The Mindful Eating Diet: It's Not What You Think

The Mindful Eating Diet: It’s Not What You Think

By: Sanders Legendre

If you want to know what are the rules for a Mindful Eating diet I have some bad news for you: Mindful Eating is not a diet.

That does not mean that mindful eating will not help you lose weight. In fact this analysis of mindful eating studies that found "significant weight loss in 13 of the 19 studies"

‍So there is evidence that mindful eating helps you lose weight but that is not the focus of mindful eating.

Mindful Eating is a way of eating that focuses your attention on the thoughts that you have around food and how that relates to what your body needs.

When we talk about diets in today's context, we usually describe diets as a set of food that someone allows themselves to eat and a set of food that someone restricts themselves from eating.

This is another reason that mindful eating is not a diet: There are no rules for restricting how much or what types of food that you can eat with mindful eating.

Now this does not mean that people who eat mindfully can eat everything they want while losing weight.

When you eat mindfully you become aware of your body's hunger and fullness signals.

When you become more aware of your hunger and fullness signals you are more likely to eat only when you are hungry and also stop eating when you no longer feel hungry anymore.

This is what people mean when they refer to a "Mindful Eating Diet": Eating only when you are hungry and eating only until you no longer feel hungry.

If you want to start eating mindfully today, check out our Beginner's Mindful Eating Guide.

Mindful Eating and Weight Loss

There is evidence that says you can lose weight with mindful eating but that may not be the case for everyone.

First, mindful eating is not a good short term weight loss tool compared to traditional dieting. If you want to lose 5 lbs or less or you want to lose a certain amount of weight quickly, counting your calories will be your best bet.

The problem with calorie counting comes with long term weight loss.

There are many studies that suggest that most of the people who go on a diet end up regaining all of the weight they lost within 2-5 years.

‍"In a meta-analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies, more than half of the lost weight was regained within two years, and by five years more than 80% of lost weight was regained"

‍Now that more research has shown that diets do not help most people sustain long term weight loss, many doctors have started recommending mindful eating, not only as a tool for weight loss, but as a tool for maintaining weight.Mindful eating is a great tool for maintaining weight because when your body is adapted to a certain type of weight it will manipulate your hunger and fullness levels so that you stay at the weight the body is used to.

This ted talk goes into detail why your body will make you stay a certain weight:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn0Ygp7pMbAAs you become more aware of your hunger and fullness signals with mindful eating you can keep your body at the weight you want to stay at.

Becoming aware of your hunger and fullness signals is not just good for maintaining weight, it is also helpful for losing weight.

When you know that you want to lose weight and your body is feeling hungry, you can use that knowledge to make better eating decisions that will make your weight loss results last longer.