★Mindless Eating?

Do you allow mindless eating to get in the way of your health goals?

It doesn’t mater how we label our mindless eating. And we do label this activity as hormonal, some troublesome incident, or just gobbling down something we shouldn’t have during someone’s: birthday, during Easter, during Passover, during Thanksgiving, during Christmas, during Chanukah or during just any ol’ get together!!

We often tend to look for reasons not to take care of ourselves. We down comfort foods, and we just don’t take the time to plan and see how we could modify our choices to treat our bodies with love.

I am very interested to know what are the things you do to lessen these mindless eating habits?

Sending much love and light Dee :-

Yeah, you’re right there are all kinds of reasons people tend to overeat, or eat mindlessly. Like you say, it is often the excuse of a holiday or a simple get together, and it all seems ok (at the time), huh?

I think we could use use thread for meal planning thoughts/ideas and challenges people face w/food and food choices->ya think?

For myself, I try to think in advance, what foods I want to incorporate for my day (whether it is at home or at work), or for the week when I grocery shop. I also try to jot down what I eat, and how I felt (before and after)-> If I can recall, when I’m jotting down the days events. I keep a little area in my writing for meal planning and exercise. It helps.
It isn’t a perfect tool, but it does help(:

In response to laurie’s post:

Awesome Laurie! Thank you so much for sharing! I do like the idea of jotting down what you ate and how you felt about it before and afterwards. Thats a great tool for sure!

I love your topic!
I had an unusual health experience some years back, and it caused me to lose my sense of taste and appetite. It was one of the absolute worst experiences of my life!! To make a long story short, I got
(completely) better and was left w/the highest level of gratitude I ever had for health, and good food and the ability to savor the moment w/good (healthy & tasting) foods.

I had to force myself to eat when everything tasted like my idea of cardboard. When all of these nasty symptoms went away, I was left w/a routine of “making myself” eat regularly whether I was hungry or not.

The good news is, it keeps my blood sugar and metabolism at a great place.

The bad news is on occasion-something that feels like mindless-healthy eating, even though I can taste. I do my best to continue to savor every tasty morsel, though as time goes by that intense gratitude for taste isn’t ‘always’ at the forefront of my experience.

You’ve reminded me to check in w/that, because it’s a beautiful feeling.

While I thank goodness for taste, and great health->mindless eating is not something I want.So, make sure I write down what I eat, to make sure I’m including the healthy foods, and how I feel before and after to remind myself we eat for purpose;to enjoy and to be healthy.

Being a petite young lady, I enjoy keeping my weight at a good place. I also enjoy feeling great! So I choose foods that fit the bill. I’m not perfect at it, but that’s my goal.

If I have a sweet tooth that needs to be satiated, there are so many things I can do besides eating a scruptious looking chocolate cake slice(s).
Especially when one of the slices, if I didn’t make it, could have 500kcal a slice, more grams of sugar than I can tolerate. I don’t want to spend the rest of the year working it off in the gym, I have trouble going to 4-5x a week as is(:

Inre:to the sweet tooth and my other occcasional ‘needs’:
1.cautious w/labels of premade things, and things I make
2. don’t eat other people’s foods if I’m not sure if it’s good for my routine
3. if I choose to cheat on my meals, be mindful of it and don’t beat myself up.
4. Eat frozen fruit (grapes, or bananas) as a treat
5. eat sweet smoothies (and watch what I’m adding-keeping it balanced
6. piece of good organic dark chocolate
7. apples blueberries kiwis and pears great for a sweet tooth
8. Also for an occasional premade-mix delicious brownie:
I choose Pamela’s Chocolate Brownie Mix. Great base for healthy desserts.

Ingredients are:
Molasses and Honey, Brown rice flour, natural process cocoa powder, white rice flour, organic chocolate chunks, soy lecithin emulsifier, organic vanilla

*you can use applesauce instead of oil for fat in brownies

low sugar, 1g fat in 1 brownie.

This is all that comes to mind right now(:

In response to laurie’s post:

Wow Laurie! I do find what you have shared very useful, you have brought to my attention something I read in my NZ Health Food Book and will share with you and everyone when I come back this afternoon, I have to quickly dash now, kids are getting up now and are waiting for their breakfast.

