5 weight related reasons to practice mindful eating.

22 Nov, 2021, No comments

Are you snacking on the run, cramming lunch down during a ten-minute break or mindlessly munching in front of a screen? If so, you’re not alone.

Mindless speed eating is all too common in our society. But this habit has many unhealthy side affects: poor digestion, weight gain, discomfort after meals, fatigue.

If practiced over time, speed eating may lead to obesity and a severe disconnection with our food, which affects not only our physical but also our mental and emotion health.

Five reasons to slow down and practice mindful eating:

1. Digestion:

When we eat slower, we give ourselves time to chew our food properly. Digestion begins with the enzymes in our mouth. As we chew, these enzymes and our teeth begin breaking down our food into digestible bits. This entry-point is crucial to healthy digestion.

2. Nutrition:

The nutrients in our food are released as we chew. Taking the time to chew properly unlocks more healthful elements of our food, that we may not absorb as well when quickly swallowing large bites. And in the long run, eating slower creates a connection to and appreciation of our food. In turn, we make healthier choices about what we eat.

3. Preventing weight gain:

As we eat, our body sends signals to our brain about how full we are. If we eat too fast, the signal for “stop, I’m full!” doesn’t reach our brain in time – so we over-eat, consuming too many calories, which leads to weight gain. Studies show that when we eat slower we eat less AND we feel more satisfied.

4. Peace:

Our days are busy, packed with work, errands and socializing. The pace and amount of stimulus in the modern world cause many of us to feel stressed and anxious. These states weigh heavy on our body and are detrimental to our whole well-being. Make meal time an opportunity to slow down. Instead of feeling heavy and lethargic after eating, you can feel renewed, refreshed and appreciative.

5. Pleasure:

Food is delicious! But when’s the last time you allowed yourself to truly enjoy a meal? We forget that simple acts like eating, can be extremely pleasurable. Advertisements encourage us to seek out constant distractions, alcohol or extremes for enjoyment, but these jolts will always fall short of true, rich, sensation. We can treat all five senses to joyful bliss during every meal.

Ready to get started feeling better and enjoying your food more while eating less calories!?

Try these simple tips today and let us know how it goes. During mealtime:

Set your utensils down in between bites.
Stop to breathe.
Chew each bite 20-40 times (start with as many as you can for now, and work your way up).
Drink water.
Listen to your body and stop eating once you feel 80% full. This will help avoid over-taxing your digestive system.
Focus on your food. As other thoughts pop in to your mind, gently set them aside. There is nothing to do right now but eat.
Carve-out meal times. Plan ahead and set aside thirty minutes to eat your meal.

Ready for much more?

You are welcome to join my mindful eating program.

Mindful-eating exercise to reduce stress-induced eating.

22 Nov, 2021, No comments

Every day I meet and work with women who use eating as a stress management tool and sooth themselves with food and sweets when under stress.

Food has the power to temporarily alleviate stress and sadness, enhance joy, and bring us comfort when we need it most. It's no wonder experts estimate that 75 percent of overeating is triggered by our emotions, not physical hunger.

Diets don' t work and physical activities are not enough when it comes to stress eating.

What works?

The good news is you can overcome stress eating through mindfulness activities that are healthy for both body and mind.

Being mindful is an active state of releasing all judgment and worried thoughts, freeing oneself from stress to fully perceive the moment.

As an integral part of mindful living mindful-eating exercises are great every day mindfulness practices to reduce stress-induced eating. (in nutshell mindful eating reduces emotional eating and helps to lose weight and manage stress at the same time).

Exercise: eat your food mindfully.

Take a raisin, grape, strawberry, piece of cheese, or chocolate.

Observe the appearance and texture. Is there an aroma? What kind of changes do you notice in your body as you observe this food? (Answers may include salivation, impatience, anticipation, and nothing.)

Place a small amount of the food in your mouth, and do not chew it. After 30 seconds (wait 1 minute for chocolate), start chewing.

After you have finished eating, answer the following questions:

• What did you notice about the flavor or texture before you started chewing the food? After you started chewing?

