When you have food limitations due to allergies, intolerance, and specific medical conditions, it is easy to begin to think, “Everything is bad for me!” That thought can lead to feelings like fear, deprivation, resentment, and/or sadness. Those feelings can trigger overeating or bingeing, and quite often the beginning of the eat-repent-repeat roller coaster ride.*
So what do you do if you have a medical issue like diabetes or other limitations, for example, bariatric surgery? The key is to shift to a mindful approach to eating, rather than a restrictive approach that is based on deprivation.
Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating Programs can help you with this in several ways:
- Using the Mindful Eating Cycle helps you identify how the interaction of your thoughts, feelings, and actions has a powerful influence on your results.
- It teaches you to notice when you’re viewing food as “good or bad” and become aware of the effects of those thoughts.
- It helps you shift to an “all foods fit” model which promotes balance, variety, and moderation.
- When a food doesn’t fit for you, you learn to see it as a choice to feel good, rather than a restriction that feels bad.
- It opens the door to instinctive feelings of peace, calm, and even pleasure with food—feelings that are natural and grow stronger over time.
Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight.* Am I Hungry? is a practice:
- When you’re first introduced to the Am I Hungry? program, your brain will begin to build new neural pathways with these new ideas.
- As you continue to learn and practice using the skills and tools, your new neural pathways grows stronger and the old pathway becomes weaker.
- Over time, you integrate the things you’ve learned into your thought process, making them easier to access. Soon they become second nature and you feel like “I’ve got it!”
Though it takes time and practice to re-boot and rewrite our hard drive, the results are nothing short of amazing!
*People who have a diagnosis, (especially a new diagnosis) such as prediabetes or diabetes or recent bariatric surgery that make it necessary to change their eating, may need to process their experience and find support. This is similar to a grief process. Trying to adopt new ideas when processing feelings about a scary diagnosis can slow down or even prevent progress. When feelings of anger or fear are present, new ideas may be met with disdain and resentment. Time and/or support can help people as they gain acceptance of their diagnosis and any new limitations.