How Mindfulness Can Help You Lose Weight and Keep It Off

Published: Tue, 11/12/24

Updated: Tue, 11/12/24

Hi ,

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn’t more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.

― Sylvia Boorstein

Mindfulness is an essential skill that can put you on the path to permanent weight loss. Change can only happen in the present moment and you must be aware and mindful in order to make better choices. It is only by centering your full attention in the moment that you can become fully aware of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, such as hunger and feelings of fullness.

People who eat compulsively, often do so out of reactivity. Reactivity is when thoughts, emotions, and body sensations are channeled into behavior. Emotional overeating and binge eating is a way to regulate emotions like boredom, anger, sadness, anxiety, and even happiness.

Mindfulness gives you the awareness to make permanent changes in your eating patterns. It has been used successfully for weight loss and to stabilize eating behaviors in persons who binge and eat emotionally.

Kimberly Carriere, a doctoral student in the department of psychology at McGill University in Montreal, and her colleagues analyzed data from 19 studies with 1,160 participants examining the effects of mindfulness-based interventions on weight loss, with mindfulness as the primary treatment method and weight loss as the primary outcome.

Weight loss occurred across all the studies. Participants lost an average of 6.8 lb., or 3.3% of baseline body weight. Average weight loss at follow-up was 7.5 lb., or 3.5% of baseline body weight.

Although average weight loss was modest at post-treatment, continued decreases in weight at follow-up is encouraging and highlights the potential of using mindfulness training to support weight loss and its maintenance,” the researchers wrote.

That people continued to lose weight at follow up is very important because most people lose about 5 percent of their body weight by following a diet for a few months, but they’ll usually gain it all back. But these studies show, if they continue to be mindful, they can continue to lose weight and maintain their weight loss.

There were also large mindfulness effects and improvements observed for obesity-related eating behaviors, defined as emotional eating, binge-eating and restrained eating, across all studies.

Some people mistakenly believe that mindful eating is simply eating only when hungry and stopping when full but a mindfulness based approach to weight loss and emotional eating involves a holistic approach that encompasses mind/body and spirit.

These studies support the work I do with private clients as well as my “How You do Food is How You do Life” program. My work emphasizes mindful eating as well as mindfulness meditation, stress management, developing self-compassion, and changing self-limiting thought patterns and beliefs.

My work emphasizes self-love and acceptance as the foundation of change and my program teaches easy methods to practice this. It also teaches people how to manage emotions, break free of emotional eating, set realistic goals, and create self-care plans that are sustainable.

Mindful eating eliminates food rules and the deprivation mindset and emphasizes quality over quantity. Unlike diets, mindful eating is a way of living that’s sustainable and pleasurable as it teaches you to truly enjoy and savor food!

So, if you’re ready to lose the weight and keep it off for good, there’s no better time than right now.

I can personally attest to the effectiveness of mindfulness and mindful eating. 30 years ago, it allowed me to get off the dieting roller coaster and recover from chronic dieting and binge eating disorder. I have maintained my weight for 30 years! You can read my story here.

Research Links

“Mindfulness-based interventions for weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” K. Carrière, et al. Obesity Reviews, published online Oct. 27, 2017.

DOI: 10.1111/obr.12623

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/obr.12623/abstract

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29446036

In vibrant health,

Catherine L. Taylor

http://www.secretsofaweightlossmaster.com

P. S. If you're ready to make peace with food, I'd love to be your personal coach. How you do food is how you do life!

Contact me. I offer a free consultation!

Read what these former clients have to say about how it made the difference for them: Client Success Stories

Yearly Coaching Sale!

If you're ready to experience freedom around food and weight, now is the time to take advantage of this special opportunity to work one on one with me! You can purchase now and can begin at any time in the next 6 months, even in January!

I am offering $300 off my personalized, private 12 week coaching program. This consists of 12 weekly sessions. Regularly $1200 now, until November 30th you can purchase it for $899. The good news is that if you're not ready to use it, you don't have to begin until January or later!

If you have a lot of weight to lose or need long term support to help overcome your emotional eating, I am offering a full year of coaching for $1,600. This consists of 24 half hour sessions that you can use throughout the year as you see fit. For example, I recommend you start out weekly for 12 weeks doing my personal coaching program and use the rest as needed throughout the year. This is a $2400 value!

Offer ends November 30th!

Coaching can make the difference between success and failure.

Coaching can help you:

Let go of dieting and bingeing and become a more intuitive, mindful eater
Develop realistic weight loss goals and a daily action plan to achieve those goals
Teach you better self-care and stress management
Reconnect with your feelings, body, hopes, and dreams
Develop a healthier relationship with food, as well as life itself
Develop more compassion and acceptance towards yourself
Eliminate black and white thinking, perfectionism, and other thinking distortions
Release self-defeating patterns around food and weight
Develop a deeper connection to your inner wisdom
Improve your body image

I coach and mentor people in the areas of: permanent weight loss, food addiction, compulsive, emotional overeating, binge eating recovery, intuitive and mindful eating, meditation, self care and stress management, self-esteem and body image issues, life purpose, and self-actualization.

Note: My work is inner focused, not religious, and fits with any belief system you may have, even agnostic. My work assumes that you have all the wisdom and answers you need inside of you. What you call this place — God, intuition, Higher Power, inner wisdom, or true self — is up to you. I am simply a guide bringing you back to the truths that are already inside of you.

The beauty of my coaching is that it is tailored to your individual needs. You are not given a “cookie cutter” commercial program, nor are you prescribed a certain diet. You are given tools and support that are appropriate to your lifestyle, personality type, life stage and needs.

The goal of my coaching is to create a lighter, balanced, healthier, nourishing and joy-filled life. You will begin to see results in all areas of your life because how you do food is how you do life!

Read what these former clients have to say about how it made the difference for them: Client Success Stories

Contact me. I offer a free consultation!

Coaching can make the difference between success and failure.

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