Mindful Eating
The most sustainable way of losing unwanted weight?
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Many of you face the problem of gaining weight quickly and then stressing over how to fit in your size 10 or 12 jeans. You would go looking for diets that can help you lose weight in 2 weeks or a month. Some of you would follow that diet and might be successful in shedding some pounds. But after a while, you would notice that you have gained back all the weight that you previously lost after following some diet you might have found on the internet and tried on your own without advice from a health care professional. And that will make you more anxious.
So, why not adopt an eating pattern that will help you lose all the undesirable weight and maintain it for life? That’s where mindful eating comes to light. Giving thought to what you eat, why you eat it, how much your body actually needs and how to burn extra calories so that it is not deposited as fat in your body is mindful eating.
What do you associate food with, hunger or emotions?
Understand why you eat and what do you associate food with? Do you eat it when you are stressed out, sad or happy? Or do you eat to fill up your tummy? Or just eat out of a habit like while watching a game or a movie?
When you begin your journey to weight loss, you need to think over what you eat and why you eat it?
It is important to understand that mindful eating is what will help you understand where you need to make adjustments when it comes to eating. If you are eating without hunger, just out of habit then you need to be mindful and think that you might want to stop doing that as it is one of the factors that contribute to weight gain. If you like to celebrate with food, go for it! Just make sure to have a smaller portion than you normally would and savour every bit of it. When you have a smaller portion of a treat, enjoy it as a delicacy.
If you eat when stressed out, maybe substitute food with other activity like going for a walk in the fresh air.
Here are some useful tips which will help you be mindful when eating:
Opting for a smaller portion size
Sometimes you might be eating a larger portion size of food than your body actually need and you might not realize that.
Be mindful of the portion size that you eat. One way of doing that is to use a smaller sized plate than the one you use normally.
You can also use different standard cups and spoons to measure your portion size or a weighing machine to weigh your portion size.
Generally, an average person can have 5 fruits and vegetables a day (combined). one portion size would roughly be the size of a palm.
For detailed portion sizes, check out the British Dietetics Association food portion sizes fact sheet
Making a shopping list
If you do the grocery shopping yourself, it is important that you buy only those items that you need and not everything that catches your eye which usually is high sugar, salt, fat or high-calorie food product. To minimize the risk of buying extra items and going over the budget, a shopping list will help you stick to the plan. It would also help reduce the chances of you buying junk food.
Opting for lower fat and calorie option rather than restricting altogether
The idea behind mindful eating is to continue enjoying the food you like but creating that calorie deficit that you need to shed off some weight.
If you like butter on toast, you can go for a lighter version of butter or an unsalted one and maybe opt for whole wheat or multigrain bread in place of a white one.
You can go shopping and look for low-calorie sweets if you’ve got a sweet tooth. And it is good if you can manage to reduce the number of sweets you have over a week.
Maintaining a food diary
One of the best ways to keep your food intake in check would be to keep a food record diary. This would help you to decide how you need to adjust the food intake in order to create that calorie deficit which would help you lose some pounds.
You can either simply write the foods eaten, portion size, calories and time it was eaten. Or you can buy a nutrition logbook online.
You can also use mobile applications to track your calorie intake like carbs and cals.
Weighing yourself every week
If you are on a journey to regain a healthy body weight to reduce your chances of catching any chronic illnesses like heart disease or hypertension, then in addition to becoming a mindful eater and tracking your progress, buying an adult weighing scale would be helpful.
I would suggest you record your weight once when embarking on the journey of weight loss and then every week from thereon. Ideally, if you manage to create that calorie deficit by swapping lower calorie or lower fat food options and reducing the portion size of food, you should see a decrease in your weight by one or two pounds or even less than that. If you don’t see any change in your weight, review your food diary and check if you managed to create that calorie deficit, if not, maybe rethink what you should have and how much for the following week.
Involving in physical activity (PA) as able
It is recommended to do 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week. This can range from exercising while sitting on a chair or walking, swimming, climbing stairs, cycling or weight-bearing exercise. If you have any physical illness which limits you from doing any of the above then it's best to speak to your physiotherapist for some exercises so that you can mobilize your body stores of what you eat and regulate the balance of energy input and output.
Maintaining a PA record
It is very important to maintain a record of your workout to keep a check on yourself. You can keep a single notebook for recording your food intake, exercise and weight. And you can review it weekly to see if you have successfully created a calorie deficit, that is, you are having not too much of the food and burning calories in accordance with your intake.
It would be best if you could connect with your local dietitians for support.
Conclusion:
Losing weight is a process that involves understanding the relationship of food with your body and how it affects you if you reduce or increase the quantity of food or the type of food, what changes are required so that your body stores less and you burn more calories and what role physical activity plays in reducing weight. And once you have shed those unwanted pounds it is essential to understand how to maintain the desired weight and that is where mindful eating comes in. It ensures and prepares you how to manage food intake without compromising your likes and dislikes and how to burn extra calories throughout your life. And hence, it is the most sustainable way of reducing and maintaining your body weight.
If anyone of you fellas decides to give it a try, I would love to hear about your experience!
