Visualization for Weight Loss -The Gabriel Method

Part III: Physical Stresses that Activate the FAT Programs

Listen to Your Body’s Signals If you learn to listen to your body’s signals, it will tell you if the food you are eating is nourishing you or causing hormonal chaos. Pay very close attention to how you feel an hour after a meal. Do you feel energized and satisfied, or do you feel exhausted and hungry? Did the food hit the spot or was it just a short-term fix? How do you feel emotionally? Are you in a good mood, or are you irritable and cranky? These signs will tell you whether the foods you are eating are nourishing you; they will tell you if you are eating the right fuel. Shift Your Hunger Habit Our bodies are designed to use the food we eat during the day as energy for that day. What we don’t use during the day, we have to store. This means that we are actually supposed to eat our food during the day and not at night, when it is time to sleep. However, when the FAT Programs are on, certain hormones that are supposed to decline in the evenings become elevated instead. This causes excessive nighttime hunger and junk food cravings. 2 It is highly likely the body causes this hormonal distur- bance deliberately when the FAT Programs are on because eat- ing at night is the best way to make you fat! Also, when you eat excessively at night, your insulin levels stay elevated while you sleep. Insulin is the fat storage hormone, so your body stays in fat storage mode all night. In essence, you end up making fat while you sleep. If your stomach is not full when you go to sleep, your body will be burning fat at night. So the difference between eating your food at night and eating it during the day is the differ- ence between making fat all night and burning it all night. You can eat the same foods and the same amount, but if you just eat earlier, you can potentially lose weight on the same amount of food. When you turn off the FAT Programs, you will no longer have the hormonal problems that cause excessive nighttime hunger. But you may still be in the habit of eating at night. You can easily

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