I have recorded 2 new meditation videos on YouTube and have shared them at the end of this article. You might be asking yourself...what do meditation and nutrition have to do with one another? One thing I can promise is that if you stick this post out to the end I will be recommending you eat chocolate....read on to figure out WHY!
First let's go into your own experiences with hunger & fullness.
I have a question for you: How do you know you are hungry? Does this sensation come from your brain or your body?
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Ok...so you probably identified a few key areas that hunger comes from, right?
Your belly! Grumbles and rumbles
Your whole body! Feeling tired and sluggish
Your brain! Thinking about food once you get hungry
Your head! You might feel light headed
Your hands! They might get a bit shaky and your dexterity is less than usual
So.....if your body and brain tell you when it's time to eat what happens if you become a bit disconnected to our our body? Dieting behaviors (restricting food, portion control) guide eating based on a specific plan or diet program. The diet circumvents your natural hunger and fullness cues.
When on a diet, hunger cues are ignored in order to be in a calorie deficit and ultimately lose weight. It's because of the dieting behavior that the bodies signals start to get weaker in the brain. The brain stops recognizing hunger cues to the full extent it would prior to dieting behaviors.
Once the diet behavior stop, does the brain-body signals get stronger? For some people it does and others, it doesn't. When on a diet, the prescriptive meal plan or guidelines is used to guide portion sizes and food type. When the diet is over, the trust the individual once had in their body is lost and the connection between how much and what type of food to eat needs to be reconnected.
How can the brain and body get reconnected? Ah.......here is the Ah Ha moment! Through mindfulness and meditation! Let's explore what medication is and how it is practiced.
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Meditation is really just a fancy word for "paying attention" so let's just call it that. An analogy to compare this to is that when you pay attention and nurture a plant it grows....if you don't it won't thrive at all and it may even die. When you pay attention to your bodies cues...they get stronger!! They grow and THRIVE!
What is "paying attention" all about? It means sitting for 5-10 minutes with no multitasking. Doing a quick meditation might be the first time in a WHILE where you have actually focused on only one task...breathing and your body.
This process of getting in touch with your body is called "attunement." And it's ONE of the key elements to getting rid of dieting in your life and to connect with your body again. You can absolutely figure out how to feed your body all over again!!
I invite you to TRY!
Where to start! You can use the Breath Meditation recording to start, it's a quick 8 minute recording and is fully guided.. And don't feel like you have to stick around for the whole 8 minutes Even just 2 minutes would be a great start!
You will need: 5-8 minutes of time where no one bugs you. If you have a busy family you can do this in bed at night - pop in your headphones and listen on your phone.
If you are curious about applying this practice to your meals use the Mindful Eating Meditation recording to get an understanding of how to apply mindfulness meditation to your meals and snacks.
Do do this meditation you will need a piece of CHOCOLATE or FRUIT.
Enjoy!