• How does that compare with your typical experience?

Ready for a great change?

Overcome stress cravings and manage your weight with no-diet mindful eating approach. You are welcome to join my Stop Stress Eating - mindful eating and living program. You can join from any place in the world.

Is stress blocking your weight loss?

22 Nov, 2021, No comments

I am frequently asked about the relationship between stress and weight gain.

In truth, stress and excess fat storage go hand in hand – one triggers the other.

When you are under stress, your adrenals release a stress hormone called cortisol.

The main function of cortisol during the stress reaction is that it stimulates release of glucose, fats, and amino acids for energy production AND it helps you replenish your body after the stress has passed.

As majority of women live under chronic stress cortisol levels remain elevated.

Can chronic elevations of cortisol lead to weight gain?

Unfortunately, an over secretion of cortisol will lead to weight gain, typically in the abdominal region.

Here is why :

Increased appetite which ultimately drives you to eat more. "While the immediate response to acute stress can be a temporary loss of appetite, more and more we are coming to recognize that for some people, chronic stress can be tied to an increase in appetite -- and stress-induced weight gain," says Elissa Epel, PhD, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco.

Poor nutritional choices that can actually increase your stress levels and cause other problems, such as obesity.

Cravings -- chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels keep your appetite high all the time and crave for wrong type of food. Most likely, you seek out foods like cookies, candy, ice cream, chips and pizza, and there’s a good reason why. These foods are typically less healthy and lead to increased weight gain.

Fat storage -- excessive stress even affects where you tend to store fat. Higher levels of stress are linked to greater levels of abdominal fat. Unfortunately, abdominal fat is not only aesthetically undesirable; it’s linked with greater health risks than fat stored in other areas of the body. Metabolic or X syndrome, a cluster of health concerns that can lead to greater health problems, like heart attacks and diabetes. One study confirmed that women who stored their excess fat in the abdominal area had higher cortisol levels and reported more lifestyle stress than women who stored fat primarily in the hips.

Stress eating -- when you are not stressed, you only tend to eat food when you are hungry. The situation is very different under stress; increased levels of cortisol can not only make you crave unhealthy food, but excess nervous energy can often cause you to eat more than you normally would. Under stress, most times you even don’t notice you are munching something.

Forgetting/skipping meals - it is important to eat three meals and three healthy snacks and most women know this, but stress can have the effect of making you skip, or forget to eat your meals. Women who are overly stressed tend to pick up this habit and find out that later on in the day they will become hungry, and more likely resort to eating junk food to satisfy their hunger.

Slows metabolism - Too much cortisol will slow your metabolic engine, making weight loss much more difficult. If you're trying to lose weight, this decrease in your metabolic function may make the process frustrating.

Difficult weight loss and dieting - your bodies are designed to burn calories from fats for energy, instead of carbohydrates and lean muscle tissue (protein). In fact, you get more than two-and-a-half times more energy when you burn calories from stored body fats instead of carbs and proteins.

Unfortunately high cortisol and adrenaline levels as a result of chronic stress trigger your body to burn calories from carbs and lean muscle (protein) instead of fats. It literally inhibits your body from burning calories from stored body fat and takes you out of your fat burning mode that you are designed to be in throughout the day.

Plus high levels of cortisol promote the loss of muscle tissue that leads to a fall of the basal metabolic rate, which means we are able to burn even less calories at rest. We enter into a vicious circle of increased appetite, reduced caloric expenditure, and accelerated fat accumulation.

Take a moment.

Your mind plays a major role in managing cortisol levels, so choose not to see everything as a stressor (as much as you may want to!). It may not feel like you have the time, but spend 15 minutes doing mindful breathing, yoga, or even going for a short walk. The brief respite will clear your mind and remind you that you can handle this.

Ready for the next big step?

To resolve stress and stress-induced eating for long-term weight management please join my Stop stress eating - mindful eating, mindful living.

5 weight related reasons to practice mindful eating.

Mindful-eating exercise to reduce stress-induced eating.

Is stress blocking your weight loss?

Recent Posts

Let's connect: