Mindful Eating Series with The Grounded Therapist (#2)

Mindful Eating can be helpful in so many different aspects of healthy eating: it can help naturally reduce portion sizes (if you tend to over eat due to emotions or mindlessness), it can help reduce emotions that can lead to eating when not hungry and improve confidence in food choices. It does, however, take some practice to truly work. That is why actively taking part in activities that increase mindfulness are integral and is how/why this series came about! 

Here is what Rachel, the Grounded Therapist, had to say about Mindful Eating in Part 2 of our series: 

I really wanted to title this post: Mindful Eating part 2 Electric Boogaloo but that would not have made this post easy to find. I’m not sure about you, but I was hiding from the polar vortex this weekend. Being “trapped” in my home here in CT is one of the worst times for me find myself eating when I am not hungry (aka not being mindful). In general, I am a high energy kind of gal, however (is anyone else an unending contradiction?) I love being at home. While it is not an ideal plan for eating for me (I know I should eat high volume, filling meals) I love to graze! LOVE IT! Little pieces of this, little parts from that and before I know it, a whole package of cheese and a box of crackers are gone. It gets worse when I become bored, want a distraction or just because I see something in my pantry (Red Flag Rachel, you are not being mindful!). It’s tough. When I am home and enjoying some much-needed downtime, it’s actually the worst time for my mindful eating practice. ARGH!

At the end of this post be sure to check out Lisa’s excellent tips and tricks to use mindfulness to catch yourself not being hungry and still eating. My two favorites are: identifying hunger vs cravings and the hunger scale. CHECK IT OUT!

Without further ado, here is Part 2 of our Mindful Eating Series:

In the first installment, we focused on observing what is going on outside our body as well as inside before eating.
• Did you learn anything surprising?
• Are there specific people or environments that influence what or how much you eat?
• Are there any changes you made to your thoughts or environment that may positively impact your eating?
• Are there any patterns to your trouble spots during the day where you may be eating mindlessly or emotionally?

Taking even just a short moment to tune into your thoughts and emotions as well as what is happening around you can help you be more present (at the moment) and better able to hear your hunger and fullness cues. More on that in a moment.

But first, perhaps the MOST important philosophy of mindfulness is being aware of all these things without criticizing or judging yourself. For example, you are feeling stressed at your desk at work and want to eat your lunch but it’s only 10 am and you are not hungry. Rather than judging yourself and thinking: “what is wrong with me? I just had breakfast! How am I supposed to get through the day if all I want to do it eat!?”, try understanding the situation and how it is affecting you- “I am feeling stressed which usually pushes me to eat. Also, my stress is mounting with the constant chiming of emails. What I need to do is decrease my stress and food won’t do that…but a small walk to the bathroom might help me relax”.

Hearing and correctly interpreting hunger signals is integral to becoming your own expert on food. Judging yourself for feeling hungry or too full makes listening and interpreting harder to do. It can be helpful to aim to set the criticizing and judgment of food and weight aside for a few days to understand how freeing it is to live without them.

There are many things you can practice to better hear and interpret hunger and fullness signals. The first place to start is with a simple question before engaging in eating: Am I hungry?
Before reaching for a snack or sitting down to a meal, find a quiet place (ideally away from food) to check in with your body’s hunger level. It may help to write out a list of physical sensations you have when actually hungry (vs experiencing a craving) and use it at this moment of checking in. The more you practice checking in with head hunger (ex. cravings or appetite) vs stomach hunger (actual need for energy), the easier and more intuitive it becomes.

It can be hard to hear subtle hunger cues and if you are anything like me, you may like a step by step guidance through this new eating territory. Practice listening for the cues before eating by following these steps:

1. Move away from the food or do this exercise before coming into contact with food such as before walking into the restaurant, kitchen or party. You can do this in your car, in the bathroom or in another room of your house.
2. Calm down by taking a few deep breaths.
3. Connect with your body and physical sensation. Place a hand on your abdomen and picture your stomach. How
full is it? How empty is it?
4. Ask yourself “Am I hungry?” “What physical hunger/fullness sensations am I feeling?”
5. Observe if there are any other physical signals or sensation? (ex. Edgy, weak, tired, thirsty?).
6. Notice your thoughts in this moment. Are you rationalizing eating? Feeling guilty or ashamed?
7. Beware of any negative thoughts you may have and let them go before eating.

