Mindful Eating Articles and Vibrant Living Tips Right at Your Fingertips!
Hunger and cravings are different; hunger is the need for fuel while cravings are an intense desire for a specific food—with or without hunger. Learning strategies for handling cravings is essential.
Words are very powerful. The three words, “I can’t have,” (and the related words, “I’m not allowed to have”) have the power to backfire by triggering deprivation, cravings, rebellion, and the eat-repent-repeat cycle.
Don't turn Am I Hungry? into a mindful eating diet. When you feel like eating, pause to ask yourself, “Am I hungry?”–not to decide if you’re allowed to eat, but to recognize why you want to. With this awareness, you can freely choose whether to eat or not.
If you could bottle exercise, you’d have the closest thing there is to a wonder drug for health and energy.
But dieting wasn’t getting her any closer to mindful eating. With each round of restriction, deprivation, cravings, emotional eating, bingeing, and guilt, she was moving further from the healthy, balanced, mindful life she craved.
Do you tell yourself the big lie? Perhaps you’re familiar some version of this: When (something happens), then (I’ll do, feel, or be something different). The problem is that often the when never arrives and/or the then never happens. In the meantime we’re postponing our lives and missing other possibilities. If and when when comes, we simply replace it with another when. Day by day, promise by promise, our lives slip away.
Don't be good. Feel good! Do threats actually work to change behavior long term? No! Motivation for sustainable change comes when the choices you make feel good.
Dieting is like walking a tightrope. One misstep and it’s all over!
Mindful eating is a wide path that’s nearly impossible to fall off of. You have the flexibility and options so you can make decisions based on what you want and need in any given situation. When you make a choice that doesn’t work out well, you simply observe the consequences, learn from your mistakes, and keep going.
By labeling yourself (or your client) as an “emotional eater” or a “binge eater,” you are setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy. Repeating this definition over and over tells your brain who you are, and therefore, what you do. Your identity as an emotional eater or binge eater will continue to drive your actions.
