Essential Oils: Essential Oils (The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Uncovering the Healing Benefits of Aromatherapy) (18 page)

Special Thank You from the Author

Before you go, I want to warmly thank you for your attention. I realize there are many more e-books on the market and you decided to purchase this one. I am very grateful for that.

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11 Morning Habits

Proven Strategies to Lose Weight and Live Your Healthiest Life Now

By: Abigail Cruise

Who is this book for?

If any of these apply to you, then you will find the contents of this book helpful:

• Have you been trying to lose weight and have yet to find success?
  
• Have you lost weight but only ended up gaining it all right back?
  
• Are you one of those people that have tried all diets but never seem to find one that works for you?
  
• Are you looking for a natural way to lose weight and keep it off?
  
• Are you one of those people who know how to lose weight but struggle with actually doing it?
  

Don’t feel alone because I have been there; these steps have helped me lose the weight and keep off.

What will you learn?

This book will teach you how to jump start your weight loss, increasing your energy, clear your mind, and improve your overall health. You will learn:

• Strategies to feel the healthiest you have ever felt and have the most energy you have ever had
  
• How to begin burning that dreaded hard to loss fat (especially belly fat, thigh fat and arm fat), and keep it off
  
• How to lose inches off your waist and other hard-to-lose areas
  
• Why these habits work, along with an action plan to push you to your ideal body!
  

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: START ON THE RIGHT NOTE, WAKE UCONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: START ON THE RIGHT NOTE, WAKE UP EARLY

CHAPTER 2: HYDRATE IMMEDIATELY TO DISCOVER A WEIGHT-LOSS SECRET

CHAPTER 3: BREATHE AND STRETCH TO GET YOUR BLOOD FLOWING

CHAPTER 4: VISIT THE BATHROOM DAILY TO DETOXIFY

CHAPTER 5: EXERCISE EFFICIENTLY IN THE MORNING TO START LOSING WEIGHT

CHAPTER 6: EAT A HEARTY BREAKFAST FOR AN ENERGETIC DAY

CHAPTER 7: FIND A PARTNER TO BE ACCOUNTABLE

CHAPTER 8: MEDITATE TO FIND YOUR RHYTHM

CHAPTER 9: SMILE TO LET THE HAPPY EMOTIONS FLOW

CHAPTER 10: PLAN WHAT YOU WILL EAT THE REST OF THE DAY

CHAPTER 11: REWARD YOURSELF TO ENJOY YOUR MORNING RITUAL

DISCLAIMER

Introduction

Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to feel great? Do you want to live healthy?

Of course, you want to. Who doesn’t? But you have tried many things—diets, exercises, pills, therapy and so on—yet, you haven’t had any success. Is that right?

Well, if you are looking for a lifelong, sure fire and extremely simple way to lose weight, then this book is for you.

I will show you how you can achieve success not only in your weight-loss efforts but also gain a lifelong appreciation for healthy habits that will continue to energize you.

Do you know why despite trying very hard to lose weight many people fail? It’s because most weight-loss programs offer quick and easy solutions but have a short-term view of why anyone should lose weight.

Weight-loss diets work but only for a while. No sooner than you start seeing some positive results in terms of weight-loss, many other negative health problems come up. Then you give up or give in and all the weight you lost, you regain back and gain some more.

Exercise regimens are no better. They make you sweat and strain. Then you find that you cannot keep it up and pack the pounds back. Why? They don’t work simply because you don’t enjoy doing it.

What about pills or therapy? The less said about these the better. After all, if there’s a magic pill or a miracle therapy, then why are they not working for you or for anyone for that matter? Just look in the mirror or look around you.

If you still believe there’s a quick-fix solution to lose weight, I hate to break it to you. There isn’t. But don’t despair, there is hope. In fact, there is a simple yet powerful way to lose weight and best of all, it works for a lifetime. This book shows you how you can lose weight, permanently, and enjoy a lifetime of health.

How? The key to losing weight lies in your lifestyle. It begins in the morning and it begins with you, when you wake up.

Acquire a series of healthy habits and instil these habits into your daily routine, and you will soon see remarkable results, not only reflected in your mirror, but in the weighing scale and in your general outlook on life.

You will feel energized and you will find plenty of reasons to feel happy and healthy.

It all starts with some simple steps aimed at acquiring a series of healthy morning habits into your lifestyle.

While the steps that I have described in this book are a result of my own experiments, research and experience, they are also based on proven research and studies conducted variously on what causes weight loss.

