The spiritual dimension of losing weight

[Majed]

I think that losing weight is a deeply spiritual journey, as it requires relinquishing material desires for food, towards a higher goal, like being fit, looking better as well as having better health. 

[bazera]

Why do you think that being fit, looking better and having better health are spiritual things?

[Ramanujan]

Leo is about theoretical side of self improvment. practical side of self improvment is different

Edited 2 hours ago by Ramanujan

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Any sort of pursuit that puts us face-to-face with confronting our attachments can be a process of working on conditioning.

The more you clarify and remove the obscurity of conditioning - the closer to truth we become. Sometimes we need to expose the conditioning for awareness to do the work, so we no longer operate on an unconscious level with our consumption patterns. Sometimes much more than awareness is needed to break reflexive habits.

For many, food can be a coping mechanism. It can have a self soothing function. It also has a place in ritual. Coming together. Celebration. Deeply cultural. But it is also entangled with survival as a need.

How spiritual it is depends on what sort of relationship we are working on with food. 

If it is in any way negative - I would argue, it is worth inspection.

Edited 2 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[bazera]

1 hour ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

How spiritual it is depends on what sort of relationship we are working on with food. 

I think also it depends on intentions behind changing your relationship with food. If, for example you want to cut junk food because you want to lose weight to become more attractive and get more sex, I woudn't call that spiritual. Even if you do it for health reasons. They are good for survival though. 

But as you mentioned, that whole process can become a catalyst for self-reflection if one is cognizant enough to observe the whole process in meta sort of way to see how attachment works (to food in this case), what phases do one goes through when letting go of attachment and addiction (to food), etc. It can be a whole journey of discovery and structural growth, but it's an additional layer of work on top of actually doing work to lose weight and most people don't go that far.

Most life experience can be used for those purposes for that matter. 

Edited 54 minutes ago by bazera

[Lyubov]

Yes I do agree that for some people this is the case. I would say I’ve used food before to “feel better.” So a good bit of just saying no and sitting with that is practicing emotional mastery.