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Its not what you eat, its how you eat

20/4/2017

Its natural to eat when we are hungry and stop when we feel satisfied. And its not rocket science to know that if we take in more calories than we need each day, we will gain weight. However, we still go against our body's natural signals in the following ways….
1. Many of us have been trained to eat everything on our plates – even if we are full
2. We eat in a hurry so we can get back to work
3. Our internal thermostat, which lets us know we are full, is overridden and eventually gets de-sensitised
4. We stand at the kitchen sink and eat
5. We multi-task when we eat and when we have distractions (tv, internet) we don't notice what we eat, or how much we are eating
6. We have forgotten what “full” feels like.

Being full means “I am satisfied – that’s enough food for now”.

Our stomach can tell us when we are full and we can respond to its signals. The way to do this is to remove all distractions, clear the table, sit down, slow down and focus on eating our meal. When we are full there is a gentle, clear, satisfied sensation in the solar plexus area.   It tells us to stop eating now!

You will notice that once you are full, each subsequent bite is a little less enjoyable than the one before.   Pay attention and it becomes obvious.    This is why conscious slow eating is so important. Slow down.

Your solar plexus area gets more and more uncomfortable once you are full - put your food to one side and wait 15-30 minutes.   If still you feel hungry then, eat again.

Here’s the food scale:
1 I couldn’t fit another thing in
2 Overstuffed
3 Uncomfortable
4 Full
5 Comfortable and contented
6 Neutral
7 Slightly hungry
8 Hungry
9 The hoover
10 I am going to pass out

If we listen, the body can tell us what to eat and how much - its natural after all! By paying attention, we can easily recognise when we are full and stop eating.

Elayne teaches Weight Loss classes. Her next course on the 6th May Click here.

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It's not what you eat that puts on weight, it's how you eat...

15/4/2017

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We all have to eat, but these days we are not very conscious about the how we eat, or the reasons why we eat.

Let’s face it, food is delicious and there its everywhere!   Cafes about with delicious treats, supermarkets abound, magazines and books with yummy recipes, and tv shows with inspiring meals.
There is so much information about healthy eating out there… but many people are carrying excess weight.   Why?
Answer: We don’t eat consciously.

Here’s a question for you: Do you eat at times dictated by other people/or timetables when you are not really hungry?   Often we eat because everyone else is having a tea break, or we are at the café and cake goes well with coffee.   The question is… are you really hungry or are you just eating?   Before you eat, check in with yourself – am I really hungry or am I just thirsty?    I recently did an experiment with myself and found I was eating between every massage client (every two hours) – I started asking this question and realised that I wasn’t hungry at all! I stopped having the food and found I could easily go 4 hours between meals.

Here’s the hunger scale….
1 I couldn’t fit another thing in
2 Overstuffed
3 Uncomfortable
4 Full
5 Comfortable and contented
6 Neutral
7 Slightly hungry
8 Hungry
9 The hoover
10 Im going to pass out

Once you have ascertained that you are really hungry, the next step is to eat more slowly.    Why? Because most of the time we over eat because we eat so fast we bypass the mechanism that tells us that we are full.    Yes, our bodies do have this mechanism but we need time to listen to it. Slow down.
There main reasons why we don’t pay attention to this mechanism is that we hoover our food down and we are not present with our food because we are mult-tasking… watch TV, on the phone, on the computer, reading, writing, playing games, walking or driving. Most of us can relate to this. Food is often a means to an ends and not considered to be an activity to do all by itself.     So its no wonder we don’t know what our body wants to eat, when its hungry or when its full. So here is the easy way out…

Eliminate distraction. Sit down and quietly eat your food. In other words… Just Eat!
Take a moment to look at your food and appreciate where it came from
Smell your food
Chew it slowly and savour the taste. At some point you might realise that you have had enough of a certain food and you want more of another food. Before you know it, you are eating foods that you body really wants
Enjoy the textures and sensations of food in your mouth.

When you do this two things happen:
1. You will notice when you are starting to feel comfortable and contented and approaching the status of full. When you get to that place ask yourself – do I want this next mouthful or am I full? If you are not sure, clear that table and wait 15-30 mins. If you feel hungry again, go eat!
2. You start really noticing what you are eating - through taste, smell and texture – you will start becoming aware of what your body really wants. You will naturally start selecting foods that your body wants and stop eating foods that you don’t want.

Elayne Lane teaches Weight Loss courses.
To join her next class click here.

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Weight gain isn't just about what you eat, its about what you feel

11/4/2017

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Its not what we eat… its why we eat.

Did you know that when we have an emotion we don’t want to feel, if we eat food it can make this feeling temporarily go away?   Two things happen when we feel lonely, trapped, overwhelmed, ashamed, resentful or bored.

1. We feel these uncomfortable feelings in our solar plexus area which is right beside our stomach. When we overeat the stomach expands and puts pressure on this area – temporarily blocking these feelings.

2. When hoover our food up (eat a lot of food fast) we get a chemical “high” which makes us feel better.

Unfortunately this chemical high doesn’t last long so we need to eat more to keep the uncomfortable feeling away.   The good news is that there are lots of amazing techniques for uncovering those difficult to be with feelings and changing them into a motivating force in your life.

One of those techniques comes from Paul McKenna’s book “I can make you Thin” and it's called The 5 Questions. Im going to quote from his book:
"I am sitting in a café and a bus stops outside. The engine keeps running and it’s loud. I feel annoyed. I ask the five questions:
1. What is the trigger?   The emotion is a response to the noise.
2. What is the belief or judgement? I believe the noise is unpleasant.
3. What is my need? I have a need for a level of quietness to concentrate on my writing.
4. What is the positive intention behind this emotion? The positive intention of the annoyance is to re-establish the level of quietness I desire.
5. What is the first practical action I can take? I can move to another café – or I could ask the bus driver to turn off his engine."

Through the five questions you can unfold what the emotion is trying to tell you and find some solutions that bring you back to a place of equilibrium again.

To learn how to work with your feelings so that they don't control your eating - why not come to my Weight Loss Course on the 6th May?    Click here.

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Its not what you eat, its how you eat

It's not what you eat that puts on weight, it's how you eat...

Weight gain isn't just about what you eat, its about what you feel

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