John Lingley
Aspirations Fitness and Mindfulness Coaching, UK
Title: Mindful eating: Supporting us to effectively manage our weight
Biography
Biography: John Lingley
Abstract
Mindfulness can develop much greater levels of self-awareness to our automatic, reactive patterns of eating mindlessly due to trying to cope with our troublesome thoughts, feelings and emotions. Mindful eating can enable us to become more aware of what we are eating, why we are eating, when we are eating and to recognize if we are even hungry at all. Present moment awareness empowers us to fuel our body with nutrients that supports us to take care of ourselves and our health. More importantly we can recognize what the triggers and responses are to eating food when we are not hungry. When we have identified what these triggers are we can seek alternative, more effective methods for dealing with them rather than using food. Mindfulness brings greater self-awareness and enables us to become more aware of the choices that we have in regard to food and habits. In addition, meditative practice can create spaces between the thoughts that we have and the actions that we take. Asking ourselves; ‘Is it my body that needs feeding or is it my soul?’ Is it beneficial to rediscovering what our true needs are? We can become aware that we need to feed our soul and live by our values by perhaps exercising, spending time socializing, helping someone in need or looking after a neighbor. These are invaluable actions that are important to having a healthy relationship with food and so effectively managing our weight.