Mindful Eating to break those unhealthy habits

Sometimes it is hard to break old habits. Especially if your daily routine is full on busy. Often, we just grab a bite on the run without thinking of the health ramifications. If you’re looking to lose weight and get healthy you may need to change your eating habits. Here are a few tips to help.

Plan your food ahead

Firstly, make a plan and prep your meals. These days we are living in a high-speed, grab-and-go society, where you’re running around and just grab anything to eat along the way. This is where we start to make unhealthier choices as they are often the easiest choice. However, having no focus on how and what you eat leads to unhealthy habits. If you plan and prep your meals, they will be ready to go when you are. This will help you eat healthier.

When to eat

You need to stop and think about what you are eating, and also when you are eating. Are you actually hungry or not? Also, recognising if you are full or not is important. Don’t keep eating just because it is there. Once you are half full stop eating. Healthy eating is half food, quarter liquid and the rest air for digestion. Keep your portions smaller to stop overeating. We also need to try and slow eating down and focus on chewing properly. If you rush through your meals, it will make you feel less satiated. When you rush and have no focus your body is consuming the food with your sympathetic nervous system switched on. This makes it more likely for your body to store most of it as fat and it creates the potential for indigestion. Your stress hormones raise your blood sugar making it likely that you will want to eat a sugary snack later on.

Eating mindfully

Eating mindfully is one way to help you with good eating habits. Eating mindfully is when you engage all your senses and pay attention to your food. This attention needs to start not just when you start eating but through the whole process. Start from buying the food to preparing and then your eating. It will help you recognise triggers for being hungry for both emotional and physical hunger. This means you can then curb your eating and only eat when you are actually physically hungry.

Shopping mindfully

Shopping mindfully happens easier when you write a shopping list to help you avoid buying things you don’t need. You need to identify and acknowledge your cravings when shopping. Make a conscious decision not to buy the foods you simply crave as usually these are not very nutritious.

Eating mindfully

Sit at a table or away from your desk at work and stop doing what you were doing beforehand. Don’t eat on the run. Clear a space, free of mess, and lay down some cutlery. Make time to eat and enjoy it. It’s best if you’re relaxed before you eat. This is so that your body can shift your nervous system and allow it to work better. This will help your body extract maximum nutrition from your meal. Posture is also important, so sit up tall as bad posture can send stress signals to your nervous system.

You also need to remove all distractions. Put down the phone, and turn off the TV. Be fully present while eating, and focus on enjoying the food. Eat slowly and savour your meal. This will help you maintain a healthy digestive system. Chew your food until it loses all texture before you swallow it and let your mouth rest before taking another bite. You need to listen to your body and know when to stop eating.

How to take action now

If you need help to get started with changing your eating habits, need to lose weight or have allergies, sensitivities, inflammation or other issues eating certain foods check out our website at  www.stressfreehealthmanagement.com as we can set you on the right track. Our trained naturopaths, hypnotherapists, nutritionists and sensitivity testers can help with inflammation tests, menus, hypnotherapy for weight loss and to manage your allergies and much more. Call or message now. (Pic thanks to Brodie from Burst)

Sugar onslaught – It’s just so bad for your health

Sugar is bad for us and we know it adds to obesity, being more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes and can cause a whole variety of health issues. Sugar is highly addictive because it causes the release of opioids and dopamine, which increase feelings of pleasure in the body, but unfortunately your body gets used to the level of these quite quickly and craves even greater quantities of sugar. The maximum recommended daily intake of sugar is 6 teaspoons in a day which as a natural therapist I find pretty high. Given that there is a lot of added sugar in many foods we eat we probably have that level already in our daily intake without adding sugar to anything.

Fructose

Fructose, a simple component found in added sugars we use can affect the Leptin hormones, which tells your brain when you are full, thus running the risk of continuously over eating. Adding sugar to hot drinks to make them sweeter also adds to us eating too much sugar. This then causes excessive weight gain. By reducing the amount of sugary foods you eat and remembering to give your body time to adjust, usually about a couple of weeks, the addiction to sugar will get less. Take a walk to reduce cravings or eat some protein rich foods such as eggs.

Fructose can affect your organs in a negative way. Fructose can cause your liver to start to store fat even around itself and other organs. This excess sugar in turn raises our insulin levels which then can lead to insulin resistance, high blood pressure and other health problems like heart disease. Research from the USA has even found a link between insulin resistance, high fat diets and Alzheimer’s disease. The research also showed that the brain can be affected by the way it uses glucose. Rats that were tested showed that sweet and fatty foods are associated in triggering Alzheimer’s. Added sugar in your diet can also create an excess in unhealthy cholesterol in the body and too much sugar can lead to depression.

What to do 

These are just a few of the reasons it’s important to eliminate sugar from your diet so start reading labels of the foods you eat and no matter how healthy it says a product is remember, if it contains sugar, it takes away from any other healthy ingredients in it. Get rid of the packaged food and just eat two fruits a day, vegetables and a minimum of one serve of protein be it meat, fish, beans or lentils. Drink lots of pure, filtered water and exercise at least three times a week and very soon you will find many of your health issues will start to disappear.

Aussies and weight gain – there is a solution

Did you know that over half of us Aussies are overweight, despite the fact many of us eat lots of sugar free, fat free, light diet food and drinks. This is because, even though the food is labelled diet it doesn’t always mean it’s a healthy choice.

Low kilojoule meals are one example. These meals are great when it comes to portion control but they are full of carbohydrates such as white flour, rice potatoes and often full of sugar. These white refined carbohydrates can cause overeating as they lack fibre and are digested quickly leaving you feeling hungry sooner than high fibre, slow release carbohydrates such as brown pasta, sweet potato and brown rice. 

Another meal that can cause overeating because it leaves you feeling unfulfilled are protein shakes and meal replacement shakes. These shakes may help you lose some weight in the beginning but they are impossible to sustain for a long period of time and keep the weight off.

Low carb labels don’t always mean low kilojoules or that it is a healthy choice, as well as the low-fat labels. Be careful to what you are buying because these ‘diet’ products are usually full of sugar or artificial sugar which are both bad for your health, not to mention the high salt content. You need to pay attention to the nutrition labels on the back of the packet rather than the big labels on the front of a product that are marketed to sell.

For best results for not only weight loss but a healthier body is to eat a well-balanced diet of whole grains, vegetables, fruit and proteins such as lean meat, chicken, pork and fish. Also eating proper portion sizes is needed because even if you are eating the right things eating too much can contribute to weight gain. We also need to stay active and exercise. Drinking enough water is also important. It is recommended to drink up to two litres of water a day.

Your diet may not be the only reason you are gaining weight, other things that can contribute to weight gain include thyroid and/or hormone problems, digestive issues such as not going to empty your bowels every day and metabolic syndrome. If you are struggling with your weight the you may want to get your health checked out. Consult a nutritionist to ask about foods as that is what they are trained to help you with and a hypnotherapist for help with diet portions and to control your cravings.