“Maybe I have a medical condition that prevents me from losing weight?”
I asked my doctor, after telling her “I eat very little.”
One week later, after following her orders to keep a food journal, I knew the problem: I had been on cruise control for years, an unconscious eater. Often nibbling a whole meal as I prepared dinner. Even taking extra bites, as I cleared the dishes.
Sound familiar?
It is such a common problem , a universal one.
“Secret eaters” is a British TV show where the struggling dieters guess how many calories they eat per day. Most of them underestimate their consumption by about 50%.
How do we overcome this?
Oh no, not another food diary!
If it works and you can keep it up…for life, that’s great. But doing this takes you back in to dieting mode again.
As a Dieter in Recovery I dealt with this by studying Mindfulness.
The American Psychological Association says mindfulness is: “a moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgment. In this sense, mindfulness is a state and not a trait.”
Awareness changed everything, not just the nibbling!
You start to notice all the vicious self flagellation you do around your weight.
More about that in other blog posts.
Today, we are focusing on mindless eating.
This is different from the ‘throwing in the towel’ eating.
That is when you eat a piece of cake (or anything you deem to be a ‘bad’ food), and follow it with another piece, and maybe you don’t stop until you have eaten the whole cake. You get so disgusted with yourself that you say “what the heck, no point, I have ruined it and I am just going to eat it all.”
Mindless eating is different.
Mindless eating is a bit like a trance state. It happens sometimes when we are driving a familiar route and we can’t even remembering doing it.
When I first started to practice Mindfulness, at night I would do an assessment of the day, what I had eaten, how, when and where. Sometimes I could not even recall what I had eaten, especially the block of cheese I had wolfed down as I prepared appetizers. Other times I had difficulty listing the contents of a take out meal.
Gradually, I began to recognize the patterns of unconscious eating.
If I had to prepare a dinner when my hunger level was off the charts, I would snack all through the preparations.
Now I am always two dinners ahead in my prep. On Sunday (my day off) I will make two meals for the next two days and have items in a partial state of assembly (roasted veggies and chopped veggies) for the following days meals.
Planning is key.
If I am behind on meal prep and have to make a dinner I can reduce the munchies with an appetizer (hummus and some chopped veggies) or a cup of soup. This takes the edge off my hunger and stops the mindless shoveling of food.
Another reason for the nibbling could be a focus on other things, mulling over decisions or problems. Food would be the antidote, I thought.
Now I know if I stop and become present, a cup of tea and a quiet time with my husband and my dog is far more soothing than a pound of cheese!
Having a strategy is important, but awareness is key.
Stopping and looking at patterns, slowing down and observing my eating habits made all the difference. When you eat in a conscious way, the food becomes pleasurable and you savor each bite. I returned to being a foodie!
Mindfulness is a learned practice. Not a quick fix, but a habit for life.
“Wherever you there you are” by Jon Kabat-Zinn is one of the best books on this subject.
http://www.mindful.org is also full of resources
Isn’t it take to pay attention to your life? You are so worth it.
Thanks for reading,
Christina
Quick exercise:
Think about your day today and what you ate.
How much of it do you remember eating?
Where did you eat it?
How did you eat it (on the run, standing up etc.)?
Did you enjoy it?