Mindfulness May Help to Reduce and Maintain Weight

There are many reasons that people want to lose weight. Most commonly, at least one reason is to look or feel better. I have suggested in the past that it is always good to start with your “why” – your reason for losing weight. American Chronicle has has a good post on the your why of losing weight.

 Releasing excess weight gain is not an easy task for many people. Maintaining one’s ideal weight is often just as challenging. Often however, the challenge is not the amount of calories one eats, the correct diet, or the perfect exercise to “burn off” the fat. Often the issue is why the excessive or emotionally reactive eating is happening in the first place. I had a client who told me that she has always felt a “void” in her life, and she wondered if her emotional eating was a symptom of this.

Eating is a common attempt used to fill the void that many people can experience. Unfortunately  the attempt to fill the void with food never works. The void can’t be filled with food, because the void is not physical. It is emotional and/or spiritual. The key then is to become more aware of the emotional triggers of eating, eating excessively and feeling out of control about one’s eating.

Mindfulness based meditation is being researched for its effectiveness at helping to increase self-awareness, regulate mood and increase the ability to have an internal source of control. The Duke Center for Integrative Medicine conducts research on using mindfulness based meditation to help individuals maintain weight.

To help soothe stress and anxious moods as a part of your effort to release excess weight you can utilized techniques such as the Emotional Freedom Technique used by Dr. Deb in her weight loss video.

Deborah Barnett, P.h.D.

www.Deborah Barnett.com