Tag Archives: mindful eating

Cheat Days Only Cheat Yourself: Why Healthy Eaters Treat Themselves Instead

As a dietitian/nutritionist, I am often asked if I recommend having a cheat day. (A “cheat day,” cheat meal,” or “cheat food” — is a mini-break from a calorie-restricted diet for weight loss.) My answer is that it all depends on how you define cheat. If a cheat day is a feeding frenzy that packs in lots of extra calories, then I’m against it. But if it means making room for high-calorie favorite treats, then I’m all for it. No diet should be so restricted that it doesn’t make room for favorite foods.

Normal variations in day-to-day calorie intake may be in the best interests of health. Studies of intermittent fasting schedules in animals suggest that an intake pattern of highs and lows enhances the body’s ability to cope with biological stress and, maybe, to resist disease.* Variation is the natural course of events and evolution seems to make it work to an advantage.

Consider that healthy eaters who maintain steady weights don’t usually eat the same amount of food every day.

They expect day-to-day variation and they use regular exercise to balance extra calories.
They eat more or fewer calories largely depending on the social situation.
They give themselves permission to eat favorite foods (within reason) as if it’s no big deal.
They may choose to eat more at a special dinner or not. (more…)

Posted on January 30, 2024 by Natalie K

To Lose Weight, “Be Present” (vs. Distracted) During Mealtime

By Janis Jibrin, M.S., R.D., Best Life lead nutritionist

Want to feel more satisfied after meals? You can, if you put your mind to it.

Eating mindfully, which can mean everything from simply noticing what you’re putting in your mouth to practicing stress reduction techniques to help end stress eating, can really help. When you become a more mindful eater, you savor, enjoy, and remember fondly each bite and sip of your meal. The end result: You’ll feel more satisfied and less likely to rummage around for more food.

In a recent University of Southern California review of 21 mindful eating studies, 18 of them helped improve in eating habits, cut calorie intake, and reduced bingeing.

There are entire books on the subject, so I won’t attempt to cover every aspect. Instead, here are my top five strategies; they work for me—and have helped people who’ve come to me for nutritional counseling.

Identify why you’re eating or drinking. Is it because you’re actually hungry? (Rating your hunger for a week can be an eye-opener.) Or are you eating because you’re bored, stressed, or have another emotional trigger? Is it just habit (as in “I always have a 3 p.m. snack.)? Name the reason without judgment or guilt; these negative emotions can stress you out, driving you to overeat even more. (more…)

Posted on April 22, 2023 by BestLifeDiet

What NOT to Do When Dining Out, from a Guy Who’s Lost Over 100 Pounds

You would think that after losing over 100 pounds, getting in the best shape of my life, maintaining it for 5 years. becoming a weight loss coach, motivational speaker and published author on the book “Fat Boy to Fit Man: A One Step at a Time Story of Success“, that it would be easy for me not to revert to old habits, right? WRONG!

Although it has become some what easier for me than when I first started on this journey, there are still times that I fall prey to the desires of wanting to eat mindlessly. (Eat mindlessly. HA! Who am i kidding? Pigging out is really what I want to do sometimes.)

Just last weekend, my fiancee and I went out to meet some friends for brunch. That morning I had gone to the gym and done an intense work out. Shortly after I arrived home and showered we left for our Sunday brunch. I was STARVING, yet I didn’t eat anything post work out because I reasoned that I was going to have a nice meal at brunch. BIG MISTAKE! Before we even got to the restaurant, my stomach was growling and I was about to chew my fiancee’s arm off! (Ok, I’m exaggerating. I was just going to nibble on her ear!)

Posted on March 14, 2024 by GuestBlogger

How the Gift of Presence Can Help You Lose Weight This Season

Holidays can be challenging, especially when it comes to the variety and amount of food you encounter at gatherings. That’s why this can be a time of year you look forward to, and yet dread. If you struggle with your weight, should you do your best to make peace with the scale? Or should you avoid it all together; after all, you can always start again with the new year, right? Instead, we say plan accordingly.

