MINDFUL EATING
Have you ever sat in front of your TV, gorging on a chocolate bar, cake or bag of crisps whilst staring at the screen and before you know it, the chocolate, cake, crisps have gone? After you finished, are you left with a strong urge for some more?
Mindful eating can put a stop to this cycle.
Mindfully eating makes you aware of your eating habits, and helps you stay one step ahead of your hunger. You will eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. There are many benefits of mindful eating:
- It increases your awareness of the amount of food you eat
- It helps you identify when you are physically hungry or emotionally hungry
- It can help you stop binge eating
- It will make your meals more enjoyable
- You will look for food that you enjoy rather than eat for the sake of it
Mindful eating will help you to eat slower and stop eating on autopilot. When you are mindfully eating, you’re not thoughtlessly filling yourself with food. It is a new skill that you learn and like any new skill will need a bit of time to get good at. The key to eating mindfully is that you keep practicing it, like any new habit, until it becomes automatic.
There is lots of research evidence, that mindful eating will help you lose weight. One study, for example, tracked more than 1,400 mindful eaters and showed them to have lower body weights, a greater sense of well-being, and fewer symptoms of eating disorders.
When you are eating mindfully your body is satisfied with less because it’s getting more sensation and more satisfaction from the food that you are eating.
The reason for this is that it takes about 20 minutes for your bodies satiety signals to register. Eating slowly allows your body time to register when you are full and give you a chance to stop eating when you are physically full.
Another reason for feeling full with eating less food is psychological. When you eat slowly and mindfully you will feel satisfied and feel less deprived, because your senses are more tuned in to tastes, smells and textures.
Eating slowly will also help with your digestion and you will feel less bloated.