Weight loss: how to eat mindfully?

“Mindfulness meditation is about focusing on the present moment and observing one’s thoughts, emotions, sensations.“, explained in 2012 to the World Jon Kabat-Zinn, theorist of the MBSR program (mindfullness-based stress reduction or “stress reduction through mindfulness”). “It is a training of the mind, as one trains a muscle , to be present in what we do, to come back to ourselves, to the sensory experience, to our thoughts, to our body, to what surrounds us”, explains Géraldine Desindes, therapist and teacher of the Eat and Live program in full consciousness with Medisite. “It’s about no longer let your mind get lost in the pattern of thoughts that follow one another, by bringing our attention back to what we are doing, with gentleness and will.”

Mindfulness is an attitude that can be experienced during meditation sessions and even on a daily basis. This can be while taking a shower, taking a walk, or feeding. “Eating mindfully is regularly return to oneself, be attentive to bodily sensations, hunger, filling of one’s stomachto his senses and his emotions”, continues the specialist. To achieve this, it is advisable to turn off the screens, take the time to eat and savor what you have put on your plate.

It is out of the question, however, to erect mindfulness as a new tool that could constrain women’s bodies. “You can lose weight by practicing mindfulness, but that’s not what matters in the first place. What matters, it is to be able to observe that we have eaten too much or that we have respected the quantity that we need at the present moment”, recalls the therapist. “It is important to carry out these observations without judgment or criticism and with kindness.” From these observations will come the changes thanks to the instinct and the landmarks finally found: a diet and quantities that allow you to be in harmony with yourself.

Weight loss: mindful eating is not dieting

“I see in my programs people who have been eating with their heads for years. They followed multiple restrictive diets and they have learned to control their body by forgetting bodily sensations from which they are therefore very far away,” notes Géraldine Desindes. “And in the vast majority of cases, they regained weight afterwards.”

Concretely, when we eat mindfully, we know where we are and what we still need when we eat. “It’s not about strict control with immediate results like in traditional diets. It’s all about trust the wisdom of the body that knows how much it needs, physiologically and psychologically. »

Food: every meal is different

In her program, Géraldine Desindes works with her students on the feeling of stomach filling. “With exercises, we manage to have a fine detection of the filling of our stomach. It is through this conscious observation that we will know adjust food intake, explains the specialist. Eating when you don’t feel hungry but because it’s time, finishing your plate because it’s part of education or helping yourself because you’re used to it… Mindfulness allows you to observe your food automatisms and allows to put in place the new behaviors that you want to develop. We leave our habits behind, because every meal is different.

Working on eating behavior is also work on the psyche. Thus, mindfulness allows us to understand what we mentally fill by “using food as a mood regulator”. This allows learning to differentiate between physiological hunger and emotional hunger. “Why does a person need to eat to feel calm? It is necessary to understand and work on these food impulses to put an end to these filling mechanisms”says the specialist.

Slimming: knowing how to take care of yourself

During the eight-week program, the trainer notably offers exercises on self-knowledge, on the feeling of fullness, instinctive hunger, listening to one’s needs, formal and informal practice of mindfulness. “Weight loss is sometimes limited over these two months, but if you have integrated mindfulness into your life, the results will be very concrete quite quickly. You have to make peace with your diet and your body image in particular”, she assures. Students learn to regain mind-body contact. To achieve this, “indoor weather exercises can be conducted : ‘How do I really feel at this precise moment? It is important to know put words on his feelings to be able to take care of himself.”

Take care of yourself ? It is also to feel that the body needs to lighten up. “It is completely legitimate to wish to climb stairs with 10 kilos less, because we will breathe better or we will have less pain in the knee. It is not the same intention as that which consists in wanting to lose weight. weight only because a doctor said so or because you want to look like someone else. Losing weight because you take care of yourself is a sustaining energy”concludes Géraldine Desindes.

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Weight loss: how to eat mindfully?


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