Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight by Peter Walsh Page B

well as eating differently and getting more exercise. But I’m hoping you’ll see your mindfulness activities as a supplement to these other changes that fits nicely into the spaces when you’re not busy.
    See mindfulness as the important activity it is. We value action so much that simply sitting still and centering ourselves can easily be viewed as wasted time. Mindfulness is worth the effort, and it will pay huge dividends in enabling you to be more focused on the life you want to live.
    Don’t be hard on yourself if you’re not taking time to be “mindful enough” or if you’re not doing it “right.” Remember, mindfulness involves judging yourself less.
    Consider this . . .
    â€œThere’s a bumper sticker that I love,” Diana Winston says, “and I talk to my students about it: ‘Don’t believe everything you think.’ Our thoughts are very powerful, and we have many thoughts that are extremely positive and helpful thoughts. But we have a lot of thoughts that can lead to quite a bit of suffering. They have a grip on us. We’re taught to believe everything we think, so if you have this thought that, ‘Oh, I failed at such and such,’ you believe it.”
    STOP AND TAKE STOCK
    Try this mind-focusing strategy whenever you want to make a purchase. It’s called the STOP exercise. “This is a great acronym to help you remember to be mindful when you’re in the grip of a desire,” Diana Winston says. It stands for:
    â€¢ Stop. Take a moment to process what’s happening.
    â€¢ Take a breath. Literally, take a breath and focus on it entering and exiting your body.
    â€¢ Observe. Winston suggests you take note of what’s happening in your body and mind in this moment. Is your heart racing, your stomach clenched, your face flushed? “You can even observe the sounds around you,” she advises, “or just notice your feet on the floor.” This gets you to recognize what’s happening in your mind, body, and the world around you in this moment.
    â€¢ Proceed. Now you can take action—best of all, an action that carries you closer to a fitter body, a happier mind, or a less-cluttered home.
    Mindfulness at the Table
    How many of the calories you consume every week are because you’re actually hungry? Or because you’ve determined that a food item helps you meet your fitness goals?
    On the other hand, how many of your weekly calories do you take in because you’re in the grip of emotional triggers that compel you to eat? How much of the food and drink that you take in over the course of a week vanishes into your belly without your awareness because you’re distracted?
    When you eat mindfully, you improve your ability to eat out of
need,
rather than because of a fleeting
want
. If unhealthy eating habits have led you to become overweight, mindfulness may help break this relationship.
    In 2014, researchers collected 21 earlier studies to review how mindfulness activities affect people’s obesity-related eating behaviors, such as:
    Emotional eating
    Binge eating
    External eating (eating because food looks or smells so good, even if your body doesn’t need it). This can be a major factor in obesity, because we’re surrounded by food that’s been carefully manufactured to appeal to us.
    The majority of the studies that focused on each of these types of eating found that mindfulness led to improvements. The authors concluded:
    The outcomes from the reviewed studies provide evidence to support the use of (mindfulness exercises) for obesity-related eating behaviours. . . . Given the extent of the obesity epidemic, novel approaches to support weight loss are needed. (Mindfulness exercises) are poised to complement obesity prevention and treatment efforts.
    Jenny Taitz, PsyD, the psychologist who focuses on managing emotions and mindful eating—whom you met in Chapter 3 —guides