Beat Food Temptations

Seize the moment and become more attentive of your body's hunger cues, so you can Beat Food Temptations! 5-Tips

Attentive, or mindful eating, is simply being more aware of your sensations while eating and is an easy way to become hyper-focused on the present when eating. It can improve eating habits and appearance self-esteem.

This is not calorie counting or macro tracking; the purpose is to reduce stress from overeating bad meals and savour your food. Mindful dining can be pleasant at the family table or a personal experience.

Advantages of attentive dining to beat food temptations
Attentive eating has been extensively studied, according to Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programme at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, “The attentive eating strategy explains why "diets" have failed over time, because diets ignore behaviour modification".

These simple benefits can be achieved:

• Less post-meal bloat and gas
• Less falling into binge-eating
• Better digestion
• Less stress-eating and anxiety
• Improved food intake regulation supports weight loss and nutrition

Tip 1: Try the "Healthy" vs. "Not so healthy" food sensory exercise to Beat Food Temptations.

Compare a nutritious food source against something less nutritious.

EXERCISE:

1. Hold the “Healthy” food in your hand.
2. Sight: Focus on it; look at it attentively, imagine yourself having never seen anything like this. Look at its shape and colour.
3. Touch: Move it between your fingers and feel its texture. Close your eyes, is it dry, soft, sticky, tough? What can you hear when you press on it?
4. Smell: Now hold it to your nose, does it have a smell? If it does, how does your body react?
5. Taste: Now place it between your lips, what's it’s initial taste like? Put it in your mouth without chewing, does the taste change, is it enhanced? What happening in your mouth and how does the rest of your body feel?
6. Now finally, chew, and savor each bite. Move it around your mouth. Chew it well before swallowing. Can you feel it in your stomach? How does that feel??
7. Now take a moment and drink some water to rinse your mouth and repeat for the “Not so Healthy” food source.
8. Then once completed, compare the two food sources.
   Which had a more positive impact on your senses?

Tip 2: Ask Yourself Why & What

The body gives us hunger cues when we’re hungry, our job is to read them correctly.

Psychological hunger causes overeating and snacking, it comes from your emotional need to eat, not your physical energy needs. 

Studies show that psychological hunger is most commonly caused by boredom. 

Awareness and behaviour adjustment can help us fight unhelpful choices.

Simply ask "why do I want to snack?" or "what exactly is this hunger cue".

Consider starting a simple habit when hunger cues come:

• Pour a glass of water when you feel hungry, that may be enough to satisfy.
• Or, if between normal meals eat a small portion of fruit or nuts, again this may be enough to satisfy.

Tip 3: Slows the go

After eating, it may take 20 minutes or so for your body to register satiety.

Try this to avoid over eating and beat food temptations:

• Set a 20–30-minute phone timer before dinner.
  Try to eat in 20 minutes while focusing on your food and relax.
• Pause: If you struggle to sit down and eat for 20 minutes, put your fork down between bites.
  Switching to chopsticks can also slow you down.
  Walk away from the table to grab water can also help to slow down.
• Twenty chews to break down the food.
  This makes digestion easier and faster, satisfying us quickly. Chew twenty times before swallowing and eat smaller mouthfuls in the first several minutes of your meal.

Tip 4: Create Distraction-free Environments

It can be common to eat chips in the car or while scrolling facebook at lunch. 

Using attentive eating will help you avoid distractions.

Try one of these simple routines to eat distraction-free:

• I'll turn off the TV after plating up dinner/supper.
• put my phone on aeroplane mode when I eat.

Tip 5: Set Your Future to Beat Food Temptations

Attentive eating helps you recognise your food-related emotions.

Before eating, consider these questions:

• Will eating this cause any unhelpful emotions?
• If yes, why are these unhelpful feelings resurfacing?
• Are you eating to cope with a daily emotion or problem or to satisfy hunger?

Use these tips to to raise awareness of your emotional reactions to food and how emotions affect what and how we eat.