This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

The Key Ingredient to Wellness

Will Whole Foods' "Wellness Clubs" include all the right ingredients?

 

Good news!  Whole Foods Market has recently opened a new kind of health club just across the Bay in Oakland – one of only 5 pilot locations in the nation.  For a couple hundred bucks plus $45 a month, you get a lifestyle evaluation, access to nutrition and cooking classes, and discounts on food sold in – you guessed it – Whole Foods Market.

That doesn’t sound like such a bad deal for those willing to commit to a healthier way of living.  My question is, will these clubs include all the right ingredients?

Find out what's happening in Palo Altowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Ask any fitness expert from Jack LaLanne on and they’ll tell you that the key elements in any fitness program include eating right and getting plenty of exercise.  This is a winning combination that works for everyone – young or old, man or woman, committed athlete or weekend warrior. 

But these days a lot more attention is being paid not just to what we eat and how far we bike, run, or swim, but what and how we think as well.  According to weight loss expert Katherine Brown, healthy living doesn’t come by human will but by a new and inspired view of who and what we are.

Find out what's happening in Palo Altowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“If you’re trying to control your way to an outcome, who are you when you get there,” asks Coach Kath.  “If you’re carrying all the same limiting beliefs and fears that you have now and you lose 20 pounds, who are you when you get there?”

Good questions.

Although I could be doing a much better job of maintaining that trim figure I once had, I recall one particular weight loss program that proved to be more effective than anything else I’d ever tried – one that began not with an evaluation of what I was eating or how often I was getting out on my bike, but what I thought about myself.

Having assumed the proverbial couch-potato position one afternoon, the thought occurred to me that over the last few years I had become quite the glutton.  Although this wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, it was nevertheless something that I had, unwittingly or not, consented to.  And for some reason, this just didn’t feel like “me.” 

To be completely honest, this brief moment on the couch felt like a kind of prayer, a divinely inspired reminder that I was not inherently lazy, nor was I created to inhale every last crumb that crossed my plate.

And then, without really thinking much more about it, I found myself eating less.  And riding my bike more.  And feeling better about myself.  And – wonder of wonders – losing weight.

Katherine Brown’s wellness odyssey began with what she calls a “subtle awareness that there had to be something more than just this physical aspect” of health.  I guess you could say my own journey began in a similar fashion – by consciously, actively including in my thought a view of myself that just felt more natural.

Perhaps in another few years the new mantra will be: Eat right, get plenty of exercise, and be open to the kind of thinking that will lead to a happier, healthier you.

This article originally appeared on Blogcritics

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?