Meditation For Weight Loss: A Healthy Approach 

Meditation for weight loss: If you aren’t already practicing regular mediation, then you may find that adding this practice to your routine can come with a number of benefits. For centuries, people have used meditation to help with everything from focus to stress and everything in between. 

However, experts today are finding even more benefits of regular, mindful meditation, including weight loss. If you haven’t considered meditation for weight loss before and feel as though you need to switch up your regimen, it may be time to add meditation to your current routine.

Here’s what you can expect from trying meditation for your weight loss efforts.

What is Mindful Meditation

In a 2017 study review, experts found that mindful meditation was effective in helping people lose weight and change their eating habits. The good news is, mindful meditation is easy and you can literally do it anywhere and at any time. 

All you need is a quiet space to sit comfortable and 10-15 minutes of time. While you meditate, you should pay close attention to where you are, what you are doing and how you are feeling in the present moment.

You should focus on what you hear, feel and say and pay close attention to your breath as you slowly and purposefully breathe in and out and in calm and controlled manner. The key to successful mindful meditation is to acknowledge everything, including how you are feeling, but doing your best to do this without judgement.

Nothing you experience during this session should be “good” or “bad.” It may seem a little foreign at first to change to this way of thinking, but over time, you will get used to the practice of observation without judgement.

 

eating meditation

Using Mindful Meditation to Help With Your Weight Loss 

Unfortunately, a few mindful meditation sessions aren’t going to magically help you drop all the weight you want, but they can be an important part of your overall weight loss efforts. Many people find that mindful meditation is particularly helpful in curbing emotional eating and stress-related eating. 

When you are more aware and in touch of your thoughts and feelings, you can be more aware of what you are eating, when you are eating and why. It can also help you recognize the times that you are eating when you are stressed instead of eating when you are hungry. Being more aware of your eating habits is a smart first step in losing weight in a safe and healthy manner. 

Meditation can also help prevent the often common spiral of guilt and shame that many people fall into when they are trying to lose weight and change their eating and exercise habits. Mindful meditation is all about recognizing your feelings and behaviors, particularly the ones that can prevent you from mentally getting over the weight loss surgery and any judgement associated with it.

Many people who practice regular mindful meditation find that they are better able to forgive themselves when they make mistakes on their weight loss journey.

How To Start Practicing Meditation For Weight Loss Today 

If you are ready to give meditation for weight loss a try, then the good news is, you don’t need any special training or expensive equipment. You just need to be willing to give yourself the time every day in order to really commit to meditation. People see the best results when they are regular and consistent with their meditation practices.

Here’s how you can start meditating for weight loss every day. 

  1. Sit in a quiet comfortable place and start focusing on your breath.
  2. Pay attention to how the air rises in and out of your body for several minutes until you feel more relaxed.
  3. Take a deep breath in and hold it for several seconds.
  4. Slowly exhale the big breath.
  5. Repeat and continue to focus on your breath, without judgment for 10 minutes. 

Many people find that their mind starts to wonder when they meditate, especially if you are new to meditation. That is completely OK. When this happens, don’t panic, just acknowledge what has happened and return your attention back to your breath.

Set yourself a timer, so that you know when your allotted time is almost done. As you start to wrap up your session and get ready to refocus your mind to the present situation, think about where your mind when during your session. Acknowledge if your mind wandered, then acknowledge how easy it was to bring your attention back to your practice.

If you are struggling to get started with regular meditation, then you can also give guided meditations a try. These audio recordings will help guide you through your meditation practice until you get more comfortable and can do it on your own. 

calm eating

Adding Mindfulness to Your Healthy Lifestyle 

Once you continue to practice mindful meditation, you will be able to start including mindfulness into your everyday, healthy lifestyle as part of your weight loss efforts. There are many people who are absent-minded about their eating or eat because of their emotions. 

Once you get the hang of mindful meditation, you can transition it into mindful eating. This technique will help you build a better relationship with food and your eating experience. Mindful eating will help you be more intuitive with your food consumption and convince you of the importance of slowing down and listening to your internal hunger cues. 

The result is a type of eating that can reduce or stop emotional eating and can help you have a healthier relationship with food. This is not only something that will help you with weight loss in the moment, but that can help you continue to have a healthy relationship with food moving forward. 

There is no better time than today to start practicing mindful meditation and to transition that into mindful eating as you work towards your healthy weight loss goals and your healthy future life. 

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