I think we can all be guilty of eating on the run, but after reading this article I think you will change your habits!
Today I will entwine ancient wisdom with controlled clinical science – just the way I know you like it!
Science first
In a randomized controlled trial with 80 participants, 42 were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 38 to the control group (they were effectively placed on a waiting list).
The intervention group were given the task to eat every meal mindfully. Specifically, having “one or two bites” of foods that are higher in calories and “just savoring the flavor.”
The participants were asked to focus on many facets of dealing with and interacting with their food, such as paying attention to how it tastes, noticing hunger and fullness cues, and pre-planning mealtimes and snacks.
The results?
After 15 weeks, the average weight loss in the group that completed the program was 1.9 kilograms compared with 0.3 kilograms average weight loss in the control group – a result that the researchers describe as “statistically significant.”
This is an amazing result considering that no diet instruction or modification was involved!
Wisdom and Ancient healing practices
The way we approach and eat our food has been at the forefront of natural health since it began – in all parts of the word!
From a functional health perspective, it makes total sense that one would lose or manage their weight by eating mindfully for a number of reasons.
Chewing the food more times increases digestive enzymes that are excreted in saliva. These enzymes break down sugars, starches, and fats. Plus it breaks the food up properly, meaning there is a better chance for your body to access the nutrients within. An example – if you swallow a nut or seed whole, it will pass through the stool whole, meaning you got no nutritional value at all from it.
ANS response. Our autonomic nervous system is triggered by our thoughts and our environment. It keeps your body in the best state according to what you are doing. If you are active (mentally or physically) then the sympathetic nervous system is switched on. This is our Fight, Flight, or Freeze response. It pulls the blood away from our core and creates a cascade of steroid hormones to enable us to act faster. When we adopt mindfulness, it turns this off and activates the parasympathetic nervous system – known as the Rest and Digest response. When this is on, our blood pressure drops due to the reduction in steroid hormones, blood pools to the core, heat builds in the digestive tract, and optimal digestion is possible. With this energy moving to the core, digestive organs work better with the oxygen-rich blood. The liver can produce better HCl and bile, the pancreas has a lesser load due to the reduction in cortisol, and the immune system can also calm down, helping food intolerances to be less reactive.
We can hear our body’s cues. When in the parasympathetic response, we will hear and feel our body’s cues telling us we are satiated and full. These cues are not received when we are in the stressed sympathetic mode.
Reality
Now all this sounds great, doesn’t it? But what if weight loss has become stagnant for you, and you are doing all the right things but not losing weight?
Then there is a high probability that you have a hormone imbalance.
Hormones have powerful effects on our body, and when our system becomes depleted, it seems like all the good will, calorie restriction and exercise in the world won’t fix it!
This is were The Lucy Rose Clinic shines – using thorough investigative pathology to discover the current blueprint that your body is operating under, and then using targeted natural therapies to correct the imbalances.
Hormone imbalances can be hard to correct, cause horrible symptoms, and really affect your quality of life. All this can be happening even though your standard pathology says you are normal.
You don’t have to put up with! Call us today to discuss how we can help. Click the button to book a free consult.
