Mindful eating helps you develop an improved relationship between yourself and what you allow into your body. You develop better responses on when you are hungry, what your body wants, and how much.
When you start really paying attention and eating mindfully, the whole process of eating gradually becomes more about foods as nutrients and fuel for your body, instead of eating for convenience or as an emotional response. But what happens if you don’t eat mindfully? What are the risks?
Who Cares? It’s Just a Burger
A burger with cheese, and mayo and a few pieces of bacon. Or, it’s just a double scoop sundae. It’s just a half of a pizza loaded with 5 different meats (highly processed). When you aren’t eating mindfully it doesn’t matter what you put into your body because you simply aren’t paying attention.
You aren’t completely oblivious of the repercussions of improper diet and unbalanced meals, but it’s just not a priority for you.
By choosing to look past the facts, high cholesterol and diabetes could be in your future. Along with obesity, joint problems, sluggishness from carb-overload and the risks of heart disease and stroke.
Overeating and Binge-Eating Issues
Overeating and binge-eating are more common that one would think. Without mindful eating practices you run the risks of overeating at every single meal. You aren’t empowering yourself to stop eating when you are full.
That second helping of pasta is just too much to resist, and the decision is based on taste and not whether it will benefit your body, or otherwise.
When you are eating mindfully you are processing and getting feedback from every single bite. Eating slowly and paying greater attention to your food assists with portion-control. Also, the nutrients are allowed to digest properly and you can actually feel yourself being sated.
You become hyper-aware of exactly how different foods make you feel and prefer those that enhance your performance instead of ones where you need a nap immediately after eating.
Binge-eating is so very dangerous and puts you at a much higher risk for eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. Eating mindfully can help with all of these. Binges often become less in amount consumes and less frequent. Mindful eating helps you extinguish these habits and make better choices.
Emotional Eating Cycles
During periods of sadness, happiness, anxiety about something, or just plain boredom, some people are more inclined to reach for what feels good and helps them cope.
For a lot of us, that’s food. Feel good foods. Mindful eating helps control these cycles. Instead of eating around the clock and eating while multi-tasking, you have set times and places for food.
You gain a deeper understanding that you really aren’t making yourself feel better and will probably feel worse when you get on the scale or try on that pretty black dress. Without mindful eating, you run the risk of emotions controlling you instead of you developing the strength and wherewithal to control your emotions.
The risks of not eating mindfully are detrimental to your overall health in many aspects. Gaining control over food instead of letting food have all the power is vital to not only to health, but for happiness, too.
Without mindful eating practices you simply put caution to the wind and let the chips fall how they may. Wouldn’t you like to be in charge of how you feel? How your health has benefited from your choices?
Food is only as powerful as you allow it to be, and truly eating mindfully can be just the shift you need to avoid these risks.
