The Benefits of Mindful Eating
Did you know learning to pause and pray is what finally helped me (a dietitian) stop overeating! Faith-based mindful eating gives us the opportunity to focus on God’s presence, feel gratitude for God’s gift of food, and rest our brain! We get to have mini mindfulness moments with God EVERY. TIME. WE. EAT!
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With mindful breathing, we are pausing and centering out minds on one thing- breathing. When we are mindfully eating, we are still pausing and centering our brain on one thing, but this time that one thing is eating. With faith-based mindful eating, we are resting our brain by focusing on God and the food God provided.
Some of the Other Benefits Are
Weight Loss
Although I would like to encourage you to focus on the other benefits because all sizes can be healthy, I do want to quickly mention that weight loss can be one benefit to mindful eating. However, remember some people are naturally smaller and some naturally weigh more. We have different builds and genetics. Plus, other things like medications, medical conditions, and even uncontrollable seasons in life can affect weight.
But I also don’t want you to feel that wanting to lose weight is somehow wrong. You may want to see if weight loss will help you have more energy or help with a medical condition. Maybe you feel like you could keep up with your children more if you carried less weight or maybe you want to see if weight loss can help with joint pain.
There are reasons you may desire weight loss, and fortunately mindful eating can help with weight loss while also helping you stop that food obsessing often associated with dieting. Mindful eating helps you feel full and notice your hunger/satiety cues. Moreover, the desire to binge decreases because you are actually enjoying your food ALL THE TIME.
Although, mindful eating is so much more than weight loss and weight loss is not the general focus, I still want you to know all the possible outcomes of mindful eating and one outcome can be weight loss. In fact, I lost 50 pounds, myself, through mindful eating!
Relieves Stress
Mindful eating is a stress reliever. Making time for mediation or quiet time can help reduce stress, but when you are super busy you can make eating a time to de-stress by eating mindfully. Mindfulness is about slowing down and calming your brain. When you meditate you center your thoughts. When you mindfully eat, you center your thoughts on eating. You try to focus on eating and nothing else. You eat slowly and taste your food. In other words, mindful eating is a time to de-stress in a busy world.
Did you know that stress feeds harmful bacteria in our gut? Stress, alone, can cause inflammation, decrease immune function, cause weight gain, and increase your risk for many chronic conditions so you can see, yet again, how mindful eating promotes a healthy mind, body, and spirit.
Mindful Eating and Gut Health
Mindful eating can aid in digestion. How? Although most digestive enzymes are released in the stomach, digestion actually starts in the mouth. One enzyme, called Salivary Amylase, is released in the mouth. This enzyme starts breaking down carbohydrates. In fact, if you let a piece of bread sit in your mouth for a moment, you may notice a sweeter taste. That taste occurs because the more complex carbohydrate is breaking down into a simpler sugar. Chewing thoroughly helps with digestion because digestion starts in the mouth! Plus, chewing thoroughly gives the enzymes in your stomach more surface area to do their work, which again promotes healthy digestion and absorption.
May Reduce the Risk of Chronic Disease
These reasons, along with the ability to relieve stress, are how mindful eating can aid in digestion. Remember, poor gut health is related to inflammation and reduced immune function. Gut health, inflammation, and immunity are all linked to many condition including IBS, Crohn’s, Autoimmune Disease, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, stroke, brain function and focus, mood and even depression and anxiety, to name a few. So anything that promotes a healthy gut is something worth looking into in my book. (Fortunately, a mindful eating guide IS included in my book!)
Do you remember those astonishing people from the Blue Zones? Interestingly, along with following similar diet patterns, the people in these Blue Zone tend to naturally practice mindful eating and are in tune with their hunger as well! Hmm, perhaps they really are onto something!
You can find an in-depth step-by-step guide to mindful eating in The Nourishing Meal Builder.
This article has been updated and was adapted from 18 Weeks to a Healthier, Happier, More Purposeful Life. This unique book was written by Lacy Ngo, a dietitian nationally recognized as a top expert in faith-based mindfulness and evidence-based nutrition. She shares the exact steps that, based on science, produce the most dramatic health and weight loss success in her book, 18 Weeks to a Healthier, Happier, More Purposeful Life. This book is like nothing you have ever seen before. It combines faith and science. Both are crucial when it comes to producing real change because real change involves the mind, body, and spirit.
Lacy Ngo, MS, RDN, the owner of Mindfulness in Faith, LLC, is one of the top experts in faith-based mindfulness and nutrition. Ngo is the author of several books including 18 Weeks to a Healthier, Happier, More Purposeful Life, The Nourishing Meal Builder, The Nourishing Meal Builder: the Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Edition, and Mindfulness in Faith and Freezer Meals.