Remaining present can be a challenge. Knowing what to expect this time of year and planning to approach it a bit differently can make a big difference in maintaining your weight and experiencing more peace, love, and joy (with yourself) this time of year.

Retrofit offers a personalized approach to weight loss and a sustainable, healthy lifestyle by identifying the key challenge(s) individuals face when trying to lose weight anytime of year. Each client takes a Lifestyle Patterns Assessment (LPA) developed by Dr. Robert Kushner, a weight-loss physician with decades of experience. The pattern(s) identified for each individual allows the Behavior Coach (or Weight Loss Coach) and client to work on the area(s) keeping him or her from being successful at losing the weight for good.

Clients are rarely surprised by their LPA results; they usually know what they should do to lose weight and make healthier choices. We use the patterns identified to build successful strategies. In short, the Behavior Coach helps clients close the gap between what they know and what they actually do, providing encouragement along the way. (more…)

Posted on December 5, 2023 by GuestBlogger

Mindfully Eat Your Way to Weight Loss This Fall

In many parts of the country, fall is one of the most beautiful times of the year. Other bonuses of the season including being able to exercise outdoors without fear of heat stroke and the holidays are quickly bringing family an friends together. However, that’s also a downside. With the holidays comes the lure of many enticing foods that will quickly pack on the pounds. Fad diets that promise quick weight loss may show results at first, but many times lost weight is regained as soon as the holiday decor is taken down.

Before this holiday season gives you even more reasons to overeat, change your bad eating habits in favor of ones with lasting weight loss.

We spoke with Susan Albers, PsyD., a clinical psychologist and author of Eating Mindfully, to hear her advice on how to achieve weight loss goals through permanent changes in eating habits.

“Seventy-five percent of overeating is caused by emotions, yet most of our diets focus on food, which is why they fail,” she said. “They don’t teach what to do for cravings or slip ups.”

Instead of another diet failing, focus on what she calls mindful eating. It’s not a diet with menus or recipes, instead it’s about changing psychological habits. “It’s more about how you eat than what you eat,” Dr. Albers said. (more…)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by SarahS

Practice Meditation and Mindful Eating to Control Cravings and Lose Weight

The results of an experiment conducted by a team of researchers at UC San Francisco suggest mindful eating and meditation are factors in helping people control their junk food cravings and lose weight. “By recognizing what you are feeling before you act [eat] you have a greater chance of making a wiser decision,” claims researcher Jennifer Daubenmier.

Dr. Catherine Kerr, a meditation expert at Brown University responded to the findings of this study by saying it was consistent with several other brain studies that suggest mindfulness brings about changes to the part of the brain responsible for food cravings. She further explained that mindful eating and meditation actually rewire the brain to tune into the body in a healthier way.

If you are skeptical because you find it hard to believe that just sitting quietly in meditation is going to melt the pounds from your hips, why don’t you give it a try?

Meditation Practice

Before a meal, take at least 10 minutes to sit in a comfortable position, free from distractions like the computer or telephone. Close your eyes and pay attention to sensations throughout your body. Perhaps you are very hungry, and you feel your stomach growling as it pines for nourishment. Be present with the sensations that you are feeling and resist the temptation to give in to any one of them. If you find yourself craving a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy, instead of going for it, get familiar with how it feels to crave them, without trying to change those feelings. Accepting how you feel without resistance is very important. This will help you avoid succumbing to your cravings so you can realize your weight loss goals.

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Posted on December 22, 2023 by Jill

Learn How to be a More Intuitive Eater

By Lisa Turner for Care2.com

As obsessed as we are with food and diets, you’d think we’d be thin and healthy by now. So why are we Americans still universally less-than-fit and soft around the middle?

The fact is, diet tips, rules and tricks won’t work if we’re ignoring the mental and emotional side of eating. Why do we still overeat—or eat the wrong things? Most of the time, when we’re craving cookies, we’re really hungry for love, sex, friendship, peace, a sense of purpose and meaning. And when you’re gripped by that kind of hunger, all the tips and tricks in the world won’t save you.

