Can mindfulness can help with weight loss?
January is often a time for new routines, goal setting and healthy habits. If you’re anything like us you might not be feeling quite yourself after the festive season (or in my case I‘m still feeling every bit of my month-long South American adventure*).
The good news is, research is showing that mindfulness can be a powerful tool in helping you achieve your health and weight loss goals.
Mindfulness. It’s gotta be up there on the list of ‘most googled’ and ‘most hash-tagged’ of 2018. But what does it mean?
Mindfulness refers to ‘a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations’. Be present and accepting.
It’s a well established technique for managing stress, anxiety, improving cognition and mental well-being. Its benefits reach beyond this to improvements in immune function, physical health, and more recently, weight loss.
New research from the UK has found that a group of people who undertook a weight loss program, those who attended mindfulness training lost an average of 2.9kg more than those who didn’t. That’s a significant difference. And what impressed us even more was that those in the mindfulness group also reported improved self-esteem and confidence in self-management of their health. We LOVE this!
Whether your aim is to feel great, shift some habits, feel more confident or in control, or improve your relationship with food, mindfulness can be a powerful strategy.
We’re looking forward to some programs and tools to be developed specifically for this purpose (and we’ll be sure to keep you posted!).
In the meantime, if you or someone you care about would benefit from some tailored advice and strategies, reach out to us.
*it was absolutely worth it!
Hanson P et al. Application of mindfulness in a tier 3 obesity service improves eating behaviour and facilitates successful weight-loss. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, DOI: 10.1210/jc.2018-00578
