Ep 35a- The Science of Mindful Eating: Day 1

October 03,2024

Listen to the 5 Day Mindful Eating Challenge to Stop Binge Eating!

Today you’ll learn the science behind mindful eating- your mindful eating 101 and why it's a game-changer!

Hey, confident eaters. This episode is a bit different and it comes from my free five day mindful eating challenge.

That I just taught live. Listen to episode 35A through E for a super fun way to help you stop binge eating. You can join my free Facebook support group in the show notes and be sure you're on my email list to get notified about any other upcoming free trainings. Alright, so we'll get started here. So what is mindful eating and why should you do it?

We're going to be talking about the science of it and all the reasons this can be really life changing, both for our life and for our relationship with food. So, first a little bit about how this challenge is going to work. We are going to have daily live lessons like we are today. Today might be a little bit on the longer side just because we're getting set up.

It's going to be 10 to 20 minutes of a lesson. These are going to be recorded so if you can't make them live or you're watching them on replay that is okay. They're also going to be on my podcast next week. So if you're not listening to my podcast, become a confident eater, make sure to go follow along there because next week, those, the replays will be up there as well.

And this is the time that we are going to be using to prioritize you. So this is just 10 to 20 minutes of your day. I know we are all busy. We all have crazy lives, but we spend like 10 minutes trying to decide what to watch on Netflix. So if you can spend these 10 minutes. 10 20 minutes prioritizing you this week, it can make a huge difference.

So come to the lessons live, watch the replays at the end of our lesson today. We'll have time for any questions if anyone has anything that they're wondering about or that comes up throughout today, you can ask us at the end. Then we also have throughout our free challenge a giveaway that is happening for a pre free private strategy coaching session with me.

Now, this private strategy session is different than a consultation. You can have a free consultation call with me if you're interested in joining my Confident Eater program. But this session that I'm giving away, it's just to coach. You're going to get a strict, full 50 minutes for coaching with me, so it's gonna be super awesome opportunity.

You get entries by coming live to our Zooms every day or by commenting on the replay in the Facebook group. We're going to have daily action prompts that are going to pop up in the Facebook group with all the details of what you should do that day for your action stuff. So the more you participate, the more entries you're going to get into winning that free coaching session with me.

So the best part about mindful eating is it's something that can be dine. anywhere in the world, and it's completely free. So that is why I'm so excited to teach this challenge. And also, we just got to the end of summer, and if your summer was anything like mine, it was chaotic. You know, we had, I had some downtime, but there's also a lot of traveling happening in the summer.

If you have kids, your kids are home for the summer. And so sometimes we can end up in this like chaotic food haze where we're frequently overeating, you might be zoning out a lot more, hitting the bag of the chips at the bottom, finishing off the Ben and Jerry's ice cream a little too frequently. So I really feel like fall is the perfect time where we're starting to settle back in to maybe our more normal routines, things are slowing down a little bit, and it's a really good time to go inwards and start to think about how we want to be eating food and changing our eating habits.

So first a little bit about me, if you don't know who I am, or if you do, just to revisit my story a bit and how I got to this point, why I'm even teaching this challenge in the first place to you. So I really struggled with it all, everything from the far end of binge eating like 5, 000 calories at a time, to restricting, dieting.

You know, I did fasting, no sugar, I wasn't like a keto person necessarily, like the really, really diets, but I really did it all, and whenever someone has a consultation call with me, and I can tell they're a little nervous, I always tell them, like, there is nothing you haven't done or haven't thought that I haven't done too, like I really span the full spectrum.

And, you know, there's a lot of information about binge eating out there, and there's a lot of information about weight loss, but I also found myself in this middle gray area, where I had gotten a hold on my binge eating a little bit, but I was still overeating, and I didn't really know how to get out of that.

I was still eating more food than I wanted to be eating. I was still really struggling with my relationship with sugar. And I tried so many things to solve this. I tried going to therapy, so I went to an official eating disorder therapist, as well as a normal therapist. I tried just What I like to call Instagram intuitive eating where I followed all of the intuitive eating counts on Instagram and I tried everything Google suggested, you know, drinking more water, eating more protein, getting more sleep.