Over the years, I made some deliberate changes in my morning routine. I identified the habits that were causing stress and making me unhealthy and eliminated them. I introduced habits that brought me joy and happiness, made me feel energized and in the long run, transformed my life.

I suddenly found that not only did I start losing weight, but my overall health improved and also my performance at work, and at play. I had a more positive outlook. I also found myself succeeding in my endeavours, seemingly easily and effortlessly.

I want to share with you these proven habits which contributed enormously to change my life from dreading every new day to looking forward with eagerness and enthusiasm, every morning.

These habits are not in any way extraordinary. In fact, they are extremely simple or so they will seem. However, do not underestimate the power of simplicity. Take these seemingly insignificant steps and incorporate the habits into your morning routine and you will start to experience significantly extraordinary results.

One last piece of advice; there is no need to start practicing all the habits, immediately nor is it necessary to do them in the order in which it is mentioned. In fact, choose one habit at a time and introduce it till it becomes an indispensable part of your morning ritual. Take the ones which appeal to you the most.

I hope you find these habits as inspiring and transformational as I did.

Chapter 1: Start on the right note, wake up early

There are two simple reasons why waking up early will help you lose weight. They are called Ghrelin and Leptin.

Don’t be alarmed by the strange-sounding names. These aren’t any new diet or exercise programs. They are nothing but hormones that influences your appetite.

Ghrelin stimulates hunger within the body and Leptin is responsible for informing your system when you are feeling full so that you don’t eat more than what is necessary or required.

According to a report published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS), your BMI (Body Mass Index) is influenced by the timing of your body’s exposure to light. That is when you wake-up early, your body is exposed to sunlight and this regulates the production of Ghrelin and Leptin within your body, which directly influences your appetite and how much you eat.

The hormones, Ghrelin and Leptin also influence your preference for physical activity. That is, when you wake up early you feel more energized and therefore are eager to exercise or can perform any physical activity more easily or effortlessly than when you wake up late.

So, without a doubt, waking up early is one of the most important habits, which is integral to enabling you to lose weight effortlessly because it regulates the hormones within your body which control how much you eat and how much energy you have for performing physical activity.

To put it simply, when you wake-up early, you eat right and you have the right amount of energy to perform any physical activity like an early morning exercise. Moreover, performing certain exercises in the morning before breakfast has immense weight-loss benefits as I will demonstrate in another chapter in this book.

How weight and sleep are connected?

There’s growing evidence that people who wake up early have a lower BMI than those who wake up later in the day. One of the most significant reasons for this difference in BMI is because those who wake up early also go to sleep early and therefore have at least 6 hours or more of sleep. Why?

That’s because waking up early also regulates the secretion of the hormone Melatonin, which is responsible for inducing sleep.

When you get up later in the morning, it inhibits the release of Melatonin, which in turn makes it harder for a person to sleep, resulting in disturbed or delayed sleep patterns. Another negative effect is that this also causes a lot of stress because it triggers the release of cortisol which adversely affects your appetite and metabolism.

Lack of sleep has also known to reduce your body’s sensitivity to insulin which can lead to diabetes and obesity.

In fact, a report published in the Oxford Journals shows that there is a strong relation between sleep duration and weight gain. According to the study, it has been found that those who slept for five hours or less are 15% more likely to gain weight or develop obesity problems than those who slept for seven hours or more.

The quality of your sleep and the number of hours you sleep also plays a key role in balancing your circadian rhythm.

This means that you function better when you have had a restful night’s sleep and when you wake up early as the sun rises.

Wake up to a success secret.

Now you know why people who wake up early feel energized. It’s simply because exposing your body to early morning light will enable you to eat right, exercise well and stay healthy.

But that’s not all. Did you know that you can also be more successful if you get up early?

It has been noted according to a Harvard Business Review report that people are better positioned for success if they are productive in the morning than in the evening. People had more energy and performed better in the mornings than in the evenings in a study conducted by a biologist, Christoph Randler.

The argument for making an early start is evident in the habits of successful people, from famous artists and writers to CEOs. Vladimir Nabakov is said to start his day by six in the morning. Warren Buffet is known to wake up at 4:30 am. So, if you want to be healthy, rich and famous, then waking up early is definitely one of the first steps in the right direction.

Starting early however is not enough. Starting with the right attitude and habits is. In this book, you will learn about healthy morning habits which will not only help you to lose weight but also feel energized all day long and live a healthier and fuller life.

