Resources

Your Healthy Weight Mission Statement

Make a serious pledge to yourself. Begin writing a personal healthy-weight mission statement. This mission statement is a symbol and reminder of your commitment and can help you see more clearly what you intend to achieve. As you go through this healthy-weight journey, return to your healthy-weight mission statement periodically to help you focus, get inspired, renew your ongoing commitment, and stay on track. You may also like to post it where you can read it often.

Sample Ten Week Mindful Living Plan

To jump-start you in your mindfulness journey, we suggest a mindfulness practice plan to help put together some of the exercises and recommendations that we have talked about throughout the book and integrate them into your daily routines. The proposed plan includes practices not only in eating and moving for weight control, but also in transforming and enjoying life. We call it the Mindful Living Plan.

Contemplating Our Food

Eating together is a meditative practice, and there are many ways to help us become fully present for every meal. When we serve our food, we can be conscious of the many elements that have contributed to form this delicious meal—the rain, sunshine, earth, air and love. Before eating, practicing The Five Contemplations can help us be fully aware and express our gratitude for all aspects of the universe that have gone into our meal’s creation. These contemplations also remind us to eat in moderation, and eat in a way that sustains the planet.

Tools for Mindful Living

Here are two tools to help you live more mindfully: a list of screen-time alternatives, and a watch with Thich Nhat Hanh's calligraphy that can help remind yourself to stay in the here and now.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings

The Five Mindfulness Trainings are a good tool to prevent relapse and stay on course. They are also a concrete way to practice compassion, understanding, and love. They are a moral compass guiding us toward a healthy, happy life.

Meditations

We may start out our day very mindfully, but if when we get in the car or bus to go to work we allow stress or worry to overwhelm us, we have lost our way. So we need practices throughout the day to help us remember to come back to our breathing, relax, and stay present in this moment. In this way, we will not be the victim of our stress and worry.

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