I did all of those things yet I was still binge eating and overeating and it wasn't till I learned about our brain and how these habits are really just that. Habits. And the good news about habits is they can be changed. So once I started looking at the psychology of how our brain works and why we eat the things we do, this really changed everything for me.

I'm a certified integrative change worker, which means I help you coach the unconscious parts of your brain. It's not just the surface level. So yes, you're going to be learning a lot of tips this week on how to slow down, how to pay more attention to your food, but we're also going to go to the deeper mindset piece of it because that is what I am all about.

If we don't do the mindset piece, then we're just putting a bandaid solution on it. And that's when people start to say, Well, I know what to do, but I'm not doing it. And it's like, well, yeah, because you've addressed nothing in your brain. You've just been told a tip, which isn't enough. So there's many parts of my journey.

I also had to learn a lot about my urges, having confidence in my body, tools around my emotions, and I cover all of this in my Confident Eater program, which is my signature step by step six month program to stop overeating, binge eating, and become a true natural eater. But really what we're focusing on in this challenge is eating mindfully because that also played a huge role in my ability to tune back into my hunger and fullness signals after years of tuning them out, as well as my ability to eat everything in moderation.

My approach is definitely moderation. I am not someone who's going to tell you that you can't handle it, so just cut it out. Or sugar's addictive because that is so not true. That's a full topic that I won't unpack today. But I'm also not going to tell you to just eat everything all at once. We're really going to tune into what a true desire is for your body because your body doesn't truly desire eating five cookies.

You know, we might desire having one cookie because that is enjoyable, but there's a point where it becomes unenjoyable and mindful eating will help show us where that point is. So first, what is mindful eating in the first place? So I went to Google, and to be mindful, according to Google, is to be conscious or aware of something in focusing one's awareness on the present moment.

So what mindful eating then is being fully aware of the present moment of eating, bringing all of your attention to the eating experience. Now this means we're going to notice the taste of the food. We're going to notice the flavors, the temperatures, the textures of it, really tasting the food. But this also means paying attention to our body and fullness signals.

And it also means being aware of our thoughts and feelings that are going on as we are eating, because if we are not aware of what's happening in our brain as we're starting to eat this food, we're going to be taking action from a place that we don't want to be taking. So mindful eating is usually thought of the things we do, right?

Okay, if I'm going to eat mindfully, I need to like sit in a magical fairy garden and close my eyes and eat my food, which we all would love to do. Like that is my dream, but I want to offer that in order for mindful eating to actually stick this week, it has to become a value shift. I've been teaching mindful eating for quite a few years now, and what I've realized is the difference between who this works for and who this doesn't work for is whether or not they implement this in their life as well.

So we do not live in a mindful world. If you live in any part of the western society type of world, Although I know we have, I think today we just have all people from Canada and Sweden, which is so cool. But even there still, we're not really mindful. Most of us are on autopilot 24 7, and if you're here, your autopilot is likely overeating.

That is your go to habit when you are zoned out. So we have to start to look at not only what habits we want to change this week, but who we want to be in the world. And we need to start valuing being mindful. We need to start valuing our self care. We need to start valuing our presence in our life in every single area.

And so the more you spread this work out to all the areas of your life, the easier it will be to do with eating. So we're really taking a holistic approach here. So on the flip side, what does it mean to eat mindlessly? To eat mindlessly is to eat without the awareness. So without being aware of your thoughts and feelings.

Without being aware of what's happening in your body. Without being aware of what you're tasting and what you're eating. So this can really happen any time. You can be mindless, even if you're sitting undistracted with your food, you could still be mindless if you're getting caught up in our thoughts.

Our thoughts can be distractions. Now, you don't have to be super peaceful every single time you eat, but it is important to notice what's coming up in your brain. In general, though, what I define as mindless eating is when we are spending our attention elsewhere, besides the food for the majority of the time.

So this usually comes into play with the screens. So with the TV, the laptop, the computer, your iPad, your phone, that's usually when we tend to do the most mindless eating because these screens are hyper distractions. And when we eat mindlessly, the science has shown that this is proven to increase anxiety, overeating, and weight gain.

