Mindful Eating— The Best Weight Loss Program

So far this has been my favorite ’diet’ program. Imagine mindful eating everything you want, no counting or time intervals needed and you get to easily lose weight most healthily? I’ve learned about this when my meditation instructor made us practice with guided meditation scripts after I mentioned on our previous sharing that I’ve long wanted to lose weight to prepare for the wedding we planned for years, I brought up how I’ve tried and failed my past diet programs.

Technically it’s not a ‘diet’ because it does not involve certain food restrictions, but surprisingly, it has been the most effective approach that has helped me reach my target weight in just a few months. I thought I just wasn’t disciplined enough. I didn’t know that I just haven’t found the best weight loss program there is— mindful eating.

This Article Includes
Mindful eating
Comparison With Other diets
Scientific Evidence of Benefits from Mindful Eating
How to Practice Mindful Eating

Through the years I’ve tried intermittent fasting, keto diet even did calorie counting— they did, however, gave satisfactory results at first but I realized that doing these fad diets was not sustainable because it tends to rebound on my body after I stopped doing it. I also get so conscious with my body that I’m always likely to starve myself when I feel like I’m not doing any justice to my attempts. I recognized how unhealthy my eating habits became when I am doing the trends.
I stopped doing it when I got to a point where I was underweight and I kept restricting myself, my partner told me to get a check-up and even consult a dietitian because I soon became sickly. We found out that I was on the verge of anorexia. She referred me to a psychologist who then recommended a treatment plan that integrates a mindfulness-based approach which I liked as I didn’t want to take up medications.

I met my meditation instructor after a month of considering treatment, he gave me mindfulness scripts and mindfulness exercises to help with my healthy and sustainable weight loss journey.

Mindful eating

I thought I would need extreme diets to finally achieve my target weight, it was until that I started practicing mindful eating that I realized that what I needed to learn were guided meditation scripts! Mindfulness is a concept that is usually associated with positive psychology. I’ve first heard about the idea of mindfulness in workshops in my work so I have an idea of it. But to put it simply, mindfulness is being aware of the present moment while being nonjudgmental but instead curious of thoughts and feelings that may come. Mindfulness eating then can be defined as a “… non-judgmental awareness of physical and emotional sensations associated with eating (Framson et al, 2009)”. It is eating while being attentive to the use of one’s senses, acknowledging thoughts, feelings, and responses, and identifying indications of satiation or hunger.

Comparison With Other Diets

Studies show that dieting not directly a cause of eating disorders however, fad diets make one prone to its development, especially the extreme diet trends. Olivia Pyatt Centers reminds us that, a sign that a fad diet has gone too far is when one starts showing signs and indications of an eating disorder. Compared to other diets, mindful eating does not involve restricting oneself to one type of food or making oneself just eat at certain intervals, it does not prescribe consuming just a certain food group and it also does not involve making you compute every sugar content.

Scientific Evidence of Benefits from Mindful Eating

The most important thing when using mindfulness scripts is that focuses on is how thinness and fatness do not equate outright to be healthy and unhealthy respectively. Mindful eating first trains us to change our mindset of what it means to be healthy. I was taught to shift my perspective on the food I used to consider as “unhealthy” or those that “makes me fat” (like chocolate, oily and fatty foods, carbs like rice). The different exercises I did will be outlined in the next section, here we will discuss the proven benefits of mindful eating in the treatment of eating disorders and weight loss which was like a stone hitting two birds for me. Self-control is important when eating especially for those with binge eating tendencies, their binge eating behavior not only makes them susceptible to gaining weight but can also make them prone to depression. A study showed that mindful eating has decreased their symptoms of depression and it improved their control over themselves, therefore shying away from binge eating episodes. This study was further confirmed by a review of 14 other researches about how it helps in patients with binge eating disorder. A study by Dunne (2017) around anorexia nervosa reviewed the mindfulness approaches and how it has shown significant help for the patients especially when it was continuously applied (better than single episode intervention). Mindful eating has also shown to lead to sustained weight loss, it has helped obese patients in changing their eating behaviors (Jordan, Wang, & Donatoni, 2014); improved individuals by making them less impulsive when eating and helped them choose healthier foods (Dalen, Smith, Shelley, Sloan, Leahigh, & Begay, 2010).; lowered caloric and fat intake and made them confident with their ability to lose weight without being too restrictive with their diets (Timmerman & Brown, 2012). The problem with fad diets is the tendency of regaining weight (sometimes even more) as you start to loosen your restrictions. Mindful eating is easier to stick with since it is not about the food you eat but about the manner that you consume them. Lesser rules and fewer restrictions! It’s more of being aware of how you are eating.

How to Practice Mindful Eating

Mindful eating is about knowing what your body needs and not what your tummy wants. It is consciously choosing the food that you will put on your plate, on that platter you are going to order. It is selecting what’s best for you and not what you are merely craving

It was not easy doing it the first time, before going into the meditation I was tasked to read the meditation wording first and imagine myself doing it. It was kind of awkward to read about it, but I guess it has helped me feel at ease when I finally did it.

Do keep in mind that mindful eating will be about the experience and not the food. It’s not about what you can’t eat or what you should eat, but instead what will satiate your hunger and what is the healthiest choice. The following are five different ways for you to practice and explore how to incorporate mindful eating into your habits:

1. Observe

Observing is the first step, that is observing without judgment and making excuses. It is simply being aware of What, When, Where, and How (you are not going to ask “why” because you might judge yourself or may tend to give justifications.

• What you are eating or what you are going to eat. What are you feeling right now, are you stressed or hungry or both? What are the thoughts that made you feel like you need to eat?
• When are you eating, and when did you have that urge to eat
• Where are you eating right now? Is it always the same?
• How crunchy is that chip? How long did you eat that waffle? How many times have you eaten

2. Remember the 5 S

• Sit,
• Slow down,
• Savor,
• Simplify
• Smile.

People tend to eat more frequently when they are standing, so try to make sure that you sit down when you eat.

Slowing your pace when you are eating makes sure that you are chewing your food, and you get to consider and focus as you take each spoonful or bite. Using your non-dominant hand also forces you to eat unhurriedly.

Savoring is being aware with the use of all your senses, you can try eating somewhere with no distractions to let you focus on your food plate, somewhere where you can enjoy that bite of revel bar without thinking of anything else. You can turn off your gadgets for a while. Decide if you like the food or not.

Simplifying means when you are done eating it consciously, you put it away so you don’t see it to prevent you from taking a spoonful of it just because it’s there.

Smiling between bites is a way for you to decide if you are satisfied with your food or not if you are already full or not.

3. Raisin exercise.

This is a popular mindful eating exercise by Kabat Zinn (2005):

• Holding: Using the senses in your hands and fingers, you hold the raisin between your fingers.
• Seeing: You put your full visual focus on it to explore and appreciate every part of it. The folds and ridges.
• Touching: Using your hands again you now focus on feeling up the raisin’s texture and size.
• Smelling: You now use your sense of smell to savor its aroma, and how it makes you feel, what it reminds you of, see if curbs or increases your hunger.
• Placing: Before finally eating it, recognize the position of your hands and how your mouth opens up for the raisin. As you place it between your lips, notice how your mouth engulfs it, and how it feels inside your mouth, focus on the texture that you feel with your tongue.
• Tasting: Before chewing, put your attention on how your tongue or mouth places it to a certain side of your mouth. Consciously chew on it and look out for the tastes that come after it, the texture, is it different or the same as before? Notice how it gets smaller as your teeth grind it.
• Swallowing: As you are about to swallow notice how the urge to swallow comes to you. Recognize that you are in control of when you want to swallow it.
• Following: As you have swallowed it, try to observe if you can feel where the raisin is now, how your body feels after eating it, did you like the taste, aroma, and texture? What are your thoughts after eating it?

You can practice this with other food too, the raisin is just to illustrate the steps. There was even a study that used this exercise and found that a single intervention of mindful eating was enough to lower chocolate consumption even if it was strategically placed to encourage mindless eating.

4. STOP Meditation

This is a meditation from Jamie Zimmerman, M.D., it stands for:

S- Stop, acknowledge the craving or hunger

T- Take three slow deep breaths

O- Observe, see what emotions you are feeling to get that craving, or maybe you are really hungry?

P- Proceed in the way that you see fit for this craving, you don’t have to judge yourself for whatever action that you will choose.

This STOP Meditation is giving respect and recognition to the craving that you are having. It is meant to make you aware of that, and the feeling and reasons behind it without judging yourself for feeling it.

5. Mind your hand and tummy

Food would not come by itself to your mouth without you getting it. One way to practice mindful eating is to be mindful of your hands in the presence of food. You also have to be mindful if you actually are satiated or are you still hungry, were you full or was it not enough? Be mindful of your hands when your stomach feels full already.

I found myself getting addicted to mindful eating after doing guided meditation scripts and doing the exercises above. What I didn’t realize was that in just a few months I was able to lose pounds I’ve been meaning to let off for years!