Do you ever feel out of control or like you don’t have enough willpower around sugary sweets? Do you wish you could mindfully enjoy sweets? You’re not alone! Sweets are a weakness for many. With it being a large part of upcoming holiday celebrations, that can make you feel stressed or guilty around those foods. It’s very common to experience a loss of control around sugar, but it doesn’t have to be that way. So, keep reading to learn why you’re having so much difficulty around these sweets and how you can be more mindful of sugar.
WHY ARE SWEETS SO IRRESISTIBLE?
So what’s the deal with sugar? Yes it tastes great, but it’s more than that, right? It appears to almost control your actions rather than simply influence your actions. Instead of just wanting to have a bit more, you’re compelled to have more.
A combination of mindset, environment, and anatomy creates this draw or pull that sugar can have.
So let’s talk about why and how this impacts us when to try to mindfully enjoy sweets!
Labeling of “Bad” Foods and Restriction
Starting with mindset, we have to discuss the concept of assigning morality to food.
By creating a negative connotation in our minds surrounding an entire category of foods that we enjoy eating, something called the scarcity mindset is kicked into gear.
We believe that we shouldn’t have said “bad” food items, so we restrict them to the best of our ability. Maybe we don’t keep them in the house, only have them on special occasions, or only have them when someone offers them to us and we can’t refuse.
Environmental Cues
Next, our surroundings greatly impact our choices as well. Is there a certain environment you can think of where you consistently feel out of control around food? Maybe it’s buffets at social gatherings , when you order pizza on Friday nights, or at the movie theatre.
We’re creatures of habit and we love routine. Our environment plays a role in this! If we’re used to, say, eating whatever, whenever we’re going out to eat with friends, a habit has formed.
Your brain now associates social gatherings with mindless eating.
Blood Sugar and Hunger
Next up we have the anatomical reasons for why you may be losing control around sweets.
Sweets are made of sugar, which is a type of starchy carbohydrate. Starchy carbohydrates are the body’s primary and fastest source of energy. That means the body needs it to feel energized, and is able to turn it into energy faster than any other food item.
When blood sugar is low, and we’re not feeling energized, the body looks at sweets like a gold mine. The body craves them and compels you to eat them because it needs to bring blood sugar up. It can make you feel out of control and completely mindless around them.
5 TIPS FOR MINDFULLY ENJOYING SWEETS
Intentionally eating mindfully will allow you to enjoy sweets with ease. Part of a positive relationship with food, which is needed for long-lasting and supportive eating habits, is to be able to enjoy the foods that you would like to without feeling out of control or guilty when you do.???
1. Start With Eating Balanced Foundational Five Meals
Eating Foundational Five meals allows you to nourish your body with the fuel it needs.
When you’re nourished, your blood sugar levels are managed so you won’t experience extreme spikes or drops that may make you feel compelled to eat more of those sugary sweets. This results in you secondarily, naturally eating less sugar.
You instead feel hunger and satiety as your body needs and can enjoy sweets without compulsion when you choose.
2. Ask Yourself Which Sweets You Really Enjoy
When eating mindfully, you’re able to choose and mindfully enjoy sweets that truly sound delicious to you — the ones you look forward to and can’t wait to have.
In turn, you’re able to turn away the stale cookies that have been out for hours or the not-so-moist cupcakes that just so happen to be at your work today.
You’re not saying no to these sweets because you feel like you need to or should , but simply because you know they aren’t really enjoyable to you. You’d prefer to choose the sweets that you think are really good.
3. Try Plating The Sweets You’d Like to Eat
Oftentimes, where people may find themselves mindlessly eating sweets rather than intentionally choosing to enjoy them, is when they walk by a candy jar and pick up a Hershey Kiss, or there’s a plate of cookies on the buffet and you grab one every time you walk by.
This really doesn’t allow you to evaluate if you truly want the sweet or actually enjoy it if it is something you really would like.
Plating your food can be a supportive habit that helps you better pause and reflect on what sweets you’d truly like to enjoy, rather than mindlessly grabbing chocolate from the stash as you walk by.
4. Be Present So You Can Fully Enjoy the Sweets You Eat
Mindful eating is something we practice here regularly at Nutrition Stripped and for good reason — it allows you to connect with your food, appreciate the tastes, texture, and smells which helps you to enjoy your food more and be more satisfied.
To do this, you have to be present for what you’re eating. That means eating without distractions like the TV, scrolling Instagram or TikTok, or working. A helpful cue to remind you to practice this is to eat at the table where those distractions tend to naturally be less present.
Then, as you’re sitting to eat and enjoying your sweets, really practice slowly eating it and tasting each bite, and noticing the taste and textures.
5. Don’t Label Sweets as Bad
Eating mindfully means eating food for both enjoyment and nourishment, rather than just one or the other.
If you label sweets as “bad” or “off-limits” or say to yourself you can only have them “just this one time,” you’ll have a stronger desire to eat more sweets.
