Mind Body Wellness News Mindful Eating Edition
What’s Inside:
What is Mindful Eating? You may have heard of mindful eating on TV, in magazines, or online. It’s a pretty hot topic right now. In fact, it’s been being talked about so much that a lot of people get the false impression that it’s some kind of new fad diet. In fact, mindful eating isn’t a diet at all – but it can help you lose weight. The goal of mindful eating is pretty simple. It’s about being more mindful of the foods you eat. It’s about really enjoying food and using it to nourish your body instead of eating just to eat. You take time to feel your body and learn about hunger cues.
Mindful eating is more than just what you eat, it’s how you eat it!
Your body knows what it needs but we’ve stopped listening to it. We eat at specific times instead of when we’re hungry, we eat until we’re stuffed, and we learn early that we’re not supposed to leave food on the plate when we
What is Mindful Eating? 4 Benefits of Mindful Eating 3 Tips for Getting Started With Mindful Eating Top 3 Reasons to Ditch Your Diet for Mindful Eating 4 Great Grocery Shopping Tips for Mindful Eating
leave the table. These habits actually hurt you in the long run. Mindful eating isn’t a diet. It’s a lifestyle where you eat when you’re truly hungry, you pick foods that are delicious and nourishing, and you take time to savor each bite. It’s also the best step you can take towards getting rid of the unhealthy diet mindset and developing a healthy relationship with food. There is a common slogan used along with mindful eating: Mindful eating is eating with intention and attention. The key steps to mindful eating are: 1. Listen to your body when it comes to hunger. Eat when you’re actually hungry, not when it’s time to eat. You should also take care to make sure it’s actually hunger and not emotional hunger or thirst. You can drink water throughout the day to avoid “thirst hunger” but “emotional hunger” is a bit more difficult. The more practice you have with mindful eating the better you’ll get it at it.
The main thing to remember is that emotional hunger happens quickly while actual hunger is more gradual. Emotional hunger can be triggered by stress, fear, and tons of other emotions. You should also stop eating before you feel stuffed. Instead, aim to be done when you no longer feel hungry. That stuffed feeling is actually you overeating! Don’t be afraid to leave some food on the plate. 2. There are is no “healthy” and “unhealthy” when it comes to food. There are, however, foods that are more nourishing.
your body. In between bites put down your fork and take a sip of water. Enjoy your meal! The goal is to be mindful while you eat. Think about the food, how you feel both physically and emotionally, and learn to pay more attention to the way food affects you.
4 Benefits of Mindful Eating Mindful eating can help you in a lot of ways. Some you may expect, others you may not have thought of before. It’s a mindset that goes deeper than any diet and I think that’s a big part of how it affects us. Here are four great benefits of mindful eating. 1. You’ll start to enjoy food more, even though you won’t eat as much. When you take the time to really focus on each and every bite of your food you start to pick out flavors and textures. You learn more about which foods you love and when you’re eating something particularly delicious you’ll get to really savor it.
As part of the mindful eating lifestyle you can eat anything. You do want to aim to fill your diet with foods that are nourishing to your body but there is nothing wrong with having some ice cream or chocolate. You’re free to make that choice. Just make sure you’re doing it because you want to, not because of emotional hunger. 3. Eat your food slowly and enjoy it. Eating food slowly will make you feel full more quickly but it also makes sure you enjoy the time you spend eating. Find a quiet place and savor each bite. Really taste it and feel the textures. Think about how the food will nourish
Eating your favorite foods becomes an even more amazing experience when your focus is on enjoying it to the best of your ability! 2. You’ll make the choice to eat more nourishing food.
