How many times have you grabbed some junk food when you were stressed out? Or, maybe you were rushing to an appointment or struggling to meet a tight deadline.
We all know eating when under stress isn’t good for us. It’s as if we are mindless when we reach for that bag of potato chips, yet we do it. Why? We do it physiologically because stress is a survival response that causes us to crave quick energy food. We do it habitually because we’ve grown up in a culture that models this type of behavior and the media seduces us into believing it’s the thing to do. When we do diet, 97% of us gain it all back within five years. In The Big Fat Health and Fitness Lie, Craig Pepin-Donat state, the “diet industry is amazing — it’s really a $40 billion rip-off.â€
The United States is a country of diets; and most are diets of deprivation. They vary in what we don’t allow ourselves. However, there is a new approach emerging that shifts the model from not being concerned about the experience of eating and just concerned about its effects – to an approach based on the experience of eating. Think of the possibilities – you can lose weight as you enjoy your food more. Although it sounds too good to be true, it is being proven. Recently the WSJ ran an article on a Duke and Indiana State University study showing the efficacy of mindfulness eating.
After all we have invested in panic eating, it’s difficult to believe that if we are mindful and enjoy our food more, we lose weight. Focusing on the experience of eating allows our minds and bodies to slow down; thereby causing our body to go into a parasympathetic response verses the sympathetic response (fight or flight) of mindless eating.
When I had an integrative medicine clinic in Scottsdale, I was also a partner in a business that taught Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Stress Reduction Program. The business didn’t make much money, but we did help many. Near the end of the eight-week course, we would teach mindfulness eating. It was always interesting to hear the comments of how common food tasted different. Only anecdotally did I know eating with awareness would create weight lost. It’s great that a publication like the WSJ is telling us that awareness may give us what diets often can’t – maintained weight loss and enjoying eating.
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Eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables is another way to lose weight and get lots of energy from your food. Eating Raw Food is totally incredible for energy and I have lost weight in the process, even though I wasn’t intending to. All my clothes are almost too big now. I have been eating mostly raw food for almost a year. I love it!!
Good article. I find myself lapsing into wanting to do something else while eating. Like reading or watching something. I feel l need to maximize my time. So that it seems like I never enjoy just eating.