4 simple exercises that will help you lose weight without breakdowns and overeating
4 simple exercises that will help you lose weight without breakdowns and overeating. Often, if we talk about a person with an eating disorder, it is either an emotional overeater or someone who has had a long dietary experience. Such people have a hard time controlling their diet. Sometimes they make decisions about eating based on impulses that are not directly related to hunger.
I recommend that anyone who has a similar problem master the skills of mindful eating: hear your feeling of hunger, choose tasty food, feel full and stop in time while eating.
Having mastered these skills, a person can rehabilitate their eating behavior after a period of dieting and even lose weight.
1. Listen to your hunger
Very often, when planning a meal, people focus on the schedule, not the feeling of hunger. Although hunger is an unmistakable signal that the body needs some nutrients.
Therefore, the first thing you need to learn is to feel your hunger and, depending on its intensity, make a decision to eat.
Exercise
When you get up in the morning, wait for the feeling of hunger . Some people may already feel it upon waking up. And some people need time for this. But sooner or later, hunger will definitely come. No matter how many hours have passed since waking up, you should start breakfast only when you experience this feeling.
This exercise is convenient to do on a day off or during vacation – when you are not tied to a work schedule and you do not need to rush to the office.
The feeling of hunger can vary in intensity. Of course, if you haven’t eaten anything all day, it will be very acute. This is already a beast’s hunger. Most likely, after such a long break, overeating is inevitable, since it will be very difficult for you to get full.
It is important not to bring yourself to a state of shaking. You need to find a feeling of hunger in which you do not pounce on food . For example, you come to a restaurant and understand that you want to eat, but you can calmly wait 15-20 minutes, and do not immediately pounce on the bread basket. I call this state “optimal hunger”, in which there will be no overeating.
2. Choose food that you like
People who have a lot of experience with diets and overeating often experience fear of the pleasure of food. However, both it and the feeling of satisfaction after it give a state, thanks to which a person can calmly wait for the next meal – without snacking and animal hunger.
It is important to understand: you do not have to eat chicken breast , because it is healthy, low-fat, “pure protein”. Instead, you can choose your favorite cutlet with a side dish. And instead of a boiled egg for breakfast – a sandwich with sausage. Delicious food will allow you to get complete satisfaction, and not just a full stomach. Pleasure is as important as satiety.
Exercise
Make a list of any food or product, consisting of 15 items. Everyone has different tastes, so the items will vary.
I advise you to start making a list not with desserts, leave them for the end. Before doing this exercise, people are afraid: if I allow myself to eat what I like, I will eat only cakes, pies and ice cream. But when they make a list, they see that it contains a lot of “normal” food: meat and fish dishes, side dishes, salads and the like. Sometimes it turns out that such lists do not even have sweets, at most one or two items.
What are your goals in making such a list? Thanks to this exercise, you legitimize a variety of products for yourself and allow yourself to feel satisfied with food.
Later, you will keep this list in your head, realizing that you will not pounce on bread and candy at every opportunity. Instead, you will be able to choose what you really like at a restaurant or buffet. This list can also give you an idea of what to cook for dinner.
3. Listen to the feeling of satiety during meals
Once we start eating, the feeling of hunger quickly dulls . You can drink half a cup of coffee with milk – and you will feel that you have satisfied your hunger. However, this feeling cannot be called satiety or satisfaction.
Satiety also has different gradations. In order to restore your nutrition, you need to learn to hear it.
People who regularly overeat are used to stopping only when the food is already stuck in their throat. On the other hand, those who tend to limit themselves often leave the table almost hungry. Both options disrupt and destroy our contact with our body. We stop focusing on its signals, and get used to ignoring them.
It is important to find the optimal feeling of satiety and satisfaction from food. Once you learn to define it, it will be easier to stop in the process of eating.
And yes, you don’t need to leave the table “with a slight feeling of hunger.” This is a principle that doesn’t really work. If you do this, you’ll be hungry in an hour and a half. This is very inconvenient and completely unnecessary. You need to eat so that for 3-4 hours you don’t think about food at all.
Exercise
Try to identify several levels of satiety during meals. For example:
- It slightly suppressed my hunger.
- I’m a little full, but I can eat more.
- I’ve eaten enough and am satisfied.
- I overate a little.
- I ate a lot too much.
You can create your own scale. The main task is to distinguish different levels. This can only be done when you carefully observe yourself, which actually develops your contact with your body. This is a very profitable investment in your eating behavior. In general, listening to yourself is an important part of restoring nutrition.
When you need to pee, you look for a toilet. Why should it be any different with food?
People who frequently go on diets often lose the ability to hear their body’s signals, and this has far-reaching negative consequences.
Therefore, if you want to get closer to natural nutrition, you should not distract yourself with other factors – for example, watching a video or reading a book. Eating is a separate process. When you are immersed in your phone, it is difficult to notice how satiety is growing. As a result, there is a high risk of overeating or undereating, and this is bad. In general, multitasking has long been discredited.
In addition, to give yourself more time to listen to yourself, try to chew slowly and stretch your meal for at least 12 minutes. You don’t need to throw a whole plate into your mouth at once. But you shouldn’t chew one piece for a very long time either: it doesn’t bring pleasure. Learn to gradually lengthen your meal.
4. Stop in time – lose weight without breakdowns
Let’s say you managed to feel full. But if we have a habit of overeating, then it can still be difficult to stop eating. Stopping in time is a separate skill.
Exercise
When you feel that you are full enough, but not overeaten, stop, put the food aside . Stare at your phone for 10 minutes, talk to someone sitting next to you. Don’t hold the thought: “That’s it, I won’t eat anymore.” Just give yourself a break. Then check again: do you want to eat something else or not?
If the satiety level is correct and the person simply has a habit of stopping later, then this 10-minute break will help to finish the meal.
Also, create your own finishing rituals. If you eat at home, put away the dishes and leftovers. If you prefer to dine in a restaurant, ask the waiter to take away the plates. Help yourself. If you are just learning to stop, don’t leave a plate with half a delicious cutlet right under your nose! Don’t torture yourself. Don’t count on your willpower, you will need it for other things.