Take Thanksgiving as an example. Let’s say there’s a couple of desserts that sounds really delicious to you. If you go into it thinking, “I’m only allowing myself to have sweets today, and then they’re back off-limits,” you’ll likely end up overindulging and not really enjoying what you eat. Maybe you’re forcing yourself to have a slice of pumpkin and apple pie because you want both but you don’t really have the room. It would be much more helpful to say, “I’m going to have a piece of pumpkin pie now and also take home a slice of apple pie to enjoy as leftovers.”
You’ll then be able to fully enjoy both and you’ll be less likely to overindulge or feel compelled to eat sweets out of scarcity. You instead can choose to mindfully enjoy sweets when you really want them.
What is Mindful Eating?
In contrast to fad diets and weight loss programs, which encourage people to make unrealistic and unhealthy decisions, mindful eating involves attending carefully to what you eat and drink. It involves listening to your body’s needs and being in touch with the physical sensations of eating. You can practice mindful eating by making the choice to attend more carefully and mindfully to what you are putting in your body. It means slowing down, being patient, listening to how you feel when you eat or drink something new, and noting if there are any changes that occur in your reaction to food.
Mindfulness is a word that has become so embedded in our daily vernacular that it’s hard to imagine life without it. “Mindfulness” was originally coined by Dr Jon Kabat-Zin, who developed the mindfulness-based stress reduction program.
In this time of continual technological stimulation, most of us can’t possibly eat an entire meal alone without focusing on a Netflix show or a Youtube video. Mindful eating is the act of consciously choosing what to eat and how much by being fully aware of one’s feelings about food. Additionally, eating mindfully means taking time to enjoy your food, savouring every bite, and really focusing on what you’re eating. You take the time to appreciate the food you’re eating and as a result, you feel more satisfied after eating, and you’ll probably eat less too!
In the opinion of researchers Celina Framson and colleagues, mindful eating can be defined as:
“A non-judgmental attention to physical and emotional sensations associated with eating”.
It describes how people eat when they are paying attention to their food, rather than being distracted by other things. It is also part of what is known as mindful consumption, which is defined as “the process of making conscious choices about what we buy, where we get our food, and how we prepare it”.
In fact, mindless eating — a lack of awareness of the food we’re consuming — is helping create an obesity epidemic says nutritionist Dr Lilian Cheungh. Mindful eating has been proven to improve the type of food we consume, cut back our calorie intake, increase our feelings of fullness and our awareness of the sensation of fullness. It includes both the individual and the impact of our actions on others as we eat for the total health of the planet, not just for ourselves.
In many respects, Mediterranean foods such as vegetable oils, whole grains, seeds, nuts, seafood and fruit & veg are considered to be the classic mindful eating choices. They are rich in heart-healthy fats and high in nutrients that encourage healthy heart and brain function. Once you begin to mindfully eat, you might reduce the frequency you eat fast food, saturated fats and unsustainable food as you will be paying mindful attention to what you eat. As a general rule, mindful eating consists of paying full attention to the food you buy, prepare, serve, and consume. Although, the practice can be applied when eating a quick chicken and chips with friends!
Mindful Eating: Weight Loss and Binge Eating
For many sufferers of eating disorders, the role of mindfulness and mindful eating in their lives has been invaluable in creating a healthier mind-body relationship. By incorporating steps like the ones we just discussed, researchers have found that there is an inevitably positive relationship between mindful eating and healthy eating as people experience:
- Less impulsive eating,
- Reduced-calorie consumption,
- Healthier snack choices.
Trendy diets always focus on strict rules around eating like, what, when and how much to eat to guarantee a measurable weight loss. Mindful eating on the contrary is not another “fad diet” and its main goal is not to lose weight or prevent weight gain. But! There is a large chance that once you have put in place mindful eating habits, you will naturally shed some healthy amounts of weight. The goal is to help you appreciate and savour the food you are eating and be able to be fully present at the moment, rather than shedding large amounts of weight purely to look good.
Binge eating, or sometimes referred to as emotional or comfort eating, has been linked to several eating disorders and one study has shown that almost 70% of people with binge eating disorders are as a result obese. Practising mindful eating could seriously reduce any binge eating behaviours.
A study was conducted that monitored a 6-week mindful eating intervention for women with obesity. It was found that during this time, their binge eating episodes decreased from 4 times a week to 1.5 times, decreasing the severity of the episode when it did arise. From this, the study found that mindful eating can lead to a reduced eating disorder pathology as well as healthy weight loss and improved quality of life.
As we practice healthier mindful eating practices which incorporate a greater diversity of foods, we are less likely to binge on our comfort foods which encourages weight gain, and more likely to mindfully enjoy healthy foods which will encourage better overall health. In the end, energy-rich and healthy foods that are both mentally and physically satisfying will become your first picks over a few, unhealthy fast foods.
Does Mindful Eating Work?
Mindful eating works as a way for you to enact an intuitive eating habit that will help you finally get off that dieting rollercoaster. Continually fasting, calorie restricting or accidentally binge eating becomes a habit for most. Mindful eating, however, isn’t a quick fix but a focused awareness that you build and use whenever you eat. It is more about how you eat than how much.
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