Weight Control
If you’re overweight, your prediabetes is more likely to turn into diabetes. Losing even as little as 5% to 10% of your body weight makes a difference.
Exercise
Get moderate exercise for 30 minutes a day, such as cycling, swimming or brisk walking. It helps prevent and manage diabetes, studies show. Aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart rate up, is ideal. If you’re not active now, check with your doctor first.
Nutrition
Go for meals that mix low-fat protein, vegetables and whole grains. Limit calories, serving sizes, sugar and starchy carbs. Favor fiber-rich foods, which help you feel full and not eat too much.
Mindless Eating
Recognize when you slip into mindless eating but be non-judgmental with yourself. Practice self-compassion around your thoughts about food, your
body and your dietary choices. Make corrections to be mindful again when you can.
What is emotional eating?
Emotionally eating is the opposite of mindful eating. It’s led by stress, cravings, the desire to change or soothe our feelings or simply the habit of eating on
“autopilot.”
Signs of Emotionally Eating
- Eating is triggered by emotions rather than actual (physical) hunger.
- Continuing to eat despite feeling full.
- Habitual or routine eating that doesn’t require your attention. Eating “on autopilot” mindlessly.
- Multitasking while you eat, such as watching TV, emailing or reading, instead of paying attention and enjoying the experience.
- Grazing on food and snacks but skipping actual meals that require more time.
- Ignoring body’s real hunger signals and physical cues. Forgetting to eat if you’re in a rush.
- Ignoring portion sizes and appetite – eating everything on the plate because it’s there.
- Eating in a trance. Forgetting the meal ever happened once you’re finished.
5 Benefits of Mindful Eating
- Better Weight Control
Weight-loss programs are increasingly using mindfulness training to facilitate dietary and physical activity changes because numerous studies show it’s highly effective. The real goal of mindful eating is to give your body what it needs, balance cravings, remain healthy and, of course, feel good! Your body will often naturally settle at a healthy weight when you eat the optimal amount without giving it too much or too little. The pitfall of many diets is that they don’t teach you to manage your emotions and preferences.
- Improved Digestive Functioning
Eating too fast and/or too much often leads to gas, bloating, indigestion and bowel problems. Chewing food slowly and more fully allows enzymes to start breaking down the food in our mouth and reduces the burden on the stomach and other digestive organs. Eating less also lowers the burden considerably.
- Less Stress
Taking time to focus solely on enjoying and savoring our food shifts our minds away from ruminating on stressful thoughts and worries. Mindful eating creates appreciation and awareness on the present moment. Stress can sabotage diet and fitness goals. Eliminating emotional eating can impact your weight and health immensely because it stops a vicious cycle. Awareness can help you avoid stressful eating, recognize cravings and make healthier decisions.
- More Satisfaction
Mindful eating attunes you to your body’s signals and senses, allowing you to experience pleasure around foods without losing control. Paying more attention = less food intake! Studies show that brief mindfulness instructions led to lower calorie consumption of unhealthy food due to greater eating enjoyment.
- Better Management of Health Conditions
According to certain studies, training in mindful eating can result in better self-management over diseases, including diabetes, digestive issues, eating disorders and more. Research shows diabetic patients who were trained in mindful eating became more attuned to their own habits, which resulted in better management of food intake, anxiety, depression and blood sugar levels.
Care you will love.
Sources:
1. 2015 systematic review of 19 clinical studies involving mindfulness practices for weight loss found that the majority were effective in helping people lose weight.
2. Enjoying food without caloric cost: The impact of brief mindfulness on laboratory eating outcomes. Behav Res Ther. 2016 Apr;79:23-34. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2016.02.002. Epub 2016 Feb 22. Arch JJ1, Brown et al.
3. Effects of Mindfulness on Diabetes Mellitus: rationale and overview. Curr Diabetes Rev. 2016 Jun 6. Medina, WL et al. Comparative effectiveness of a mindful eating intervention to a diabetes self-management intervention among adults with type 2 diabetes: a pilot study. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2012 Nov;112(11):1835- 42. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2012.07.036. Miller CK et al.
4. www.draxe.com, Mindful Eating — Maintain a Healthy Weight & Appetite
5. www.eatingmindfully.com