What are you hungry for?
When you want to lose weight it’s not uncommon to hear, “it’s easy, just eat less”.
This is a naive statement. Healthy and sustainable weight loss is more involved than just “eating less”. There is a lot to consider. In this post I dive into how the yogic practice of mindfulness could be a useful tool for those looking to lose weight and keep it off.
*DISCLAIMER: This blog is for entertainment and general education purposes only. Please note that content from adds on this site are not endorsed by Peaceful Nutrition unless specifically noted. This blog is not intended to be used as personal health care advice. It offers a glimpse into certain topics, but please be mindful there is always more to consider. For help managing your own health care needs please speak with your primary care provider. You can also book an appointment with me for any nutrition related help! Please also note, yoga is a tool that may be useful to one’s health but it is not the same thing as professional and personalized mental health care provided by a licensed care provider. When viewing the mindfulness bite below, please be mindful of this.
To lose weight and sustain this weight loss means you may need to permanently let go of a part of who you are and how you act.
You may be struggling to lose weight and permanently keep it off. Aside from the obvious potential need to change your diet, another reason may be the need for an identity and behavioral shift. In other words, to lose weight and sustain this weight loss means you may need to permanently let go of a part of who you are and how you act.
Each year many people go on a diet to lose weight. A lot of these people struggle and give up. From a neuroscience perspective it’s actually not surprising this happens. To change your diet also means you need to change the way you relate to food and how you behave. In yoga, they say that to change is to experience a form of ego death. Let’s be real, death obviously isn’t something your mind is going to take lightly! Basically, when you ask it to change you are asking a part of it to cease to exist! That’s scary and alarming to your mind. Technically, from a scientific stance, a part of you is signaling to old neural pathways in your brain that have been firing together for years to just stop abruptly. As this is happening you are also simultaneously trying to create new neural pathways. These new neural pathways will go on to create a new version of you. This is some complicated stuff! It’s hard work and it takes time … possibly some yoga. Research shows that the yogic practice of mindfulness could help with weight loss(1,2,3). Does it mean that it will? No. It means it could. But, again, weight loss and weight management are complicated.
how could Mindfulness help with weight loss?
Mindfulness teaches you to be more aware of your thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. One common epiphany clients share with me as they start to practice mindfulness is they discover sometimes they eat when they aren’t physically hungry. However, even after they become mindful of this, they still sometimes feel a strong compulsion to eat when they aren’t hungry. This prompts me to ask them what they might be hungry for if it isn’t food. This question encourages them to get in touch with a part of themselves they might not be familiar with.
Clients who use mindfulness often find that to lose weight and sustain it means they need to modify a part of themselves. This part might have learned to eat as a way to cope with uncomfortable feelings or unmet needs such as boredom, loneliness, stress, pain or fear. If this is the case, the new part that desires to lose weight will be in direct conflict with this old part; the part that desires to use food as a coping mechanism. Sometimes when people have lived a long-time using food as a coping mechanism they can’t easily identify when they are actually physically hungry or when they mentally crave something else. This is where mindfulness can help…
In this short mindfulness bite below, I use mindfulness to explore ways to differentiate between physical hunger and non-food related hunger. This short practice is designed to provide a small glimpse into how mindfulness could be used as a tool to achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss.
Curious to learn more about mindful eating?
Book an appointment with me!
May you be happy. May you be well. May you find peace.
Jennifer Carlson, MS RDN CYT
References:
1)Dunn C, Haubenreiser M, Johnson M, Nordby K, Aggarwal S, Myer S, Thomas C. Mindfulness Approaches and Weight Loss, Weight Maintenance, and Weight Regain. Curr Obes Rep. 2018 Mar;7(1):37-49. doi: 10.1007/s13679-018-0299-6. PMID: 29446036.
2) Stanton MV, Matsuura J, Fairchild JK, Lohnberg JA, Bayley PJ. Mindfulness as a Weight Loss Treatment for Veterans. Front Nutr. 2016 Aug 15;3:30. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2016.00030. PMID: 27574603; PMCID: PMC4983552.
3)Carpenter KM, Vickerman KA, Salmon EE, Javitz HS, Epel ES, Lovejoy JC. A Randomized Pilot Study of a Phone-Based Mindfulness and Weight Loss Program. Behav Med. 2019 Oct-Dec;45(4):271-281. doi: 10.1080/08964289.2017.1384359. Epub 2017 Nov 7. PMID: 28985151; PMCID: PMC8462129.
4)Alamout MM, Rahmanian M, Aghamohammadi V, Mohammadi E, Nasiri K. Effectiveness of mindfulness based cognitive therapy on weight loss, improvement of hypertension and attentional bias to eating cues in overweight people. Int J Nurs Sci. 2019 Dec 27;7(1):35-40. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2019.12.010. PMID: 32099857; PMCID: PMC7031128.
5)Tapper K, Shaw C, Ilsley J, Hill AJ, Bond FW, Moore L. Exploratory randomised controlled trial of a mindfulness-based weight loss intervention for women. Appetite. 2009 Apr;52(2):396-404. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2008.11.012. Epub 2008 Dec 3. PMID: 19101598.