Your husband is being a total jerk. Your boss dumped excess work on you. And your daughter’s teacher just called to say she’s been written up for texting during a test.
Really, you don’t know how to deal. As a result, you’ve reached for every comfort food known to man. First, it was a pint of ice cream. Then, the leftover pizza. And finally, you polished off the rest of the chocolate cake.
In truth, you’re in a food coma. “Ugh,” you think. “I might as well just keep eating. What’s the point? I’ve already done myself in.”
STOP!!!!
You can handle this. And you will. You just have to shift focus to an important concept known as mindful eating.
Mindful eating is becoming aware of emotional eating and the patterns surrounding it. It’s making the decision to take control of eating habits in order to take back your life.
Mindful eating is also about trying to remain in the here and now when you eat, bringing full attention to meals and snacks. This means noticing how food looks, tastes and smells, regulating the pace of your eating, noticing the way your body feels, and knowing your frame of mind.
“Mindful eating is bringing awareness to what you eat and how you eat,” says Joy Rains, a mindful eating expert and author of Meditation Illuminated: Simple Ways to Manage Your Busy Mind.
Mindful eating is about facing the patterns surrounding senseless eating to make a lasting life change. It’s a roadmap to the future you want to create.
“Any change you want to make has to start with awareness because you must know where you’re starting from to figure out where you’re going,” Rains says. “One of the best ways to start eating healthy is to become aware of your current relationship with food.”
That’s why mindful eating begins with keeping a log of the way you eat. This is your best bet to analyze the patterns themselves.
So just how do you start this process?
Rains suggests you journal. This can be done through a special journal you find, or you can even use your laptop or tablet.
The first entry should be a heartfelt assessment of exactly where you are with your eating habits. To do this, ask yourself the following set of questions in detail. And be honest. Cheating only hurts progress.
· How would I describe my current relationship with food?
· Do I use food for things other than nourishment? Do I use food to satisfy my emotional needs? What are some examples of this?
· In what ways does emotional eating fulfill me?
· How much do I want to continue this behavior? (Rate this on a scale of 1 to 5.)
· What consequences will I face from this behavior? Does mindless eating change the way I look and feel?
· Do I want to continue this now that I know what the negative consequences are?
· What will I lose by changing this pattern, and am I willing to make a change?
· How will I feel better if I make these changes?
Next, Rains suggests you journal about how you will feel once lifestyle changes are made. This sets your intention and activates a new mindset. It’s important to keep journaling about this concept on a regular basis and refer to it during weak moments.
“Whenever you feel like you’re off track, you can go back to this section to remind yourself of why you set this intention,” Rains says. “You want to continually add to this part of your journal as you discover new things. What’s the reason for making these changes? And how will this change your life? This is what you need to focus on.”
Further, Rains suggests that you come up with a list of triggers. Understanding triggers is one of the most important parts of changing eating habits in general.
“Write down what sets you off. Then come up with alternative behaviors for these triggers,” Rains says. “This will give you a clear picture of how to deal with your patterns.”
Part of this process is understanding the nature of how triggers operate. Some triggers may be emotional, but others may revolve around planning issues. Knowing the difference will give you a greater chance of success.
“For example, you may find that whenever your boss reprimands you, you feel bad. As a result, you go to the coffee room and go for the goodies. That’s emotional. See if you can come up with an alternative behavior like taking a walk outside of the office building or going to your journal and reviewing the benefits of eating healthy. Or write a letter to yourself to remind yourself of the positive changes you’ve made and of your positive qualities in general,” Rains says. “However, a common planning trigger would be not planning for meals. This can happen if you don’t eat a proper dinner when you get home from work because you didn’t plan for it. An alternative behavior in this instance would be to go to the grocery store and know what you’re going to eat.”
Another trigger is boredom. This is a common pitfall that many emotional eaters face. “To counter eating due to boredom, have a list of things to do when you’re bored that don’t involve calories or a lot of money,” Rains says. “This takes boredom out of the equation.”
You may need to add support systems to your plan. “Sometimes there are underlying issues where some people need support,” Rains says. “That could be a nutritionist, counselor or exercise trainer. This gives you direction -- and it makes you feel like you’re not in it alone.”
In this process, it’s also important to focus on changing your frame of mind. “Think positively and notice your thoughts,” Rains says. “If negative thoughts arise, try to replace them with positive thoughts.”
A good example of this is food obsession. After all, emotional eaters obsess about how it will feel to eat that next tasty treat.
“If you find that your mind and your awareness are captured by the cake on the counter, and all you can think about is cake, see if you can replace that thought with a different thought. An example of this would be to say ‘I choose foods that nourish my body,’” Rains says. “Or if you find that you’re at a dinner party, and you’re compelled to eat more even though your stomach is full, see if you can replace that thought with ‘I’m aware of my body’s needs for food. I easily can change my eating depending on how full I am, or I only eat when my body is very hungry.’”
And when you do observe these types of thoughts, think about the meaning you’re assigning to the food itself. In other words, what exactly are you telling yourself?
“That’s how food grips people. It’s enticing. It’s a siren song,” Rains says. “Instead, try to notice more neutral things about the food. This takes the magic out of it. At the end of the day, it’s just food.”
When you encounter these issues, always remember that thoughts are just thoughts. They become what you allow them to be.
“A thought about a brownie is not a brownie. Any time you’re struggling with these types of thoughts in the present moment, see if you can shift your attention out of the present and into the future,” Rains says. “Imagine your future self as you want to look with as much detail as possible. Visualize yourself in the outfit you dream of instead of fantasizing about that brownie. And remind yourself of the rewards you’ve been writing about in your journal.”
Finally, it’s important to forgive yourself if you slip. After all, you’re only human.
“There’s a difference between a lapse and a relapse. A lapse is a momentary slip. But a relapse is when you allow yourself to slip into habitual behaviors for a longer period of time,” Rains says. “As my father often said, ‘short-term tenants are easy to evict.’ So don’t let a small slip become a regular pattern again.”