As a registered dietitian nutritionist, I have a few confessions to make: I don’t count calories. I don’t use a fitbit or any other device to track exercise goals. I don’t use a phone app to record my intake of protein, carb, fat, or any other nutrient. I eat pizza and cookies, and am not a perfect eater by any means. In fact, I don’t want to be a perfect eater, nor do I believe anyone else should strive to be.
That said, tracking nutrients, calories, and physical activity, along with reading food labels are useful tools when I apply nutrition therapy to help others with disease or weight management. My point is, there is much more to health than numbers and statistics, as I remind people, we eat food, not just grams of protein and percent fat of calories. Eating nutritious food for good health, is of course, very important to me, as I learned at an early age about the value of health. Good nutrition can’t necessarily cure cancer nor multiple sclerosis, but research does demonstrate that eating well contributes to improved physical and mental health.
So back to what I do eat. I practice (note: practice not perfection) following a plant-based, Mediterranean-type of diet high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, fish, poultry, healthy fats, etc. Over the weekend I cooked and enjoyed some delicious grass-fed beef, and indulged in more than my fair share of Christmas cookies. I love most foods, but I do try to eat nutrient dense foods most of the time, and which have become the foods I tend to like the most. But I also love sweets and try to satisfy my sweet tooth daily, sometimes with sweetened yogurt, or my homemade granola, or sometimes with a cookie or two.
With this personal and professional mission over the decades, I’ve come to recognize that beyond my knowledge and practice of nutrition, both Mindful Eating and Intuitive Eating are essential to eating well and overall health. In a nutshell, Mindful Eating is the practice of focusing in the present with the food being eaten. Here’s a bit of an extreme example: sit at the table, take a bite of food, and notice its taste and texture; put down the utensil until the bite is slowly chewed and thoroughly swallowed. Try to do this without talking with a mouthful of food.
As another example, the opposite of Mindful Eating, would be to straddle a plate of food on your lap in front of the TV, mindlessly eating the entire contents of a snack or meal, all while being engrossed with what you’re watching—your mind is literally elsewhere than what’s going into your mouth. These polar examples demonstrate room for mindful practice when we eat. Research data shows that people who eat more mindfully, eat slower with better digestion, tend to eat smaller portions, (and thus total calories), have healthier body weights, and enjoy their food more.
In our multitasking, time-squeezed culture, most people (myself included) eat mindlessly to some degree, whether it’s eating in front of the computer screen, or in the car en route to meeting. One participant I worked with in a weight and wellness study for seniors shared that on his 45-minute commute home from work, he’d go through McDonald’s drive-thru almost daily, just out of boredom. He recognized this was mindless eating and began to pack a water bottle, a piece of fruit and a handful of dry roasted nuts to eat on his way home, IF he was hungry. He lost a significant amount of weight and told me that he works to manage his healthier weight by including the practice of mindful eating.
Another study participant told me that often while eating her dinner, she would be thinking about what she might have for dessert. Here, she was being totally oblivious to the meal she prepared, how it tasted, and how nourishing and fulfilling it was for her. After she began to practice mindful eating, trying to focus on the one meal in front of her at the time, she reported that she recognized she’d been eating her dinner too fast, and eating additional portions of food that she wasn’t even aware of. She told me that mindful eating helped her to enjoy her dinners more, eat less food overall, lose weight, and keep it off.
Intuitive Eating basically means LISTENING to what your body is telling you. Babies at birth do this naturally, eating when they are hungry and stopping when they are full. But as we grow, societal dynamics, food supply and culture, and much more contribute to what we choose to eat. We learn to eat for a variety of reasons beyond just hunger. Sometimes we eat because we may be bored or stressed (again true confessions myself included) or, because perhaps the food just presented itself, such as when walking into the break room for a cup of tea to find slices of leftover cheesecake up or grabs.
When it comes time to eat, LISTEN to what your body is telling you: are you eating because your appetite has been stimulated by the sight or smell of food, or are you eating because you have a bona fide hunger? Know that eating for reasons of both hunger and appetite is really OK, but that eating more often due to external stimuli often leads to over-eating, and thus weight gain. When you are in fact physically hungry, such as a “growling stomach”* listen to your body and feed it. Ignoring signs of physical hunger can lead to overeating later.
Mindful and Intuitive Eating takes a lot of practice, especially if you’ve never considered it before. Keep in mind that it is a practice, not perfection with the end result of you making choices of what and how much you eat. Food should not control you. If you feel like it does, it’s time for professional support. The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has a directory of registered dietitian nutritionists with expertise in many health disciplines.
Takeaways for healthier eating, a healthier you in 2020 and beyond:
1. Don’t diet—they don’t work! Research shows that most people who go on diet gain 90% of the weight they’ve lost or more from where they started. Diets are rigid; their nature promotes deprivation, leading to popularized cheat days. Rather, reframe your thinking and practice developing healthier eating habits, with perhaps just one or two small changes at a time. The goal is to eat well most of the time, so that on occasion, when you choose to enjoy foods that are not necessarily healthy, you don’t end up a square one. If you crave a chocolate brownie, have it; if you don’t, you’ll likely eat everything in sight in an attempt to scratch that itch. But it is important that more often than not, you focus on keeping plenty of healthier foods around, so you have something to eat instead of a brownie. No one food, eaten in moderation should really be taboo.
2. Practice reframing your perspective on “good” foods and “bad” foods, as that lends itself to a lot of personal judgement and guilt surrounding foods. Food should taste good! Taste is just as important to other senses we experience, such as the sight of a beautiful blue sky, or the sound of a favorite tune. Experiment with a new vegetable, grain, or recipe that appeals to your taste.
3. Listen to your body: If you’re physically hunger, eat a snack or meal that contains both protein and fiber, such as ½ of a peanut butter, tuna, or turkey sandwich on whole grain bread, etc. Or, enjoy a cup of vegetable soup, Greek yogurt, and an apple. Both protein and fiber stay with you so that you’re not hungry again a short time later.
4. If you find yourself wanting to eat, just for the sake of eating, develop and practice some boundaries for yourself: buy one square of dark chocolate or a cookie when you’re out instead of bringing a whole package home that’s going to scream out your name to you later. Don’t eat chips, nuts, etc, right out of the package; portion out a serving suggestion and return the bag sealed to the cupboard.
5. Allow yourself to be somewhat flexible with food choices and behaviors, but establish some boundaries for yourself as well. Empower yourself to listen to your body, be true to your mind.
6. Finally, a brief note to mention the mantra we shared when I worked in cardiac rehab, “You only have to exercise on the days that you eat.”……Another true confession, I don’t exercise 365 days a year, but I do participate in some sort of physical activity on a regular basis. Our bodies are just way too efficient for the amount of calories we’re exposed to daily. Moving more through exercise contains a plethora of benefits, especially improved mental well-being.
And now a toast:
Cheers to Your Good Health!
FMI: www.wildberrycommunications.com
*In reality, stomach growling is noise heard easily on an empty stomach from digestive hormones and enzymes that have been triggered for release to act on food in your gut in response hunger.