Mindfulness and the science of weight loss

by Caitlin H,

January 8, 2024

Mindfulness and weight loss

Then, you begin your weight loss journey. If you’ve read How to Do It Successfully , you’re probably setting SMART goals and developing a comprehensive plan for success.

You may have chosen or signed up for a healthy eating plan such as Diet-to-Go. You may have signed up for a gym membership or taken a group fitness class. You may have a food journal or app and may have shared your plans with loved ones to increase accountability.

Yes, these things are undoubtedly crucial to achieving your goals.

But there’s one overlooked thing you may not have considered that can play a vital role in ensuring your lifelong success, and that’s the practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is about more than just what you eat and how much you exercise. This means exploring, understanding and controlling the emotional and mental reasons behind unhealthy eating habits – which is so important. In fact, a systematic review of how mindfulness affects weight found that people who practice mindfulness have a much greater chance of maintaining a healthy weight.

Another study found that mindfulness training directly affected a person’s ability to continue making healthy choices after starting a weight loss program. Another systematic review of 19 studies found that “13 of the 19 studies documented significant weight loss among participants in mindfulness intervention.”

But how do you incorporate mindfulness into your daily life, and how do you use this skill to keep your weight loss efforts on track? Here are six simple first steps to help you incorporate mindfulness into your weight loss journey.

Practice calming the mind through meditation

Before using mindfulness for weight loss, you need to learn the basics. Apps like Headspace, Calm, and The Tapping Solution provide a great starting point for teaching you meditation techniques and how to calm your mind. This skill is vital because it helps you see things more clearly, allowing you to make better choices and understand yourself more deeply.

Participate in a body scan

A body scan is when you take a moment, close your eyes, and mentally scan your body from top to bottom. As you do this, you should pay attention to any physical sensations, whether they are comfort or irritation. This may seem silly at first, but a body scan can allow you to develop a deeper connection with your body and show you where stress manifests itself, which may lead to emotional eating.

Identify your triggers

Calming your mind and scanning your body are the first steps in incorporating mindfulness into your weight loss journey. Another key factor is taking the time to understand the triggers of emotional eating, which is defined as using food to cope with emotions rather than satisfy hunger, and is a common cause of weight gain. One way to do this is to keep a food journal to identify the emotions you feel when you eat or snack. From there, analyze your entries and look for patterns. Understanding these patterns means you can look for ways to break them.

Practice mindful eating

In the past, have you often found yourself mindlessly eating a bag of chips or grabbing a handful of cereal while walking around the kitchen? You have no way of keeping track of how many calories you eat, and worse yet, you may not even remember eating them! Mindless eating can really destroy your ability to lose weight. Commit to mindful eating and only eat when you sit down and have your plate placed in front of you. Eliminate distractions when eating and focus on the food itself—how it looks, smells, texture, and taste. Paying close attention to how your body feels when you eat will allow your brain to trigger your body when you’re full so you don’t overeat and enjoy your food.

Try mindfulness exercise

The other side of mindful eating is mindful movement, defined as engaging in only physical activities that you enjoy. When you exercise, whether walking, exercising, cycling, etc., pay close attention to how your body feels. Remind yourself how lucky you are to be able to act this way and find joy in what you do.

accept yourself

Take these steps, even for a week, and you’ll quickly notice how much you’ve learned about yourself. Writing things down along the way can help you gain more understanding. Ultimately, mindfulness is about getting in touch with yourself, identifying your triggers, and reshaping the way you eat and exercise. Learning to accept yourself through mindfulness plays an important role in making behavioral adjustments that will make your success a permanent part of your life.

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Author: Caitlin H
Food community manager

Caitlin is the Diet-to-Go community manager and an avid runner. She is passionate about connecting with others online and maintaining a healthy, active lifestyle. She believes moderation is key and that people will have the greatest weight loss success if they practice common-sense healthy eating and fitness.


Psychology and weight loss



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