Mindful Eating

Mindful eating for January

 

With the silly season well and truly over, it is now time to get back on track with eating habits and get back into healthy lifestyle patterns that can last a lifetime.

The first step to a healthy balanced diet is become more mindful of your diet and lifestyle.  Mindful eating means paying attention to what you are eating, recognising when and how you are making food choices, as well as triggers such as stress or emotional eating.

Although recommendations vary from country to country, worldwide we know that a healthy eating diet is the most recognised and fundamental way of achieving sustainable health and achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.

 

Many people commence on weight loss diets which are largely restrictive dieting. Restrictive eating or undereating is difficult to sustain, as the body’s appetite hormones continue to rise and intensify, often meaning that a person may end up binging or eating beyond their physical needs. This can then cycle into feelings of guilt and emotional overeating- which isn’t healthy!

 

How could mindful eating help me towards a healthier diet?

 

Mindfulness stems from Buddhism and means being in the present. Mindful eating can often help people to resolve some common challenges that they may have surrounding food and eating such as increasing your control of what and how you eat- for example recognising emotional or binge eating. Research suggests that mindful eating can help support the regulation of body weight as it supports people to make healthy choices which support their own best interests.

 

This means listening to and responding appropriately to feelings of hunger and being fully aware of the food choices you are making and what exactly you are eating. It means enjoying your food, yet reducing portion sizes and being aware of what you are eating, compared to what you should be eating based on healthy eating recommendations.

As well as that, it means that you are not on a ‘diet’- rather you have adopted healthy eating behaviours which are sustainable and will contribute to overall health and a reduction in diet related diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

 

Often though, it can seem like we are constantly surrounded by food and eating mindfully can seem like a real struggle despite best efforts. So how can you be more mindful about what you eat?

 

1)    Before you eat or go to look for food, take 10 seconds to think and ask yourself: Are you hungry? Are you just thirsty? Are you bored? When did you last eat and should you be hungry again?

2)    Think about what you are going to eat. You know that you need to include 5-7 portions of fruit/vegetables in the day for example- does what you are about to eat fit in with healthy eating guidelines?

3)    How much are you going to eat? Think about standard portion sizes for food. Think about how much you need and what is a regular portion

4)    Enjoy your meal. Take your time and try to avoid rushing your food. Eating slowly will help you to recognise when you are full

5)    Stop when you are feeling full or know that you have eaten a sufficient portion. After every few mouthfuls, put your knife and fork down and take a few seconds to assess if you are full! You don’t have to finish meals- leftovers can be stored in the fridge at home