No to diets, yes to mindful eating

To achieve the ideal weight and desired proportions, willpower is not enough. Moreover, in the sphere of pleasure (and food is precisely pleasure), this mechanism does not work. Fortunately, today more and more people understand this. We want not only to lose weight, but also to do it in the most comfortable mode for ourselves, taking care of our body and mind.

– It’s impossible! skeptics will exclaim.

“This is the only way it is possible and necessary,” experts disagree with them.

The most effective way to lose weight is to listen to yourself. “Separating” the body from itself, blaming it for imperfection is the way to nowhere. The body will resist, it will seem to us that we need to tighten measures, and so on in a circle.

We are arranged in such a way that the effort associated with overcoming creates internal tension, and sooner or later it will require relaxation. When we go on a diet, we start a clockwork bomb called a food breakdown. What to do?

There are two “givens” in the topic of weight loss. First, the weight grows from overeating. Secondly, overeating is associated with psychological processes. Lack of joy, pleasure, love, intimacy often feels like hunger. And if the problem of deficiency is not solved, the weight grows. And if you limit yourself to the fight against being overweight, sooner or later disappointment will come.

Of course, it is not easy to unravel the tangle of global life problems – loneliness, dissatisfaction – which we eat so diligently. We need to start with attention to nutrition, with the search for links between the psychological state and the products that we use. In addition, it is important to master the basic skills of mindful eating.

Mindful eating is knowing and choosing good “reasons” for eating. For example, a bad mood is a so-so reason, but a feeling of hunger is what you need.

Mindfulness comes from the word “know,” and if you know when you are more likely to overeat, which makes you reach for an extra candy, you are more likely to find an alternative way to solve the problem.

We know quite a lot about proper nutrition and almost nothing about healthy eating behavior. But it is it that leads people to a healthy weight and not only helps to keep it, but shapes it, underlies it. If your eating behavior is close to healthy, then you don’t need to “keep” anything: the weight remains stable.

Forming healthy eating behaviors is an ambitious task, but it is quite possible to start building a base that will only grow stronger over time. When different people are on the same diet, everyone eats the same set of foods, it is as pointless as if all the women in the world were trying on the same tight dress.

Conscious personal nutrition is “tailoring”, your own dress, taking into account your features and wishes.

That is why, instead of blindly following a standard diet, it is more useful to figure out how to create your own menu. Continuing the analogy with the dress, good quality fabrics will suit everyone, the perfect fit too. So, having mastered the universal principles of nutrition and adjusting them to an individual regimen, you will get an amazing result.