Weight Loss

Practising mindfulness for the benefit of weight loss has become quite a powerful way of healthy living in recent years. Mindful eating, also known as intuitive eating, is the practice of being aware and present of what you are eating. It involves:

  • Giving full attention to what you are putting in your body,

  • Focusing on the food,

  • Using all your senses when you eat: noticing the taste, smell, appearance, texture and how it makes you feel.

  • Distinguishing between true hunger and non-hunger (eg boredom) triggers 

  • Eating to maintain your overall health and well-being

  • Learning to cope with guilt and anxiety about food

  • Listening to physical hunger cues and recognise when you are full

  • Eating slowly and without any distractions

  • Appreciating your food

This will eventually lead you to make healthy decisions, wanting to choose more nourishing food and limiting portion sizes. 

Mindful eating helps you become more in tune with your body and eliminate unhealthy distractions. Unlike conventional diets, you should not put weight back on.

Here are a few mindful eating habits to practice:

  • Ask yourself why you’re eating – are you really hungry? Feeling stressed? Are you bored? 

  • Drink water before meals – water prevents you from overeating and also keeps you hydrated. Thirst and hunger often feel the same.

  • Eat without distractions – to avoid overeating do not eat in front of your TV or other devices.

  • Wait before getting seconds – it takes 20 minutes for your mind to register that you have eaten and are full. So it is important to wait at least 20 minutes before deciding for round two. Keep serving dishes away from the table to stop you from taking more unnecessarily. 

Eat with joy, not judgment – when dieting; we often forget to enjoy the food we are eating. It is important to remember to savour each bite of food and not be too preoccupied with counting calories. Chew before swallowing too quickly.

Stress has become one of the biggest causes of weight gain and obesity. Since it is a factor of everyday life it is crucial to eliminate it as much as possible, to reduce the harm it can cause to your physical health. People often look at food as comfort and end up using food as a coping mechanism, this is emotional eating. People tend to overeat because of strong emotions or feelings that haven’t been addressed. When you are stressed, your body releases cortisol to deal with it, which leads to an increase in your appetite, the rest and digest system (parasympathetic nervous system) of your body is not activated, all this causes your body to store abdominal fat. 

Mindfulness has been proven to be a powerful approach to dealing with stress. New studies have shown that practising mindfulness can improve weight loss, combat obesity and maintain body weight. Mindful eating has been shown to help people gain awareness of their bodies, to be in tune with hunger and recognize external cues to eat, decrease food cravings and problematic eating. It also can help address the triggers linked to overeating, such as anxiety (Rogers, Ferrari, Mosely, Lang, & Brennan, 2017).

It is a well-known fact that diets do not work; without addressing the triggers and relationships around food, those who manage to lose some weight will eventually gain what they have lost. A Mindfulness programme can delve into your negative relationships around food and eating and replace them with positive ones using mindful eating techniques and quick mindfulness practices. These will help you when your triggers causing you to reach for food, spring into action.