That’s it- just practice noticing the difference between being hungry or wanting to eat for another reason. Wondering what to do if you are not hungry but want to eat? Stay tuned! There is more to come

BONUS! Understanding if you are hungry or not is a big step. If this activity comes easy to you, then try this bonus step #8: if you are truly hungry, start to evaluate how hungry you are using a mindfulness hunger scale. On a scales of 1-10, where 1 means starving or ravenous and 10 means so stuffed you feel sick, try to determine what level your hunger is at before eating. This can be used as a guide for portion size.

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What is mindful eating?

I talk a lot about mindful eating and how it can help you manage your weight, reduce any disordered eating and help repair your relationship with food. Understanding what mindful eating is and how to practice it is the challenging part. Not because it is hard to do but because it takes time, inner reflection and lots of practice.

Being a mindful eater means noticing the colors, smells, flavors, and textures of your food; chewing slowly; getting rid of distractions like TV or reading; and learning to cope with guilt and anxiety about food.
Noticing these things means deliberately paying attention, being fully aware of what is happening both inside and outside yourself. In your body means in your heart and mind such as any emotions or thoughts you may be having- "I am stressed" or "I feel fat". As well as outside yourself, in your surroundings- like at your desk with emails coming in every 2 minutes or alone in the kitchen with everyone gone to bed.

Noticing how eating affects our mood and how our emotions like anxiety influence our eating is important. Mindfulness includes paying attention to the experience in our body. Where in the body do we feel hunger? (in the head or in the stomach?) What does half-full feel like, or three quarters full?

One other very important aspect of mindfulness is being aware of all these things without criticising or judging yourself. For example, you are feeling stressed at your desk at work and want to eat your lunch but it's only 10am and you are not hungry. Rather than judging yourself and thinking:"what is wrong with me? I just had breakfast! How am I supposed to get through the day if all I want to do it eat!?", try being more aware of the situation- "I am feeling stressed which usually pushes me to eat. Also, my stress is mounting with the constant chiming of emails. What I need to do is decrease my stress and food won't do that...but a small walk to the bathrooms might help me relax".

Eating mindfully can sound a bit abstract and practicing concrete activities to increase mindfulness can help you get started. Gradually start to become more mindful of when, how and what you eat as well as what influences you to eat. Start by dedicating one meal a week or a day to eating more slowly and more attentively. Try these tips:

-Set a timer to 20 minutes and take the whole time to eat a normal sized meal.
-Try eating the meal with your non dominant hand to slow you down. You can also use chopsticks to do this.
-Eat in silence for 5 minutes and think about how your food was grown, produced, prepared and cooked.
-Take small bites and chew well.
-Try to guess all the spices and herbs used in the dish.
-Notice how the crunchy food feels between your teeth or the silky food feels on your tongue.
-Is the food as good or tasty as you expected?

The next few steps to take is to become more aware of your hunger signals (Am I hungry? and if so, how hungry?), fullness signals and triggers that may influence your appetite or desire to eat.

Reading through a book, using a workbook or talking to a registered dietitian about mindful eating can be very helpful in getting started or to help maintain mindfulness. You can read more about mindful eat and intuitive eating in past blogs here, here, here  and here (you can also search my blog for posts related to mindful and intuitive eating).

Is sleep the missing factor for weight management?

As most health professionals who work in the weight management field already know, the simple advice of "eat less, exercise more" is far removed from the complicated answer to weight loss. New research suggests there is another major fact that can influence your risk for gaining weight and it has nothing to do with how much or little exercise you do or food you eat (well...at least not directly related...): SLEEP.
We all know that lack of sleep is detrimental to our health but does it influence our weight?

Apparently, for adults, if you sleep less than 6 hours a night, your risk for being obese is raised by a factor of 3.8 (compared to adults who slept 7-8hrs) and in one study, this was the greatest impact on the participants' weight. Other impacts on weight included a high dis-inhibition behavior (one meaning is interpreted as overeating in response to external cues, or cues not related to hunger. External cues include other people eating or ads on TV), low calcium intake and high hunger behavior.
Other studies have shown that over 9hrs of sleep are also associated with more likelihood of weight gain. Therefore, it is recommended that adults aim for 7-8hrs of sleep per night.