Now there's thousands of studies that have been done on the effectiveness of mindful eating, so you feel free to do your own research because there's a lot. And it's kind of a hard area to study because, you know, like I said, the The idea of being mindful is kind of nuanced, right? Like, am I being mindful just because I sit here without distractions or do I have to be in a meditative state to be mindful?

But the research in general from various different sources and various different ways of practicing mindfulness all show that it can help you reduce emotional eating, stop binge eating, and and increase our overall satisfaction and peace with food. And isn't that what we all want? To just be able to eat, you know, a serving of chips and move on with satisfaction and feel at peace with our decision.

So one study found that mindful eating can reduce binge eating by 75%. So imagine if you could do this free strategy that's simple to use. And you could automatically start to reduce your binge eating by 75%. Like that is really impressive. There was another study done in 2019 in public health nutrition that showed that mindful eaters.

were more satisfied with smaller portions. So you can literally eat less and be more satisfied. Then they also had improved digestion compared to those who ate distractedly. And this is something that is really interesting. So, who doesn't want better digestion? If you ever struggled with bloating, gas, constipation, upset stomach, stomach aches, mindful eating will help you with that.

The reason this is, is because we have a fixed amount of blood in our body that cannot be used for everything, all the time. Our body has to pick and choose the best uses for our blood to go to. Now, one of the most energy intensive things we do every single day, is digest our food. It is pretty taxing on our body to have to digest food.

So if you are overeating, it is definitely taxing on your body because it's having to use so much of its energy and blood and time to digest all that you're putting into it. And we forget that for most of our human existence, we didn't have the level of stress we had today. And stress looked a little different.

So when we are stressed in our body, that shuts down our digestion so it has energy and resources to deal with that stress. Now, before, you know, the past hundred years, what our stress looks like was not emails that we got from our boss, but a bear chasing us, or a neighboring tribe invading us. So that meant we usually had to run when we were stressed and we needed the blood in our body to go to our muscles to oxygenate them in order to help us run.

So what that means is when we are stressed, what our body does is it shuts down our digestive system. It takes the blood away from it and gets ready for whatever we're stressed about. Again, because our brain does not know that our husband coming home late for work is a stressor. It just thinks there's danger and we need to be prepared for that danger.

So this is why we get cramps if we eat too close to exercising. This is why no one is going on runs and eating salads. This is why if you go on a long run, they eat the sugary goos, because that's something that doesn't require a lot of digestion, because that would, when we have a lot of food in our belly and we try to go for a run, Our blood is trying to digest our food and now it's trying to bring oxygen to our muscles, but it can't do both.

So that's why we get cramps. So why this is important is because our brain can also, I mean, think about when you're scrolling on Facebook or on TikTok and on Instagram and how it's funny one minute and then you see The war is happening in the world, the next, and you're seeing politics on the other, like that is a stressful state for your body to be in.

So when we're in this stressed state, whether it's caused by phones, by our thoughts, by any other distraction, it's going to shut down our digestion, and so being able to eat mindfully will change that. Eating mindfully puts us in this rest and digest mode, a. k. a. our parasympathetic state, to allow us to properly digest our food.

Now, hunger and fullness also become more clear when you're eating mindfully. When we are distracted, it muffles our ability to hear our hunger and fullness. It's not impossible, but it does make it harder. And if you've been someone who has been dieting, calorie counting, or just overeating and snacking all day, frequently, your hunger and fullness signals are going to be dull at first, and that is normal.

They are going to be whisper quiet. It's like we've dialed the tune down on them. So in order to dial that tune back up and actually hear those signals, we have to be paying attention to them. And it's essential to tune back into these signals if you ever want to be a natural eater again. And we do this by paying attention to it consistently, many, many times, when we are wanting to eat and checking in, do we actually need to eat right now?

And then also when we start eating to see when we are full. Now, mindful eating is not just about trying to eat less food. I know that's why we are here. We want to stop overeating, which means eating less food. But while that's often a result that you're going to eat less food when you start mindful eating, this is really about getting more enjoyment and pleasure and satisfaction out of your food and living in the present moment so we can get the most out of our life.

