A Different Way to Manage Your Weight
Most of us have goals to improve our eating habits. For some of us, it’s about improving our health. For others, it is about losing those pounds we gained over the holidays. Research shows that a non-dieting approach known as “Mindful Eating” can help us achieve whatever our goal is around eating. Many studies show that changing the way we THINK about food – and our emotional attachment to it – can help us achieve our goals related to eating.
You may have noticed recently that drinks labeled “diet” are disappearing off the shelf and being replaced with descriptions such as “sugar-free.” The beverage industry seems to be on to the “no diet” trend. Industry experts explain that consumers do not see themselves as “dieting.” Instead, their attitude reflects making choices that align with what they perceive as good for themselves.
Mindful eating supports this thinking and shifts the focus from body weight to well-being. This approach encourages letting go of the idea of forbidden or bad foods and promotes unconditional permission to eat when and what food is desired. Does this sound too good to be true? It does require that we learn new skills and make thoughtful behavior changes, such as learning or re-learning to recognize when we’re full and then pushing the pause button on eating.
Through mindful eating, we stop labeling food as “good” or “bad” and increase our awareness of using food as a reward or comfort. A mindful eating practice helps us acknowledge how emotions impact our eating patterns, helping to identify when we’re eating because we’re tired, stressed, anxious, or even happy. Our mindfulness practice helps us accept ourselves, avoid negative, self-defeating self-talk, and take a more self-compassionate stance.
Mindful eating involves slowing down and utilizing our senses, noticing how we feel physiologically and psychologically. We make a stronger mind-body connection when paying attention to our food's taste, texture, sound, smell, and sight. Mindful eating is a learned behavior that builds self-acceptance and creates a new and sustainable relationship to eating. Through it, we pay closer attention to our body’s hunger signals (or lack thereof) and learn how to develop a personalized, flexible approach that works with individual differences and lifestyles instead of strictly following external rules and guidelines.
Doing things out of habit or without conscious thought is the most significant barrier to behavior change. And that’s why mindfulness-based eating programs effectively change or maintain healthy eating habits. Their effectiveness is based on the fact that people learn how to integrate small changes that have a BIG impact on practice. For example, with mindfulness practice, you realize when your attention is elsewhere and when you are mindlessly performing activities like eating. You also learn practical techniques to combat this, such as simply slowing down and enjoying your food by engaging your senses. The bottom line is that you can pause before you react when you are present. Just a few seconds is all you need to consider the choice you are about to make.