However, if you were thinking about catching up on sleep a few nights of the week while skimping on other nights, think again. Other studies have shown that when you are sleep deprived (say 4hrs of sleep), your body produces hormones and signals that increase hunger and appetite. One study showed that the sleep deprived participants ate 559 more calories the day following 4hrs of sleep.

Sleeping less increases hormones that increase hunger and appetite, not to mention that when you are awake longer you have more opportunity to eat AND if you are tired, you are less likely to exercise.
So if you are trying to lose weight keep in mind that sleeping fewer than 7 hours can impact compliance to a lower calorie diet! And if you are trying to maintain your weight, increasing sleep to 7-8hrs per night can limit fat gain over time.

References: 
Brondel et al. Am J Clin Nut (2010)
Chaput et al. Int. J Obes (2011)(2006)
Chaput and Tremblay. Physiol Behav (2007)
Tremblay, Mathieu, Chaput. Obesity (2009)
Spiegel et al. Lancet (1999)
Spiegel et al. Ann Intern Med (2004)
Chaput et al. Sleep (2008)
Chaput et al. Obesity (2009)
Arlet et al. Ann Intern Med (2010)
Schmid et al. Am J Clin Nut (2009)

Not too much, not too little...just right

Listening to your body's signals is a good long term strategy for weight management. However, if you are just starting out and find it challenging to "eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full", here are a few ways to help you recognize when you have eaten enough:


1. Recognize and experience the feeling of hunger. Practice experiencing true hunger by avoiding eating for at least 4 hours. The goal is to feel and understand the sensation of hunger.

2. Create a routine. Eating a similar breakfast everyday and eating at regular hours your lunch and supper can help your hunger signals get into a routine. The goal is to feel hungry (not starving) before meals and satisfied between meals.

3. Concentrate on the flavours. Take small bites, one at a time to allow your mouth and brain to savour the flavours! The better the flavour experience, the more satisfied we feel with the meal.

4. Pause ½ way through the meal. Take the time to evaluate your hunger levels. If you are experiencing less pleasure with the food, you have likely eaten enough.

5. Avoid distractions while eating. Try to focus on the task at hand by avoiding doing more than one thing at a time. Ex. watching TV, reading or studying while eating.

6. Identify cravings versus hunger. Determine what influences the onset of cravings so that you are better prepared to manage them. Keeping a journal of cravings to help ID emotions, environments and times of the day that may bring about cravings.

7. Do not eat now to avoid eating later on. Avoid eating “in case” you get hungry later on. Focus on the moment at hand and bring a snack if you are afraid hunger may strike.

8. Only YOU can judge your needs. Don’t eat to please someone or to anger them. Only you know how hungry you are and can estimate how much food you need to satisfy that hunger.

9. Practice moderation. Try eating “just enough” and evaluate how you feel physically and mentally. Decrease portions to get a better feel for how much you need to feel satisfied and full after a meal.

10. Slow down. Stretch meals out to be at least 20 minutes long. This will help hunger signals reach the brain before you eat too much.

Hungry for the truth?

Eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. These guidelines may be easy to understand but are definitely harder to follow. The idea of "eating mindfully" is a new trend in the weight management world. The concept draws on our innate ability to listen to our body's signals of hunger and fullness. However, many of us have stopped listening to these signals a long time ago and have a hard time unscrambling the messages.

One step towards clearly hearing and understanding these signals is to first recognize what they are in their physical form. What exactly do I physically feel when I am truly hungry? Some examples are feeling irritable, an emptiness in your stomach, a gnawing feeling, grumbling in your stomach, headache, shakiness and inability to concentrate.

