Mindful Eating and Weight Loss
Mindful Eating & Weight Loss
I have been working with Mindful Eating clients since 2020 and the most frequent question I get on my FREE discovery call is “If I do your programme will I lose weight?” Having coached well over 100 clients in Mindful Eating, let me share how I respond.
Will Mindful Eaing help me lose weight?
Many clients I work with have been yo-yo dieting for years. They come to the realisation that going on restrictive diets does not offer a sustainable solution to reach their health goals and often they have developed an unhealthy relationship with food.
So how do I answer the question, “Am I going to lose weight during this programme”? I answer: “This programme is not for you if your sole aim is to lose weight.” So, we delve a little deeper into the real reasons they wish to explore Mindful Eating and the reasons fall into the following categories:
- I want to enjoy food again
- I want to experience freedom with food
- I want to improve my relationship with food
- I want a sustainable approach to achieving my health goals (which may or may not include losing weight)
Now, this is where Mindful Eating can definitely help and in fact be transformative!
Sometimes I get one more question though. “Do any of your clients lose weight doing your Mindful Eating programme?” This question I will not answer – but what I do say is that all my clients walk away:
- knowing themselves better and enjoying food more
- with far more awareness of the reasons why they eat
- much kinder to themselves and with an arsenal of self-care practices to support themselves in challenging times
- with a deep connection to their inner wisdom which allows them to make conscious choices aligned with their present moment needs as well as their longer term health goals
- with a healed relationship with food
Mindful Eating, Weight Loss & CHOICE
During my FREE Mindful Eating Coaching Disovery Call and during my 7-week Mindful Eating programme, many clients say “I know I’m not allowed to want to lose weight, but…”. This is where I really want to emphasise the element of CHOICE. Do not let anyone tell you that you can not have a health goal! You are an autonomous individual. You can set whatever health goals you want. Please do not let anyone take away your power to do this.
The problem with Diet Culture
However, Diet Culture comes at weight loss from a place of self-criticism, self-loathing and self-control. It is about restriction and labeling foods as good and bad. Making an enemy of food and creating guilt when we eat certain foods, and removing the pleasure from eating. This is not a healthy or sustainable way to reach your health goals.
When you submit to diet culture you give away your power. You let someone else tell you what to eat, how much to eat and when.
Take back your power with Mindful Eating
Through Mindful Eating you can work towards your health goals from a place of self-acceptance, self-love and self-care. Can you feel the different energy in this approach? With the Mindful Eating approach you can enjoy a healthy relationship with food and enjoy all foods as part of a healthy, balanced diet. Through the lens of Mindful Eating, we see food as neutral – and classify them as “whole foods” and “play foods”.
Through Mindful Eating, we take our power back and learn to trust in our own inner wisdom around food. This means connecting once more with physical hunger, emotional hunger, stomach fullness, body satiety, taste satisfaction, cravings, stress eating and food habits. Understand WHY you eat. Learn about alternative ways to care and comfort yourself in times of stress other than food. But also learn that you can CHOOSE to use food for comfort, and how to do so mindfully without over eating! Build trust in your own inner wisdom around food again. Heal your relationship with food. Learn to trust in your own CHOICES. Move into your power.
When clients complete my programme they understand why I don’t answer the question “will I lose weight?”. They transform their relationship with food. They find a sustainable relationship with food. And they are then in a place to CHOOSE their health goals, but most importantly coming at them from a place of self-care, rather than self-control.
If you would like to find out more about my 7-week Mindful Eating coaching programme, which takes place live online at a time convenient to you, click here to find out more or schedule a FREE discovery call.