However, it is not easy to wake up early unless you implement a series of deliberate steps to ensure it becomes a habit. How do you do this? I will share with you a systematic approach to getting up early that has worked for me. Please note that you may not succeed immediately but over time, you will enjoy getting up early, when you see the immense benefits reflected in the mirror and in the weighing scale.

ACTION PLAN

How to wake-up early, regularly?

• Sleep early.
  That is right, the first step to waking up early begins with going to bed early. To start your morning right, start at night. Plan and schedule your day’s activity so that you are ready for bed in time. Ensure that you have adequate sleep which can range between 6 to 8 hours. Don’t ever kid yourself by saying you need less sleep. Figure out how much sleep you need by experimenting. When you wake up you should feel well rested and refreshed. If you are groggy and grumpy, then it is a sure sign that you haven’t had enough sleep. What to do about late nights? Avoid them. It’s just a question of planning your day. If any unexpected delays occur and you have a late night due to travel, work or social activities, then treat them as an exception but try to wake up early according to your usual time. You can make up for the lost sleep by sleeping a little early for the next few days, so that your wake-up schedule remains steady and undisturbed.
  
• Make getting up a one way street.
  In other words, skip the snooze button or any other temptation to slide back into sleep. How can you do this? There are many tricks to do this. One of my favourites is what a character in a John Grisham novel does. He puts the alarm clock in the bathroom near the washbasin. So when the alarm rings, he has no option but to get up and go to the bathroom to turn it off, and he invariably ends up washing his face and the cold water never fails to wake him up. You don’t have to go to that extreme. A simple method is to keep the alarm clock away from bed so that you have to get up in order to turn it off and that way you are less tempted to press the snooze button. Another important thing is to remember that you need to have a realistic wake-up time. Whether it is 5am or 6am, prepare a schedule and make sure you can stick to it. If you feel that you are waking up too early, then you will always be tempted to sleep a little longer.
  
• Motivate your mind by visualizing.
  Think of why you are getting up early. Whether it is to lose weight or be more successful, create a mental picture of your objective. This will inspire you to stay focused when you wake-up and prevent you from going back to bed. It’s a simple technique that sports people and actors as well as most successful people use. When an athlete crouches at the starting point of a race, he or she imagines breasting the finishing ribbon or when an actor or actress has to step on stage or face the camera, they imagine the applause and appreciation of the audience. Similarly, you can visualize the results that you will get by waking up early and thereby find the inspiration to stay motivated.
  
• Do something immediately.
  Whether it is drinking a glass of water, making notes, planning for the day or meditating, doing something as soon as you are up will help you set a routine. It activates your mind and helps you focus immediately and follow a wake-up routine.
  
• Create the right environment.
  Just like it helps to sleep better in a dark room, it helps to wake-up feeling refreshed if you see brightness after you wake-up. Turn on the bedside light or part the curtains or open the windows to breath in the freshness and witness daylight breaking across the skies. It need not be visual but can also be an auditory stimulation such as turning on the radio or some music to set the mood for the day.
  

Now that you have the dos, let’s also briefly take a look at the don’ts, which can sabotage your plans to wake up early.

• Caffeine, nicotine or sugar can keep you awake by interfering with your brain and your body. Don’t drink coffee or smoke late at night or consume anything with caffeine or eat anything sweet that may keep you awake or prevent you from sleeping.
  
• So can alcohol. Don’t consume alcohol at night because it can disrupt your sleep pattern even though it is wrongly assumed that it can help you sleep.
  
• Watching TV or working on the computer can also adversely affect your sleep. As we learnt earlier, exposure to light can suppress melatonin production which prevents you from sleeping. It also stimulates the mind and keeps your brain active preventing sleep. Similarly, reading from a backlit electronic device such as a tablet or e-reader can have the same effect.
  
• Don’t worry if you fail to get up as planned. Go gradual because you can’t change your sleeping habits overnight. Slowly, start sleeping a few minutes early and waking up a few minutes earlier than before. Then gradually, move towards your wake-up time goal, day by day or even week by week.
  
• Turn off all the lights in the bedroom, close the curtains and keep any mirrors that may reflect light away from your bedroom. That is creating the right environment, which is dark and cosy to induce sleep. What if you have to go to the bathroom at night? Keep a flashlight handy near your bedside table so that you don’t have to turn on the lights.
  

Follow these simple steps and you will soon sleep soundly and wake-up refreshed and rested. Over time, you will notice encouraging signs when you step on the weighing scale and when you step into your clothes.