What is the karmic story behind being overweight? This article is not about spirituality; it’s about real, everyday life. The word karma is used for many things.

The word karma is often used in the context of bad karma or good karma, meaning good fortune and bad luck. But in the context of weight loss karma plays another role. So lets start with looking at the meaning of the word “karma.”

What is Karma?

Karma is a Sanskrit word and in Indian religions it describes the concept of “action” or “deed,” understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect.

Karma is actually nothing particularly spiritual; it is a scientific principle of cause and effect. If you do A you will get B. On the surface of being overweight it all seems easy and transparent: you can say it is just the consequence of eating more than you need for energy. End of story and that is why the common logical solution is to go on a calorie-restricted diet, take diet pills to numb hunger or block the uptake of fat or carbohydrates and exercise more. But experience shows that these approaches don’t work long term for most people.

Our definition of Karma

Karma is time related (linear effect), but they’re a few aspects of karma that may be beyond our normal linear time-line experience.

tips to lose fat

1. Instant effect

You do something and you immediately get a response. For example you eat something that is not good for you and you become sick and throw up. The direct effect lets you recognize the link between the two events.

2. Delayed effect

You do something and the effect shows up some time later. Here it may be harder to see the correlation between cause and effect. For example a dentist uses anesthesia and you become sensitive to it. So the first time you have no reaction but 2 years later you get the same anesthetic and now you get a strong allergic reaction to it. The same goes for certain foods. You might be able to tolerate them for some time but “suddenly” you become intolerant towards foods you used to enjoy. This can be caused by the general toxicity in your body. Once it reaches a certain level, the body cannot handle it any longer and will react in an allergic way. Many people nowadays become sensitive to gluten and because of that many people feel lethargic and tired but do not know why!

3. Long delayed effect

The effects may show up many years later. For example it takes many years of overeating before you are severely overweight. Or lung cancer can take many decades of smoking before it develops.

4. Non-linear effect

This is a karmic effect we usually don’t understand. For example something happens in your familyline (ancestors) and you get the consequences. For example: allergies in your genetic line. So it is not something you did but something you inherit. Some people believe in past life karma. Even though we don’t know if that is true and will not go into that, it is something to consider.

Instant karma is never a problem as you get the chance to correct it immediately. The consequences of your action are reflected back to you right away and you can choose what to do next. If everything were instant karma, we would learn fast and it would be easier to stay on our path!

Delayed karma is more difficult to recognize and there may be no recognition of the primary deed causing the effect. It can develop silently over time and sometimes it is even too late when we discover the consequences.

Many of our old age diseases can be explained with the delayed karma-effect and often have nothing to do with old age. One example is bone-demineralization. When you don’t exercise, over the years the bones lose calcium and all the sudden at very old age you fall down and, for example, break your hip. This is caused by a lack of exercise and not an old age problem.

Fat is delayed karma made visible

Being overweight is a metaphor for something else, it means that there is something for you to look at and change.

The good thing about being overweight is that it is visible. You are wearing your karma on your body. Most other problems are less visible.

Skin cancer and wrinkles can be the karma years of excess sun tanning, some people may be so sensitive that they develop skin cancer without excessive tanning.

Most of the karmic consequences of our life style choices are hidden, for example arterial plaques (the narrowing of the blood vessels that can lead to heart attacks, strokes and other problems). These problems may appear much later in life as memory loss, heart attacks, brain infarctions (stroke) with paralysis on one side, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, etc.

bad karma photo

So if you are overweight the good news is that you can see it and you are aware of having a problem or the beginning of a problem. The bad news is that you have been struggling for some time. You have either given up, or you are still trying things that don’t work or believe you do not have the willpower to do it. The other bad news is that you may fall victim of the many weight loss theories and scams that don’t work permanently and make you stay stuck in a vicious cycle.

Primary Karma for being overweight in this life

All weight problems go back to your conditioning and behavior patterns you learn early on. As a child you were told to eat all of your food even when you felt full, or you were not hungry or did not like the food. You were conditioned to go against your instincts and you learn that you are not right about how you feel in your body. Your parents and/or teachers overruled your self-regulating mechanisms with their power of authority. This is the first big conditioning that occurred and completely deregulated your system. If we don’t listen to our bodies, we get trapped in a time related Pavlov-reflex system (you remember that famous dog drooling whenever the bell was rung?). It is lunchtime, you should eat, so you eat, whether you are hungry or not. You go to a restaurant and you get a full plate of food (far more than you need) but you eat it all because you are conditioned to eat everything on your plate. Most people don’t eat because they are hungry but because it is time to eat!

Many people eat breakfast even though they are not hungry in the morning. But they were told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it was important to eat so you have the energy. That is complete non-sense and there are numerous studies proving this theory wrong. The most important rule is: Listen to your body. If you are not hungry do not eat! It is totally OK to skip breakfast and even not eat all morning if you feel like it – just make sure you stay well hydrated and drink lots of water.

There are some people who only eat twice a day and are slim, there are also people who eat 6 meals a day and they are slim. What do they have in common? They listen to their bodies, eat when they need it and eat just enough for what their body needs!

A body-builder or athlete who has huge muscles and trains hard may consume 4 times the amount of what a normal person eats and will still not put on weight!

We will continue this discussion in the next article.