Many people fall victim to the mindless eating habit, which can potentially be harmful to your health. Mindless eating can lead to overeating, resulting in significant weight gain and obesity.
This habit often occurs because people don’t really pay attention to the food they’re consuming, as another activity is on their mind. Because of this, most people just wolf down their meals, and they don’t even get a chance to notice if they’re full or not, they just eat until there is no more food left.
In order to stop eating mindlessly, you need to become a mindful eater. This means that you need to form a strong connection with the food you’re eating and acknowledge how your body reacts to it. Mindful eating is one of the key elements in making profound dietary habit changes that will lead to permanent and sustained weight loss and weight management.
Free Report: Why You Can't Shift Your Belly Fat12 Ways To Stop Mindless Eating
1. Get Rid of The Distractions
Nowadays, most people search for a distraction when they’re eating. Some enjoy eating their meals in their cars while on their way to work, while other enjoy eating while watching a movie or a TV show or even reading a book. However usually, when you pair eating with any other activity, you will eat mindlessly. There’s no way around it, other than to completely get rid of the distractions.
It’s not that bad of an idea to actually sit down in silence and really taste and appreciate the food you’re eating. Use a fork and knife, take your time, and eat slowly to allow your body to register satiety and enjoy every bite. Devote all your attention to your meal from start to finish.
2. Use All The Senses
Use your sense of touch and smell to enjoy your meal. Pay attention to the aromas, the textures, and the taste of every single bite.
3. Think Before You Eat
Identify any pitfalls that may lead you to wolf down food that you don’t need. For example, if you’ve had a stressful day, identify this fact, and become aware of it so you can deliberately avoid stress-related mindless over-eating.
4. Make a List
Begin to think about what triggers you towards mindless eating. Is it the TV? The Super Bowl, movies? Perhaps, it’s your emotions or even going out with friends. Once you have your list you can make mindful choices in those situations to stay on top of your eating habits.
5. Stop Finishing Your Plate
Sure, we’re all used to finishing the entire plate and eating those last few bites even if we know that we’re full. But sometimes it’s better to just leave a piece of food there. In case you don’t want to throw away food, you should make sure to put less food on your plate. Better yet, use smaller plates with strategic portions of each food group and then you don’t have to worry about portion control.
6. Never Eat from the Bag or Box
When you take a whole bag of chips to the couch, you’ll likely eat way more chips than you should. The same goes for ice cream, or even something healthy like nuts. Instead serve yourself a small portion in a bowl, 6 chips, a handful of nuts or a small portion of ice cream and then eat only what is there.
7. Learn to Identify Real Hunger
The next time you decide to grab a bag of chips, make sure you ask yourself if you’re in the mood for a fruit or a vegetable. If the answer is no, then you need to be aware that you weren’t really hungry in the first place, and maybe you’re just bored. So it’s maybe best that you put down that bag of chips.
8. Eat More Slowly
In case you were unaware, it actually takes up to 20 minutes for you to digest the food and realize its effects. That’s exactly why you need to make sure you eat more slowly. This may be difficult for a lot of people, which is why you need to come up with a creative way to force yourself to eat slower. For example, try eating with your other hand or using chopsticks for every meal.
9. Reduce Portions Even When You’re Eating Out
When you are ready to order, make sure you tell the waiter to pack up one half of your food to go and to only bring you the other half while you’re at the restaurant. Also, as soon as you sit down, make sure you say that you don’t want bread at your table. This way you won’t even have to look at it, which will surely make you avoid overeating.
10. Don’t Start Eating More Junk Food
Some people often decide to eat more sweets and snacks as soon as they start eating a healthy meal per day, but this will only make you an even bigger mindless eater. People generally do this because they feel like they deserve it for managing to even start eating a little healthier. However, they ultimately end up overeating instead of maintaining a healthy balance.
11. Try Avoiding Eating in Groups
When you eat your meals with a group of people, you’ll surely eat much more.
12.Don’t Skip Meals
Skipping meals will make it much harder for you to become a mindful eater. When we skip meals, we let the hunger take over our brain and that leads us to whatever is closest to us, which isn’t a healthy decision in most cases. To make matter worse, it also makes you more likely to overeat when you finally get your hands on a plate of food because your blood sugars are low and you are famished, making it very difficult to make mindful decisions about food.
Why You Can’t Shift Your Belly Fat
When trying to lose weight, many people say that it’s belly fat they want to lose the most. But the belly is normally the last place most people lose fat. Are you frustrated because you feel like you’ve been doing everything right, but you’re still not able to shift your belly fat? Maybe you’re eating healthy foods and going to the gym, but the change in diet and exercise isn’t making your midsection smaller. To learn more, download my free report, Why You Can’t Shift Your Belly Fat and see how you can start getting the results you want.
