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Mindful Eating: A Guide to Getting Started
By: Scottsdale Weight Loss Center
Published: May 24, 2017
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During your medical weight loss program you will encounter a lot of different dietary strategies and exercise habits. The majority of the dietary strategies that you will read about or be introduced to by your weight loss doctor will involve some degree of making changes to your food choices.
The reason that a certain diet works or doesn’t work often has less to do with the food itself than it has to do with your ability to stay with it mentally. Going on a meal replacement diet, is helped by the product taste and the nutritional completeness but this becomes meaningless if you cannot be consistent and stick with the plan. A slip-up here or a misstep there and it becomes very easy to abandon all hope and to return to your previous eating habits.
Rather than focusing exclusively on the food choices necessary to make a weight loss diet work, it is a better idea to think about the mental strategies that you can employ to help yourself stay on track with your weight loss plans.
Getting Started with Mindful Eating
The mindful eater is able to resist temptation and avoid unnecessary snacking because they are not thrown off by emotions, stress, or fatigue—experiences that prompt many people to begin to eat.
Here are a few strategies that can help you get started with being a more mindful eater:
- Pay more attention to the planning stages of your meal preparation. Get involved by making choices, looking into recipes and plating food in fun and creative ways.
- Think about the flavors that you love and consider the different foods that offer those flavors. You don’t need to go to your old-favorite snacks to get those same flavors. What healthy alternatives would you enjoy?
- Don’t let yourself be influenced by outside factors. Just because friends are eating, that doesn’t mean you need to indulge as well.
- Emotions can be difficult to manage, but overeating because of stress, frustration or sadness never actually helps you feel better. Be mindful to avoid situations like these that may cause you to overeat unintentionally.
Improving your mindfulness in association with your food choices and eating habits is a great place to start because mindfulness is exactly what you need to remain more diligent, determined, and focused on reaching your weight loss goal. Mindfulness is the process of being more deliberate in any given moment. To be mindful means to be present, considerate, and non-judgmental of yourself, of others, or of different foods. Find a weight loss support network who can help you stay on track with being a more mindful eater.
Nick
Nick's Story
"I wish I would have come here first. We spend all our time reacting to the next great weight loss tip or program. It might work for a while, but does not last and we end up yo-yoing from one fad to the next – as we gain more weight." Read More
Gina
Lost 44.5 lbs
"I had no trouble adhering to the meals and they really helped catapult my progress! The classes were so beneficial to me because they helped change my thinking about how I viewed health, nutrition, and fitness.
I will always have my relationship with Scottsdale Weight Loss Center. They truly helped me change my life forever." Read More
Lauren
Lost 60 lbs
"Dr. Ziltzer and everyone who I have come in contact with at the Scottsdale Weight Loss office have been so encouraging and I look forward to seeing them each week. It is now a year and 2 months later since I started. I am down 60 lbs., which is the average amount a 9-year-old weighs, it is crazy to think I lost a whole person! I feel amazing, I hit my goal weight in November 2021 just before Thanksgiving. Nothing on my body hurts anymore..." Read More
Chuck
Lost 66 lbs
"The best thing I did was call the Scottsdale Weight Loss Center. I have a lot more energy, I'm not hungry, and it feels great.
You can take it from me that this is a program that produces results. The staff is always positive, supportive, and never judgmental.
Your visits always result in positive reinforcement, no matter if you had a good week or a bad week." Read More
Emily
Lost 101 lbs
"Here I am at the lowest I have been since high school weighing in at 155lbs. I have lost 101 lbs, BMI of 39 when I started, to 21.6, and of course at body fat % of 47.1 to 26.5%. I told myself by my 30th birthday I wanted to be confident in the way I look and I owe it all to SWLC. The entire staff is so welcoming and they are rooting for you just as much as you are rooting for yourself...." Read More
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Meet Our Team
Robert Ziltzer, MD, FACP, FAAP, FOMA
Obesity Medicine Certified Physician
Diana Bone, FNP-C
Specializing in Obesity Medicine
Craig Primack, MD, FACP, FAAP, MFOMA
Obesity Medicine Certified Physician
Kristen Ash, FNP-C, FNP-BC
Nurse Practitioner
Alicia Earley, FNP-C
Family Nurse Practitioner