Next time you’re ready to embark on the next fix-me-fast diet, try something different: instead of focusing on the food, tune in to address the emotions that make you stray. Here’s how to start: (more…)

Posted on September 5, 2023 by GuestBlogger

5 Strategies for Beating Mindless Eating

Whether you’re at your computer chomping on a bag of pretzels or watching television shoveling spoonful after spoonful of ice cream into your mouth, mindless munching is one surefire way to pack on the pounds. In fact, just mindlessly eating 100 calories a day, the equivalent of a large apple or a palmful of almonds, can lead to gaining up to 10 pounds in a year.

To prevent this mindless eating weight gain, put into practice these five ways to beat unintentional extra calories.

1. Never get too hungry. The more powerful your stomach growls, the more likely you are to ravenously consume a surge of calories before your body and brain can register that you’ve had enough. Therefore, aim to eat every three to four hours with meals and snacks comprised of healthy carbs, good fats and a lean protein.

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Posted on April 25, 2023 by heather

Overeating Blamed on TV Background Noise

This isn’t the first time that someone has suggested that you not eat in front of the television. Generally the reasoning is that you will pay more attention to how much you are eating when you are not focused on your favorite show. The BBC is reporting recent research that suggests that the background noise of the television actually diminishes how much you taste the foods you are eating. The lead author on the study, Andy Woods, explained that they wanted to try to understand why airline food is notoriously bad. I had always figured it was a cost-cutting and logistics issue, but maybe not.

Experiment participants were asked to rate the overall flavor, sweetness, saltiness, and crunchiness of foods while blindfolded and wearing headphones. The headphones of the control group played no sound, while the experimental group heard white noise, like what you would hear on an airplane or with a fan nearby. The louder the white noise was, the less sweetness or saltiness the participants reported; however, they did report more crunchiness as noise increased. (more…)

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Brooke Randolph

You Can Have Your Party Feast and Eat it Too

Josie Maurer is a freelance writer and founder of YumYucky.com. She lost over 40 pounds after the birth of her fourth child through sensible eating and exercise, yet she still maintains her love for large slices of cake.

Watch out for that party food! Are you hungry for dining out? When it’s time to enjoy a happy food extravaganza, it can be hard to stay on course with healthy eating. Restaurants do not typically post nutrition numbers on their menus, and dinner parties are a haven for delicious hors d’oeuvres as the thirsty cocktails flow. But how can you enjoy the eating bliss from an occasional night out without that bloated, guilty feeling as try to burn the fat?

Healthy eating plays a major role in your weight loss results. Moderation is important, too, but you should also give yourself some wiggle room to delight in all kinds of delicacies, especially given the opportunity to enjoy a special eating occasion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shares this same philosophy. In a January 2024 article published on the CDC website, they state: “Healthy eating is all about balance. You can enjoy your favorite foods even if they are high in calories, fat or added sugars. The key is eating them only once in a while and balance them out with healthier foods and more physical activity.”

You can savor the tasty moments of a food event and still achieve your fitness goals. Eating like a bird is not required. So how do you do it? (more…)

Posted on September 11, 2023 by GuestBlogger

Yoga for Weight Loss

Most people begin a yoga practice to capitalize on the stress-reducing benefits of this ancient mind-body discipline. But one of the little known gems about yoga is its ability to support weight loss.

While it may be hard to believe that a few stretches and downward dogs can actually torch calories, yoga’s weight loss effects have much more to do with the mindfulness that yoga engenders and less to do with the actual asanas, or postures. That is not to say that yoga asanas don’t produce a calorie burn or stimulate muscle growth, which they do. Both of these factors significantly contribute to weight loss by helping your body expend more calories than you consume and developing muscle tissue burns, which burns more calories than fat tissue.

Here is what you need to know about yoga and weight loss.

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Posted on July 6, 2023 by heather

Tag Archives: mindful eating

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