Mindful Eating Strategies: Shift Out of Autopilot
It’s easy to zone out when you’re eating, especially if you’re eating food for stimulation or comfort. Just the anticipation of eating alone triggers a surge of dopamine to the prefrontal cortex, which amplifies the expected pleasure of the pending experience. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. We all want to enjoy our meals. But the problem lies in the way autopilot eating deeply distracts you from other choices which are essential to improving and and protecting your health.
Topping the list is autopilot eating’s ability to make you lose track of proportions, satiety and frequency. So, you quickly wind up eating too much, still feeling strangely hungry and before you know it, getting ready to eat more food. The bad news is that this dopamine-driven closed loop haunts everyone who is struggling to make better choices about food. The good news is that mindful eating can help you adopt a “transformative habit” that disrupts this autopilot behavior.
Although awkward at first, over time the habit of mindful awareness slowly guides you into making better choices about when, where and what food to eat. As you cultivate this approach before and during eating, you will decrease the incidence of what has come be known as “mindless eating.”
You can reinforce the implementation of this transformative habit by recording in a journal or an online application everything you eat. It’s helpful to record when, what and how much you eat. For most women, the act of tracking food intake results in a marked decrease in autopilot eating.
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Pre Diabetes Drift
As boomers drift into old age, their aging metabolism wanders into a precarious state called “pre diabetes.” The American Diabetic Association estimates 50% of boomers are afflicted by this benign sounding diagnosis that silently morphs behind the scenes into full blown- type 2 diabetes. How soon? The data indicates pre diabetics wind up as confirmed type 2 diabetics within 5 years. This is where I found myself a year ago when I became an official “pre.”
Top Five Secrets of Slender Women
Many women spot a slender woman and think her weight management must be effortless or maybe it’s just genetic. But that is far from true. As we age our metabolism gets slower and slower. Weight begins to creep up for ALL women unless we work harder on weight management.
Jumpstarting an Aging Brain
As we age, many of us want to keep our brains as healthy as our bodies. How do we do that? It turns out our brains are neuroplastic. Neuroplasticilty is the brain’s ability to repair damage by reorganizing and forming new connections between intact neurons. The catalyst for neuroplasticity is stimulating the neurons through cognitive activity.
Breaking Up With Gluten, Again
Last fall I under went IgG and IgE blood testing for food allergies with a functional primary care doctor. Only a few foods that I rarely eat came back “positive” for being allergic. Surprisingly, the test was negative for antibodies to wheat. I assumed that being off wheat for almost three years had repaired my gluten sensitivity. So of course, our family was back on the wheat train.
Prevention of Early or Returning Breast Cancer
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
– Benjamin Franklin
This time of year when I see professional football team players wearing pink, I feel women aren’t getting the whole message. Our focus on breast cancer awareness needs to broaden to include breast cancer prevention. It’s not just about finding cancer; it’s about preventing cancer. Both strategies are essential for saving lives. If you want to learn about and possibly support organizations that are investigating causes and prevention of breast cancer, go to zerobreastcancer.org
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