Mindful eating entails paying keen attention to food and how it makes a person feel. Further, it also assists in learning to differentiate between physical and emotional hunger cues and may also lower disordered eating habits and aid weight loss. Mindful eating practice is a tool that helps a person effectively manage their eating habits. Studies prove that this dietary regimen has been shown to support weight loss, lessen binge eating, and help a person uplift overall health and well-being.
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This two-minute read explains about mindful eating, how it works, and how to get started.
What Is Mindful Eating?
Mindful eating practice is established on mindfulness, and it is a Buddhist idea. Mindfulness is a kind of meditation that aids a person identify and handle with their emotions and physical sensations. This practice is beneficial in treating a host of health conditions such as eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and several other food-related disorders.
Mindful eating is about using mindfulness to attain a state of full focus on a person’s experiences, cravings, and physical signals while eating.
Some of the basic strategies for this eating habit:
- Eating slowly and without any diversion
- Be watchful for physical hunger cues and eat only until you’re full
- Differentiating between true hunger and non-hunger triggers for eating
- Involving all senses by identifying colours, smells, sounds, textures, and aromas
- Learning to handle guilt and anxiety about food
- Eating to sustain overall health and well-being
- Observing the impacts food has on a person’s feelings and body
- Appreciating food
Why Should You Follow Mindful Eating?
Modern fast-paced life offers people plenty of food options and to add to that, distractions have altered attention away from the real act of eating towards gadgets like smartphones, computers, and televisions. Moreover, eating has become a mindless act and is done instantly, which can be problematic, as it takes time for the brain to register that you’re satiated.
And if you eat very fast, you may not attain the satiate signal until you have already eaten in excess. This is commonly seen in Binge Eating Disorder (BED).
By eating mindfully, you can reinstate your focus and slow down, making eating a purposeful act, rather than an automatic one. Additionally, by improving your recognition of physical hunger and satiate cues, you can clearly differentiate between emotional and true hunger. Also, it promotes your awareness about triggers that make you want to eat, even though you’re not ideally hungry.
Essentially identifying your triggers lets you make a space between them and your response, providing you the time and freedom to choose how to react.
Also Read: Emotional Eating: Causes, Symptoms And Treatment
Merits Of Mindful Eating
Promotes Weight Loss
Binge eating disorder, emotional eating, and eating in response to food cravings have been associated with weight gain and regain after a successful weight loss regimen. Even research suggests that people tend to regain about 50% of the lost weight after 2 years and 80% after 5 years. Further long-term stress plays a crucial role in overeating and obesity. Several pieces of evidence reveal that mindful eating aids you to lose weight by modifying you’re eating behaviours and easing stress. By transforming the way, you think about food, the negative thoughts that are linked to eating are swapped with awareness, good self-control, and positive emotions. Thus, when unwanted eating habits are corrected, the chances of long-term weight loss maintenance are increased.
Manages Binge Eating Disorder
Binge eating disorder involves eating a huge quantity of food in a short span of time, mindlessly without any control. This has been associated with weight gain, obesity, and other eating behaviours like purging or compulsive exercise. Practicing mindfulness and mindful eating may remarkably lessen the severity and frequency of BED episodes.
Regulates Unhealthy Eating
How To Practice Mindful Eating?
To customize mindfulness, you need a set of exercises and meditations. Most people find it easy to attend an online course or workshop on mindful eating. However, there are simple ways to get started, some of which have amazing perks on their own.
- Eating slowly — not hurrying to finish your meals
- Chewing thoroughly
- Totally getting rid of distractions and having food turning off the TV and putting down your mobile phone
- Eating in peaceful atmosphere
- Paying attention on how the food makes you feel
- Stop eating when you’re full
- Asking yourself why you’re eating- if you’re truly hungry and whether the food you choose is delicious and tempting