Mindful eating is about listening to your body and feeding it for nourishment rather than eating mindlessly. Not only do fruits and vegetables offer great flavors and textures but you’ll notice that after eating a nutritious meal your body and mind will feel better. Of course you can still have your treats, but they’ll be conscious choices rather than “cheats.” 3. It can end the unhealthy relationship most people have with food. Today we’re taught that some goods are “good” and some foods are “bad.” If you want to be healthy there is this entire section of foods we shouldn’t eat. The “diet mindset” is all about restricting yourself to lose weight and it’s something that leaves you feeling like you’re missing out. It’s not something you can turn into real lifestyle changes. Mindful eating isn’t about restricting yourself. It’s not about leaving the table hungry, avoiding carbs, or eating in every night. It’s about eating when you’re hungry, stopping when you’re not, and taking the time to eat each bite of your food mindfully. 4. You can lose weight!
deprive themselves of their favorite foods. Mindful eating helps you lose weight because it helps you stop overeating and snacking mindlessly. When you eat more slowly and take a break between bites you’ll feel when you’re not hungry rather than just eating until you’re stuffed. Mindless snacking is a big issue you can help to end through mindful eating. Have you ever made a bowl of popcorn or grabbed a bag of chips before sitting down to watch TV? It’s full one minute and empty the next! You weren’t thinking about the food as you ate it so you didn’t realize exactly how much you were eating. That’s what mindful eating aims to stop.
3 Tips for Getting Started With Mindful Eating For most people the hardest part of mindful eating is getting started. The longer you work at it the easier it gets and the better you’ll feel. The main issue is that it’s so different from how we’re used to eating. Look around, the world today is full of people who eat mindlessly. You may even be one of them. How often do you see people go through a fast food drive through, order two or three cheeseburgers, and eat them all within a few minutes?
This is a big one for a lot of people. Most people look into mindful eating because they want to lose weight but don’t want to count calories or
How often do you make or buy lunch and eat it as quickly as possible to get back to your day? What about just snacking mindlessly while watching TV? These are habits we’ve learned that lead to an unhealthy relationship with food where we’re
eating just to eat rather than to nourish our bodies. Do you want to change that and start eating more mindfully? Here are three tips to get started. 1. Understand it doesn’t need to be all or nothing. It can be hard to eat every meal mindfully, especially when you’re first starting. You can start out with just eating a snack a day mindfully while trying harder to watch your hunger cues.
used to eating, but it’s the first step to eating to nourish your body rather than just to eat.
Top 3 Reasons to Ditch Your Diet for Mindful Eating
Maybe you’ll focus on eating every meal but lunch mindfully because you only have a little bit of time for lunch at work. That’s fine! Decide ahead of time and stick to that plan. 2. Go somewhere quiet to eat and really focus on your food. Before you take your first bite take a look at the colors and textures in your food. Admire the aroma. Once you take that first bite, savor it! Enjoy each bite. Put your fork down between bites to help slow yourself down. It’s too easy to take bite after bite without really enjoying your food. By slowing down you’ll feel full faster and also get more time to really appreciate your food. 3. Remember, food is meant to nourish your body! There are no bad foods, but there are foods that are going to nourish you better and you should try to include more of those in your daily meals.
Mindful eating seems to be the hot topic on everyone’s minds lately. When it gets into popular or social media that people are using a technique or practice to lose weight or get healthy then it can be easy to file that thing under “diet” or, even worse, “fad diet” and just gloss over it. Mindful eating isn’t a diet, but it can end up being one of the best decisions you decide to make when it comes to your personal weight loss. Here are the top 3 reasons to kick your “diet” to the curb for a healthy dose of mindful eating. 1. Mindful eating doesn’t restrict what you eat.
Try flavorful vegetables, colorful fruit, and new foods you may have avoided in the past. It’s amazing how delicious natural foods are when you take the time to really taste them.
Restricting what you can and can eat is the number one thing diets do. The thing is, that’s the number one reason that diets (particularly fad diets) end up failing for most people.
