metabolism and a slight fat loss [ source ].

Eat foods rich in prebiotic fiber such as oats, apples, beans and lentils, jicama, asparagus, Jerusalem artichoke, dandelion greens, garlic, onions, and chia and flax seeds. These foods also help to improve your gut microbiota to keep your digestion healthy and prevent disease [ source ].

Speaking of the microbiota: beneficial gut microbes are critical for weight loss. Supporting your microbiome frees you of constant hunger, cravings, and the feeling that your metabolism is out of control. An overgrowth of the wrong kind of bacteria in your gut can cause you to gain weight and have trouble losing it.

Nourish the good bacteria in your gut by eating tons of fresh, organic veggies and adding 1—2 tablespoons of fermented vegetables to your meals. When you think of sugar, you likely think of the granular white stuff, aka table sugar.

This is called sucrose, which is half glucose and half fructose. Unlike glucose, which is readily absorbed into the bloodstream for energy, fructose is primarily metabolized by the liver. Studies show that overconsumption of fructose can lead to increased belly fat and insulin resistance [ source ].

Whole fruit has plenty of fiber and nutrients to slow down the sugar dump on your liver, and it has a boatload of health benefits [ source ].

Low-fructose fruits include kiwi, blueberries, raspberries, grapefruit, lemon, lime, pears, and coconut. HIIT raises human growth hormone levels, signals fat burning, aids in increasing lean, toned muscle, improves glucose tolerance, and increases insulin sensitivity.

You only need to do about 20 minutes a day to reap the fat loss benefits. CoQ is a powerful antioxidant naturally found in every cell of the human body, where it protects cells from damage and produces energy. CoQ supports a strong immune system, promotes weight loss, provides energy, and protects cells from damage by free radicals.

Obesity, other diseases, and medications also deplete the body of CoQ Awaken CoQ delivers a highly concentrated dosage of CoQ10 in a proprietary formulation for optimal absorption.

Found naturally in the body, calcium pyruvate plays a significant role in energy ATP synthesis, fat metabolism, and carbohydrate metabolism. Along with a balanced nutritional plan and exercise routine, this powerful fat-burner supplement can help minimize the amount of fat stored around the waist and other areas of the body.

Awaken Meta-Pyruvate empowers your body to release excess weight efficiently and effectively. Each capsule contains mg of calcium pyruvate, giving your body the extra boost it needs to burn more fat.

To achieve optimal weight loss results, you must cleanse your liver. Awaken I Am Cleansed is our herbal and amino acid combination that helps rid your body of metabolic and environmental toxins. I Am Cleansed includes nutrients necessary for detoxification pathways and nutrients that upregulate detoxification enzymes and promote healthy liver function.

Awaken Daily Multivitamin is a powerful blend of vitamins and minerals which would be difficult to obtain today from food alone. This pharmaceutical-grade multivitamin supports overall wellness, strengthens your immune system, and provides the nutritional support you need throughout your weight loss and wellness journey.

Our Daily Multivitamin contains minerals in chelated form for optimal assimilation by your body. The holistic weight loss supplements listed above are all included with my signature Week weight loss program.

Schedule a complimentary consultation. Explore our full line of holistic supplements to empower you on your journey to optimal health at Awaken Supplements. This site requires Javascript to be enabled for full functionality.

César A. Lara M. High-quality nutritional supplements provide a variety of health and wellness benefits. I include supplements in my personal wellness practice and recommend them to my patients.

But what are the best holistic supplements for weight loss? Omega-3 Fish Oil Fish oil is one of the most beneficial supplements most people can take, period.

Multi-Probiotic Our gastric biome— the collection of microorganisms that live in our digestive tract —plays a major role in our metabolism.

Rich Earth Greens Rich Earth Greens are shown to cleanse the digestive system, detoxify the liver, balance PH levels, support a strong immune system, enhance mental acuity, and increase energy.