Sending much love and light, hope you all have a great day!

I’m here to second the idea of putting EVERYTHING in writing that you put in your mouth. One thing that helps me is that I know my personal trainer reads everything I put down. He warns me that if he doesn’t like what he sees, I will “pay for it” with a heavy & tough work out session that week.

I stay honest, because I want honest results. Having a 2nd set of eyes read it gives me good feedback. Do you have a knowledgeable friend or family member to be your “conscience”? (without damaging the whole process of why you are doing it in the first place)

Affirmation Just For You:

Today I only eat foods that are life enhancing to me.

In response to meditatingmama’s post:

Awesome MM, I do like your affirmation, it is a good one! My personal trainer is doing exactly the same for me too, I kept a record of everything I eat for her to see, I the same like you to be honest with myself as well and majority of the time I can do it by myself with exercise helping me.

There is only on rare times say once a month around personal that I reach for foods that I shouldnt, such as a small packet of potatoe chips or a couple of pieces of chocolate, or half of a homemade vegan chocolate cup cake. My body goes without these foods for such a long time (25 days out of 31), and it always makes a calling for these foods at around this time.

Thinking about it, these are my treats really and the pieces are so minor and small, and the exercises I do is 6 days a week, I really have no need to worry about it.

I am ever so grateful for you and Laurie’s advice in helping me to help us all overcome Mindless Eating. ;-)

Here is that interesting piece of information I got from my magazine Healthy Food NZ – Weight Loss and Exercise , there is 100 very helpful categories to browse through inregards to eating, its very interesting.

Hope you find it as useful as I did reading through some of them. :-)

Hi Pure Essence,

I totally understand you. I used to be obsessed with food….I now choose to say that I am passionate about taste, flavour and healthy living. I do not diet any more and I affirm that I eat for health, strength and energy – but I also affirm that I eat with enjoyment and abundance and maintain my healthy weight. I used to have an eating disorder that led me to go through bouts of anorexia and overeating. I now eat when my body requires it and only eat what I truly enjoy eating. I savour my food and never rush and I am grateful for every morsel i taste – after all its one of life’s pleasures and there to be enjoyed. I am now eating abundantly and maintaining my 105 pounds that used to fluctuate. Now even though I eat what I want, I am listening to my body so never eat mindlessly. I think once to make a conscious decision to eat what you enjoy when your body wants it you are eating mindfully!!!
Its amazing now I crave fresh fruits, vegetables….and the occasional square of Green and Black’s Organic dark choc – but never overdo it, simply because I dont feel the need.
Sending you love, blessings and yummy food to enjoy…..we must start a new recipie thread….What do you suggest Laurie!!!???
Anoushka ;o)

I am in the process of getting back into optimal health. I had a bout of depression that really kicked my fanny to the ground. You wouldn’t believe what depression does to deplete the body of energy and vitality. Some days when I meet with my trainer, I feel like a little toddler learning to walk all over again. BUT>>>

No matter what it takes, I will achieve this goal. It is important to me. I lost my mother when she was just a few years older than I am now. She was suffering from severe depression that depleted her health. She had seven children and so many unfulfilled ambitions that lead to her to unhappiness. Her life experience has been a very meaningful and deep lesson to me to follow my passion – regardless of how others think or feel about me doing so. I’d rather not die with my song left unsung!!

In response to meditatingmama’s post:

Much LOVE AND CUDDLES ((((HUG HUG HUG))) MM, always in my thoughts!

thread from 2009

a bit more than 10 years ago!

awesome thread

lets bring it current!

In response to SelfcareEnthusiastEnergy♡˚'s post:

since I wrote this more than a decade ago, some of my habits, rationale for food selection has shifted  a bit. (that's a nice way of saying I'd like to bump up my routines) (:

While I could still be 'looked at' as  healthy minded ... as I've gotten a tinch older... I've now decided to recommit with a beginners mind, though with the ideas/habits  of body builder-passion to get things where I really want them in 2020

will return(:

Hope others do too(: