Are you Sick of Fad Diets?

Interested in learning about a long term concept called Mindful Eating to help control your weight? Then this blog is a must read for you

Mindful eating is a relatively new way of looking at food. Unlike restrictive diets, mindful eating isn’t a focus on numbers like your weight, calories, carbs or anything else. It’s a practice in which the only focus is your food and your feelings. Mindful eating is the opposite of a very commonly reported problem, known as ‘mindless eating’ or ‘distracted eating’.

Does this sound familiar to you? You open up a snack to eat while you work or while you’re enjoying some quality time on the lounge, watching a movie or reading. Before you’ve realised it, the whole box is gone and you don’t even remember eating it all? That’s mindless eating.

Mindful eating looks a lot more like a sit-down meal, where you enjoy every mouthful, notice every flavour, texture, colour and smell. Its an engaging experience for the senses and can reward you with insight into your diet and whether you’re eating because you’re hungry or if there’s another reason all together (like boredom, stress or sadness).

How to eat mindfully

To eat mindfully, is to give your full attention and focus to the food in front of you. Some common strategies to improve mindfulness when eating include:

- Engaging all available senses when eating. Whilst flavour is often our greatest concern when eating, take the time to observe the foods appearance, smell and texture as well, and not only at the start of the meal. Chew your food thoroughly and make the most out of every bite. Eating slowly and paying attention to your stomach can also help us recognise when we have eaten to the point of feeling full but not bloated.

- Eat without distraction. This is a big one, as failure to do so can often lead to overeating and a lack of enjoyment of the flavour of the food itself. With many of us working from home, this can be a challenge. Take the time to sit down for a meal. Have a designated spot away from your workspace or the lounge where you can focus all your attention to your food and your body.

- Eat regularly. Going long periods of time without eating can often lead us to crave the most readily available, high calorie foods available (and these often aren’t your healthiest options). Often when we do this, we eat our next meal too fast to fully enjoy it and can overeat, leading to that sick feeling.

My 4 Top tips to eat mindfully when working from home

- Eat away from the phone, computer or tv.
- Keep healthy snacks within easy access. A fruit bowl full of fresh fruit is not only visually appealing, but can be a good reminder to make sure we meet our 2 fruit a day goal!
- Try new foods. With more time in the house, now is a great time to increase your repertoire of recipes, or add new flavours to old favourites.
- Stay hydrated by keeping a bottle of water with you at all times. Dehydration can often be confused for hunger, and drinking fluids while eating can lead to greater feelings of fullness, which help prevent us from over eating.

Benefits

Some of the more commonly reported benefits of mindful eating include

- Greater control around portion sizes as well as healthier choices

- Weight control and weight loss

- Reduced anxiety, guilt, shame and other negative emotions when eating, as well as a greater psychological wellbeing

- Improved ability to distinguish between physical hunger and emotional hunger.

- Reduced periods of distracted eating

Conclusion

Mindful eating is a tricky concept to get your head around. The best way to think of it is a mindset to improve your relationship with food. When used with the appropriate nutritional guidance, it can be a useful tool to enhance weight loss and healthy eating attempts. With numerous lockdowns across the country, working from home, restrictions and panic buying are proving a hinderance to our normal routines and this can often influence our diet. This also makes it the perfect time to try eating mindfully.

Want more information around how you can implement mindful eating into your routine? Maybe you’re more interested in how to eat better while you’re stuck at home? Speak to one of our Accredited Practising Dietitians at Ward Nutrition. We would be happy to help you with a plan tailored to your individual needs and preferences. Book here for an appointment or call 5301 6435 to make a booking. If you want some more information on how Ward Nutrition Dietitians can help your weight loss, please click here.

Co Written by Claire Ward and Dylan Gunn, Accredited Practising Dietitians

Have You Tried Mindful Eating?