You're tired of being mindless all the time and not even remembering what you ate. You want to remember your food. You want to enjoy it. You want it to be a peaceful, enjoyable experience because we have to eat every single day, multiple times a day for the rest of our life. So let's make this something that's actually fun and enjoyable.

Now, a common thing I hear from people is, well, if I start being mindful and then I'm enjoying the food more and I'm tasting it more, won't I eat more of it? Won't I overeat more often? No, the reason you are ending up back in the cabinets after eating isn't because you enjoyed your food. It's because you weren't present enough the first time around to taste the food and enjoy it.

So your brain wants to keep going back for more. It keeps looking for that taste that it wanted that it never remembered getting. So when we start to eat mindfully and you feel good, actually enjoy your food, you're going to not have that same strong desire to go back for extra. I'm all about fun around here and I want this week to be really fun for you, so we first want to make sure that you have an enjoyable eating space.

This is going to be your action item for today. So maybe you want to write it down, but I'm also going to have it posted in our Facebook group so you can, um, talk about it there. And I'd love to see what your enjoyable eating space looks like. The reason we want to do this is when we eat all over the place, we eat in our car, we eat at our desk, we eat at the TV, in the couch, and all over the place, our brain starts to make associations with that place.

that it wants to eat there. So then every time you sit down at your desk, you're like, I kind of want a snack. It's like, why do I always want a snack? When I sit at my desk, it's like, well, you frequently snack at your desk. So your brain has a memory of that. And it's now created a habit loop around it. Or man, every time I sit down with this TV show, I want to eat.

And it's like, well, yes, let's look at your history for the past 10 years. You've been eating with TV shows. So of course you want to eat right now. So we want to have a snack. Ideally. just one eating space. For most people, this will probably be your dining room table. Maybe you have like a little island or a little bar area that you want to sit at too.

Fine, maybe it's two eating spaces, but you want them to be a dedicated eating space so your brain starts to associate. This is the eating space. When I sit on the TV, I don't get cravings for food every time I sit down because I don't eat there that often. So, I want you to think about, okay, where could my enjoyable eating space be?

Then once you find this dedicated eating space, you want to give it an upgrade. So if your eating space is really boring right now, it's just like a dining room table that has nothing fun to look at. You have like no pictures, nothing on the table. We want to make it a little bit more fun and fancy. So some ideas of how you can do this is you can start lighting a candle in this space, a few candles, even like make it Fun and have, I don't know, fun fancy candles all over the place.

You could have those. You could start buying yourself flowers if you're going to the grocery store sometime this week. Or you're able to stop on your way home from work. Buy yourself some flowers and put them on the table. So you actually have something enjoyable to look at while you're mindfully eating this week.

Maybe you have some fancier plates or bowls that you want to use. Instead of just using a paper plate or an old container that your food is in. Making it look beautiful to plate your food. I like drinking out of nice glasses. I always have like my nice water glass here. Sometimes if I'm really fancy, I'll put my sparkling water in a wine glass just because I feel extra cool and it helps me enjoy the moment more.

So there's lots of different ideas that you can have for this. If you eat outside, that's always my number one recommendation because getting out in nature, getting out of fresh air and sunshine is something we are all lacking. So if you have a space outside, maybe cleaning that off, making it available to you to eat there.

But it's finding that space for yourself and creating that enjoyable atmosphere this week. So that is what I have for you today. So I'd love to know, put in the chat, do you know what your enjoyable eating space is going to be? What do you want to do to upgrade it? And do you have any questions from today?

Maybe a cool placemat, awesome. Great presentation. You'll use the candle idea. Awesome. So good. So put any of your other ideas or questions in the Facebook group and I will be sure to answer them there. You get access to me all this week for anything you are wondering about. Another comment will be at the table.

Is your eating place and I'm going to use some candles, which I haven't done in a long time. Yeah, it's so fun and it's so beautiful. And like, why do we wait to only like special occasions to use the fancy candles? Like every day we're alive is a special occasion. So pull them out and start lighting them now.

All right, I'll see you guys tomorrow for day two. Same Zoom link. I hope to see you there. Otherwise, I'll see you around in the Facebook group. Bye.