When we are stimulated into feeling hungry by an outside stimulus, such as the smell of dinner cooking, or seeing donuts in the break room or watching someone else eat, we can have the illusion we are hungry. It may be more a stimulation of our appetite than a true hunger. Removing yourself from the situation for a moment to evaluate your physical symptoms of hunger can help you to determine if the motivation to eat is based on our eyes or your stomach. Some useful tips are to determine your level of true hunger before encountering the stimulus:
-sitting in the car before walking into the house for supper
-take a moment to walk out of the kitchen to determine how hungry you are (ex. in the bathroom) and thus honestly determining how big you portions should be for the meal.
-being honest with yourself regarding the last time you ate (was it only an hour ago?)

If you are still not sure if you are truly hungry, wait 20 minutes before eating. If the symptoms do not go away and get worse, you body is likely asking to be fed.

Knowing the signs of fullness is also important. How do you know when you are full? Again, observing yourself and recording your personal physical signs can be quite eye opening. Feeling full and satisfied after a meal is not the same as feeling bloated or stuffed and ideally, by listening to fullness signals, those signs of overeating will be avoided.
If you are not sure if you are full with the quantities you have eaten, give yourself time to digest. It is likely that in 20 minutes you will feel satisfied. REMEMBER, if you are hungry later, you have the right to eat.
Take the time to measure your level of fullness halfway through the meal.

Only by practicing listening to your body do the messages of hunger and fullness become decoded. It takes practice but in the end, your body is the best determinant of how much food you need!

Surfs up!

Food cravings are a natural part of life but many people think of them as their worst enemy. Most people think they are alone in the battle to outsmart cravings and don't realise that will power or self control often has little to do with them. The trick is in how you deal with them because ultimately that is what we have to do- manage our cravings, not hope that they will one day disappear.

Firstly, identifying what behaviours spark your cravings is a priority. There are different situations that can encourage cravings to arise more often, such as:

WHY? Dieting and severely restricting what you eat can make cravings stronger. Often we want what we can’t have.

SOLUTION: Don’t try to avoid “bad” foods forever! Save them for special occasions. Don’t be scared to eat a small amount of any food.

WHY? Putting foods into categories of good and bad. Trying to totally avoid certain foods can lead to over eating them in the end.

SOLUTION: Stop labelling foods as "good and bad", "legal and illegal" or "forbidden and allowed". The food itself is not bad, often it’s the quantity. Stop feeling guilty about eating special foods. Allow yourself to include your favourite foods into your life in moderation and without feeling guilty.

WHY? Eating way too few calories.

SOLUTION: Eat 3 balanced meals per day. Skipping meals leads you to feel hungrier at the next meal and makes it hard to watch portion sizes.

WHY? Habit and expecting certain foods at certain times, places and with certain people can lead to craving them.

SOLUTION: Start new habits. If you always eat with around a certain person, chose an activity that cannot include eating.Change the environment you are in to discourage mindless eating. Sit in a different chair, in a different room, etc…

WHY?If we look to be comforted by food when we are stressed, our body learns to expect pleasure and comfort from certain foods.

SOLUTION: Exercise regularly. This not only helps to burn calories but it also helps to relieve stress and anxieties due to cravings.

WHY? Having cupboards stocked with sugary, high fat foods (or the foods you crave).

SOLUTION: Buy smaller portions of the foods you crave.Portion out the amount you want to eat- don’t eat directly out of the box/bag/carton.

To help yourself manage your cravings, try to understand them. Is there a pattern? Are you setting yourself up for more cravings by doing some of the things mentioned above?

You cannot always control the occurrence of cravings but you can control your reactions to them.Think of cravings as suggestions to eat, not opportunities to overindulge.

Lastly. disarm your cravings with the 5 D's:

1. Delay: wait 10 minutes before you eat
2. Distract: keep yourself occupied with an activity that requires your attention
3. Distance: don’t keep food handy at all times and within easy reach
4. Determine: establish how important it is for you to eat this food.
5. Decide: what exactly you are craving: something salty? Sweet? Sour? Hot? Cold? Decide what food item you want to eat. Portion out a reasonable serving of the food you crave. Put the rest of the food away, out of site. Sit down, eat slowly and enjoy the food.

Have faith in yourself that all cravings will pass. Think of a craving as a wave and you are a surfer who is trying to ride the wave, not wipe out because of it. The more you practice riding the wave, the better you get.