Want to Live a Healthy Lifestyle? Practice Mindful Eating

In this modern world where processed foods, unhealthy lifestyle, and chronic stress are predominant, it’s challenging to eat healthy food to achieve a healthy, fitter, and leaner body. Some eaters tend to eat way more than what their body needs while some eat little to no food at all.

Some eaters also feel drained and deprived at the mere thought of holding back from eating their favorite food. Is there a way to make peace with food and have a healthy body without depriving ourselves? According to the health experts, there is. You need to start practicing the art of mindful eating.

What Is Mindful Eating?

According to the experts, mindful eating is a new eating approach that teaches you to listen to your body, particularly to your hunger and satiety cues and act appropriately. If you feel lightheaded or your stomach is rumbling, it’s time for you to eat.

Then you have to stop eating when you’re full and as much as possible, you need to eat good whole foods most of the time. According to Jessica Jones, R.D, there are certain key factors why mindful eating is different from other weight loss diets available in the market.

Prostock-studio/Shutterstock
With mindful eating, you only need to listen to your body to eat, no need to memorize what kinds of food you eat and don’t eat, according to the experts. Mindful eating teaches you to give full attention to your food especially when eating.

Meaning you need to sit down and stop doing other things to train your senses into observing how the food looks, smells, tastes, and listen to what your body feels when you eat it. This unlocks your depth understanding of food and how it affects your body. Most of all, you don’t need to judge whether the food you’re eating is good or bad, allowing you to be more flexible in eating and have the freedom to choose what you want to eat.

Maintaining a Healthy Diet

According to Rebecca Scritchfield, R.D.N, she recommends mindful eating to her clients especially those who struggle with losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. According to her, mindful eating helps her clients to avoid stressful and pointless eating out of boredom or whatever their emotions dictate them to do. Mindful eating will help you notice your body’s cues so that you can stop eating on your own without battling guilt or regret.

nito/Shutterstock
The main goal of this new eating approach is to help you make peace with food. When you make peace with food, it eliminates the source of your anxiety, stress, and other negative thoughts and feelings which can affect your overall health and wellbeing.

Scritchfield clarifies though that mindful eating isn’t exactly a weight loss regimen, it’s more of repairing your physical, mental, and emotional well-being by being at peace with food. While some people may start shedding off weight when they start listening to their body’s cues, those who have been accustomed to restrictive diets may start gaining weight when they apply mindful eating.

However, you shouldn’t worry about that since your body is just attempting to repair itself once you start eating normally, according to the clinical psychologist, Susan Albers Psy.D. The key here is to enjoy eating your food to apply a sustainable, long term eating approach.

A Flexible Eating Lifestyle

Albers adds the reason why most weight loss diets in the market aren’t effective is that they tend to restrict people from eating foods, which make it unsustainable since their diet regimen would only work in a controlled environment. This causes most people to regain their weight once they start eating normally again, or if they’re back to their natural lifestyle.

atjana Baibakova/Shutterstock
Mindful eating lets you enjoy the art of eating food. Thus, the good feeling extends to your body, mind, and emotional well-being.

For example, if you’re craving for sweets, cakes or some pizza on a keto diet, you’ll be deprived of it since the diet forbids you from eating sugary and carb foods. While some may overcome and suppress their cravings, most cannot, resulting in them giving in to temptation when they could no longer fight it, resulting in overeating.

But with mindful eating, you’re allowed to eat any food you want – in moderation, and if you promise to make it up by exercising or by eating healthy foods the next day. You can enjoy indulging in your favorite foods without any feeling of guilt or remorse.