Mindful Eating...
This is probably one of the most important things you can do to improve your nutrition habits....Instead of focusing on what you are eating, mindful eating focuses on how you are eating.
How many times have you skipped a meal because you ran out of time, rushed down your food or grabbed whatever food you could get your hands on to eat quickly on the go? I’m guessing this has happened to most of you on more than one occasion.
We all lead busy lives which can cause our eating habits to suffer, particularly as we tend to rush our meals and eat our food to quick not really being mindful of what and how much we are eating.
Did you know that it takes about 20 minutes for our brain to tell our body that we are full? Because of this when we rush our meals and eat without really thinking, we often eat too much before our brain has the chance to tell us that we are full, which can ultimately end in us gaining body fat.
Our desire to eat is controlled by our appetite, however this isn’t simply just whether or not we are hungry, it is a complex process regulated by a number of different hormones, chemicals, emotions and the environment. This includes things like stress, low mood, familiar habits (e.g take away’s after work, snacking while watching TV) and the texture and smell of food.
Our bodies are really good at regulating our appetite and feelings of fullness, however the current environment that we live in with 24 hour food stores, fast food restaurants, new technology and a more westernised diet consisting of processed and sugary foods can make recognising our real hunger and appetite signals more difficult.
This is why many people resort to drastic dietary measures to control their appetite and food intake, like calorie counting and following restrictive diet plans, which aren’t always the best approach to follow for long lasting changes.
For example our bodies like to maintain a constant internal environment, when we significantly reduce our intake through restrictive dieting our body compensates for this through increasing our appetite signals and reducing our fullness signals (which can lead to us binge eating, feeling bad and binge eating again, a harmful cycle!).
Many people have a negative relationship with nutrition, how often do we hear people say they are going back on a diet? Others often find eating well an inconvenience that they don’t have time for or as hard work when they feel that they have to drastically change their diet to achieve fat loss goals. Eating can also be associated with negative emotions such as stress or sadness with many people often resorting to or avoiding food to deal with these emotions.
However it’s important that our attitude towards food is more positive!!
Eating should be an enjoyable and important part of your day, where you get to have a break from your busy lives and socialise with family and friends.
Eating should be seen as a fuel for your body providing it with the nutrients that it needs to make you feel good (rather than thinking what foods do I need to avoid for weight loss).
Although eating should be enjoyable, the pleasure that we associate with eating can be a problem to our waist line. Often we mistake an urge to eat as a real feeling of hunger, when actually we are seeking the pleasure and comfort associated with eating, as a result of emotions, habit or our environment (however this pleasure is only temporary, causing us to eat more, resulting in a harmful cycle).
So what is mindful eating?
Mindful eating is all about being aware of what we are eating, and how our body is really feeling, so being aware of and recognising our real feelings of hunger and fullness and recognising our body’s real physical cues to eating.
Practicing mindful eating is a great way to gain back control over our body’s real hunger and appetite feelings, rather than eating as a result of things like emotions, the environment and routine, which is what we tend to do in our busy everyday lives. It can also enable us to have a more positive relationship with eating, improve our overall nutrition habits and can help us achieve fat loss goals.
A good way to start practicing mindful eating is to ask yourself the following questions the next time you have an urge to eat:
Ask yourself, am I really hungry?
Ask yourself, why am I eating? Are you really physically hungry or eating out of emotions or the environment you’re in?
Am I eating more unprocessed high nutrient dense foods (these make it easier for us to recognise our real hunger/fullness signals, whereas highly processed foods often trigger you to want more and mess up our natural appetite signals!)
Here are some other useful tips for practicing mindful eating:
Eliminate distractions
Try turning off the TV, computer or your phone when eating or simply sitting down at a table. Being distracted is one of the main reasons why we eat too quickly and don’t pay attention to what and how much we’re eating.
Slow down when you eat.
By eating too quickly we are likely to eat far too much and feel overfull in the 20 minutes before our brain tells us that we are full.
Research has shown that when we slow down we tend to eat fewer calories with each meal and we feel fuller and more satisfied, naturally reducing the overall amount we eat. This is great if your goal is to lose weight. Even adding a few minutes on to your eating time is great progress.
Try taking smaller bites and chew your food completely, being aware of the different tastes and textures of the food. This may seem strange at first, but it is a really good way to help you slow down and be more mindful when you eat.
Put your fork down after every few bites.
Eat until 80% full. This means “eating until we are no longer hungry” rather than “eating until full”.
Drink water between bites of food.
Set a timer/ plan ahead and set time aside to eat.
By setting a timer it will help you to realise how long you should be taking to eat your food and that while the timer is running nothing else can distract you, all you have to do is slow down and enjoy your food!
Pay attention to how you are feeling before, during and after eating. What emotions do you feel and what physical feelings do you have.
You might be thinking that mindful eating sounds like a pointless and silly activity as it teaches you nothing about what you should be eating, however improving how you eat is a really useful and important skill to learn that can improve your overall nutrition habits.
Mindful eating will take some practice to get the hang of, so at the start just have a go with one of your meals per day until this becomes a more natural behaviour for you.
