How To Eat More Mindfully (Prevent Overeating)
How To Eat More Mindfully (Prevent Overeating)
Written by Assistant Coach Mari
For a lot of us, hunger cues are not a reliable form of information when deciding how much and how often to eat; whether it be because we have been yo-yo dieting for too long, eating way too little calories as an attempt to lose weight, or relying on emotional eating to co-regulate our nervous system. Even though the body is still the most reliable source of information about what you need, first we need to recalibrate your body and your mind’s communication in order to move forward in a sustainable way. Only after that, you can more easily trust in what your body is trying to tell you.
Recalibrating your body-mind communication
The easiest way to accomplish this is by maintaining a consistent number of calories in/calories out, as well as macros percentage, for at least 3-6 months.
This is more easily done with the help and support of a trainer who can do the math and let you know the amount you should be eating in relation to your exercise levels. If you can consistently eat the same amount of calories/macros and keep a consistent level of activity, your body will automatically start to recalibrate itself. Though you may find that in the beginning it might signal all sorts of weird food needs (you might feel too full at times, or starving at other times), if you push through you’ll notice that your body will eventually realize that there is consistency in your diet now and it will eventually soften into the caloric intake. Change too often too soon will impede this process from fully consolidating, so patience is important. After this period of time, you will start noticing that your body will only push you to eat more (or less) when it truly needs (or doesn’t). These signals will not be alike the hunger cues you might have had before because they won’t be based on emotions or habits, but rather a physical need. The signals are often more urgent and clear, but not as obsessive and mind driven.
Assess your habits
Another important thing to notice is assessing your eating habits. If you have a habit of overeating, when do you tend to want to overeat? If you have a habit of cutting calories when you shouldn’t, when do you tend to do that? And so on. Asking yourself these questions is extremely important since habits often come as chains instead of unique events. You wake up, look at your phone, get out of bed, open your windows, make coffee, watch tv, etc.
Habits are stronger as chain formations, so if you can catch what chain of events is bringing you into the habit you want to eliminate, you can eliminate the chain of events alltogether and it will become that much easier. Say you have a habit of every time you see your friends you drink, and every time you drink you want to eat fried food, and every time you eat fried food you overeat and feel sick the next day. If you know this is a common chain for you, whenever you go out with your friends, make the decision in your mind to cut the chain from the beginning: no drinking. It may seem to you that you’re sacrificing more than you’re willing, but think about it this way: once you cut the chain of events for a long time, you may resume drinking with your friends if you chose without the habitual hold of eating that came with it. Again, this process takes time, so don’t rush it.
Emotional eating
Whether it be eating more or less when feeling a certain type of way, emotional eating is a big issue for a lot of people in the beginning of their health journey. It’s important to understand from the get go: you will never get rid of your emotions. One way or another, life is about the waves between hope and despair. The question then remains, how to navigate these waves without actions that you might regret later.
Before you make this assessment, you need to find yourself in a state of emotional clarity/neutrality. No decisions can be made if you are in any way shape or form emotionally dysregulated. So wait until you find a moment of calm, sharp minded, clear headed, and emotionally balanced before you do this assessment.
Once you find that, you can then start noticing: what does your body really need? Are your exercise levels balanced in relationship to how much you eat and vice versa? Should you be eating more or less in relation to your objectives?
MAKE A DECISION IN CLARITY. STICK WITH IT LATER.
This is very important for emotional folks because emotions will often blind you in the moment. Things will appear true when they’re not, and you will inevitably feel the pulse to do things that you wouldn’t otherwise. But when you make a decision in a moment of clarity, and have an emotional dysregulation later, you can always rely on the previous decision above all things.
“I feel like I’m starving right now! I know I’m anxious but it really feels like I want that food…I feel so anxious and pent up, it would help, I’m sure of it.” If you compare this to your baseline, made in clarity, and they collide, you know you’re having an emotional need and you should not follow it. Go do something else. Walk it off.
How, when, in what circumstances do you eat and digest better
Do not assume that you need to eat like every one else. Do not assume that someone else can tell you how to eat better. That is your job to experiment with and chose what works for you. Please note that you might need to do a recalibration before doing this exercise, and if you are a very emotional dependent eater, you will need to do this in a moment of neutrality.
Questions you might want to ask/experiment with:
a) Do I eat better alone or with people? If with people, what should we be doing?
b) Do I eat better in silence or listening to something?
c) Do I eat better when I’m calm or when there’s a lot of things happening around me and maybe I myself am moving every once in a while?
d) Do I prefer hot or cold foods? Do I prefer stews and mixes or well separated foods (rice next to meat next to salad)? Do I prefer cooked or raw (when safe) foods? Do I prefer simple foods or foods with a lot of nuanced flavors? Less quantity/more often, or less often/bigger portions?
e) Do I prefer to eat during daylight or nighttime? Eat near a window or outside when you can, or indoors in a closed semi-lit room? Do you prefer to have a large breakfast with shorter dinners, or shorter breakfasts and more food on dinner time?
PATIENTS
Patience is everything. Whenever you’re dealing with issues of the body, habitual issues, or emotional dysregulation, any solution takes a long time to really work. If you’ve led a chaotic food life for years, your body doesn’t know what to rely on and therefore it doesn’t know how to properly guide you on what you physiologically need. Only time will truly bring you back into alignment and, in alignment, your body’s cues will be more clear, loud and reliable. By ‘time’ we mean a long time. Not a week. Not a month. Though time may differ from person to person, we recommend at least 3-6 months of consistency to start getting to the point where you hunger cues will be reliable and you will be able to talk to your body and trust that it knows what you need. Unless you’re willing to invest time and remain patient with the process, you will only find disappointment and mixed signals. That is the last unavoidable truth you have to accept.
For more information and help in any of these topics, we recommend you apply for 1:1 coaching where you can take part in our workshops and webinars where we break down how to deal with each issue more deeply!
If this was impactful or meaningful in any way, we’d love to know. We wish you the best in your journey!
Mariana
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