I know this is all going to feel a little weird at first. It’s a huge shift in the way you’re probably
When you have to pick from a list when you’re deciding what to make a meal with, you tend to get bored and feel restricted pretty fast which
can lead to cheating or even quitting your diet altogether. Mindful eating is more about actively choosing healthy options without fully cutting anything out. When you don’t feel like you have to cheat you’re more likely to make a healthy and tasty choice for your meals. 2. Mindful eating isn’t a rigid structure.
The best part about mindful eating is that, while some diets “aren’t for everyone”, mindful eating is for everyone and anyone willing to take the time to listen to their bodies. You could start today with your next meal if you wanted to. In fact, that’s a pretty good idea.
4 Great Grocery Shopping Tips for Mindful Eating
Diets often have very little give or leeway in their plans. You have to eat this and only this at these times and no more or less often. Sure they give you plenty of structure, but eating out of habit or because you “have to” is what causes unhealthy relationships with food to begin with.
When it comes to making healthy choices it starts from the ground up. What exactly does that mean for you? It means starting at the source of your food, the grocery store!
The core of mindful eating is eating nourishing, tasty foods when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full. It’s not something that you can make a mistake with because there are no wrong ways to eat mindfully.
With mindful eating it is especially important to make the right choices when making food purchases because having access to healthy and tasty foods makes it that much easier to make an active choice towards those foods.
3. Mindful eating doesn’t have to be done with or without anything else.
There are no right or wrong foods when eating mindfully, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some choices out there that are better than others. Here are some basic tips to follow when shopping while mindfully eating.
Mindful eating isn’t a diet, it’s a mindset and a lifestyle change that you choose to actively take part in. You don’t have to tailor an exercise plan to it or schedule your life around it. All you’re really doing is choosing to pay attention to your hunger cues and make good decisions about what to eat, when to eat, and when to stop. You can use it alongside anything you’re currently doing to lose weight or you can use it on its own just to make healthier decisions about what you’re choosing to eat. In the end, it’s all up to you.
Buying groceries when you first start mindful eating can be tricky.
1. Don’t go shopping hungry! This is a pretty basic tip in general, when you shop on an empty stomach you’re more likely to fill your cart with what you’re craving or what looks good and you’ll leave the store with a cart full of chips and snacks. Mindful eating is all about following your hunger cues so make sure that your hunger is satisfied before you start your list and heading to the store. 2. Do a little research
Mindful eating is all about eating delicious, healthy foods. You want to be eating foods that taste good and are good for you, so if you want you can put in a little extra credit by doing some research online about which foods have good nutritional value that you already enjoy. Also don’t be afraid to get creative and try new things, you want to enjoy your food so if you see something healthy that looks like it tastes good, pick it up and give it a try. 3. Don’t restrict yourself Just because you’re eating mindfully doesn’t mean that you can’t have some of your favorites, too. If you’re feeling like you’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth then don’t flinch when it comes to adding a sweet surprise to your list.
like chips, popcorn, candy, or just about anything else that comes in a big bag that’s easy to reach into and scoop out of. You want to be able to savor the flavors and textures of your food, something you can’t do if you’re just shoveling it into your mouth. If you want snacks, pick out something healthy and delicious you can take time to enjoy instead. Just like the mindful eating itself, you should be making an active choice to choose healthy, delicious foods that you can take your time to enjoy and savor while you eat them. Stay in your mindful eating mindset while you shop and you’re sure to come out with lots of great food options from your shopping trip. Skinnylicious Cooking Over 150 Easy-to-make, Allergy-friendly, Fatburning Recipes That Fill You Up And Balance Your Hormones Simply By Eating Real Food. Get it here: http://www.lifeity.com/Skinnylicious-Cooking
Since the core of mindful eating is considering your food as you eat, you just need to think to yourself “I know this doesn’t have much nutritional value but it tastes good” and make sure to balance what you eat with something healthy along with it. 4. Try to avoid “mindless” foods You know what I’m talking about when I say this. If a food is the kind of thing you can just pop in your mouth or take handfuls of at a time without thinking, you may want to avoid putting it in your cart altogether. This includes things