by Kevin D. Burciaga
Tell me if this sounds familiar: You open a large bag of chips because you want a salty snack. You take one bite, and then you open your e-mail, respond to a few e-mails, read a couple of articles that come into your news feed, then you check your social media accounts, and the next time you look at the bag, you’ve eaten a quarter or more of the bag. When you’re eating potato chips or other processed foods, it’s not hard to do. Congratulations, you’re a mindless eater.
Over 10 years, I dealt with multiple eating disorders, including binge eating and overeating. But mindless eating isn’t exclusive to people with eating disorders, and mindless eating itself isn’t a form of an eating disorder. However, mindless eating can lead to overconsumption, weight gain, and a bad relationship with food. It can make you believe you’re a glutton or a slob and make you believe you can’t control yourself. None of this is true. It only means you lack mindfulness
Binge eating and overeating are the opposite of mindfulness. Whenever I had the urge to binge, I would drive to the nearest grocery store to find my next fix. I didn’t know what I was going to buy when I got there. It was always a mystery. No two episodes were ever the same. The time, frequency, load, and type of food were always different. There was never a plan, only the urge.
I would go up and down the aisles mindlessly. Typically, I bought the same products over and over: cereal, cookies, ice cream, peanut butter, chips, and something salty like frozen burritos or frozen meals. But if I saw something that I wanted to try, I would buy it impulsively.
When I got home, I would unpack everything throw everything onto the table. I was always in a rush. I was moving fast. I was in a frenzied state. I would open the containers or the bags as fast as I could. It was as if I was in a race. The food could not wait. Then I opened some medium, whether a news website, YouTube, or an assignment I had at school or work. None of this was planned. Like the food I bought, the media I consumed was completely unplanned.
After the binge and the onslaught, I always regretted it. My brain chemistry returned to normal and I would tell myself, “never again.” The problem is the rush is so addictive that it’s harder than saying “no.” Being mindless and sloppy has its own addictive appeal.
Recovery
In retrospect, one of the reasons I was able stop overeating and stop binge
eating is because I started to be more mindful. I became more aware of the cues
to binge or overeat: late in the day, too much free time, a stressful
assignment, an accomplishment in my life, going one or two days without eating,
etc. The list of cues to eat was endless.[i]
I also became aware of the cravings and the urges. When I became aware of the
cravings, I accepted them for what they were: signals from the most primitive
areas of the brain. They were false signals of scarcity
This is why I’m convinced that how we eat is as important as what we eat. Yes, it is better to eat a whole foods diet. But I think what is as important is the manner in which we eat. Modern eating habits include: eating on the go, eating during meetings, eating while being entertained, eating at the desk, and eating while distracted. These habits would shock previous generations, but they are accepted in modern life and they can absolutely affect our waistline. We used to eat in certain places at certain times. Now we eat anywhere all the time.
Brian Wansink, the author of Mindless Eating[i], shows that people aren’t overeating to alleviate emotions, or because they’re lazy, but because they are mindless, as the title of his book implies. If you’re watching a movie in a theater or a show at home, you’re going to eat more. Even changing the music, or the variety of the colors of M&M’s in a bag can make you eat more! The number of cues is endless.
Solutions
How do you eat mindfully in a fast-paced world? After dealing with this problem
for many years, here are my best tips:
Slow down to eat less. How long does it take you to eat a meal? You probably don’t know. A bad habit to keep in mind is eating too fast. Here’s a challenge for you. The next time you eat a meal or go to a restaurant, set the timer and see how much time it takes to complete your meal. The first time it might be a few minutes.
When you do this, you will be tasting the food, slowing down, and eating less. Think about that. You will taste the food! When I was a binge eater, I wouldn’t taste the food. It felt good because I was satisfying the urge and the craving, but I was rarely enjoying the food or tasting it. It sounds ironic. Why consume all this food and get fat without tasting it? It wasn’t the taste I was after; it was the high volume of calories necessary to satisfy the craving.
Don’t eat while doing work. Yes, we live in a busy world. We all act like we’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. We like to think that we’re so important that we have to check e-mail and social media 100 times each day. But be honest with yourself. Are you so busy that you have to have your lunch next to the computer? Are you being productive with the other hours of the day? Do you need to read another news article or watch another video?
If you need to munch on something while you do work or use your computer, eat something light. Baby carrots are my favorite. You could eat them all day without gaining an ounce. You can also consider apple slices or any other fruit or vegetable with low caloric density.
Don’t eat while being entertained. Wansink, the food researcher at Cornell, conducted an experiment. He transported stale popcorn into a movie theater and put it into medium and large buckets. The moviegoers who ate from the large buckets ate significantly more than the people with the medium buckets. Remember, it was stale popcorn! Later research has confirmed that eating while watching television and other engaging in passive entertainment leads to weight gain over time.
Connect with your hunger. Try this experiment. Sit down for a meal and assess your hunger. Make sure you’re hungry before you do this. Then take one bite. Assess hunger. Then take another bite. Assess hunger. You will be shocked how little you need to satiate hunger.
Wansink likes to refer to the mindless gap. Being more mindful of your portions and the cues that are compelling you to eat more can save you at least 100 calories a day. If you only ate 100 fewer calories each day, you would lose about 1 pound a month. 1 pound a month over 2 years makes a big different. The best part is that your body wouldn’t feel deprived. In fact, it probably wouldn’t notice.
Take five minutes each day to focus on eating
without any distractions.
I remember one day when I wanted to binge, I cut a deal: “I can binge, but I
have to sit silent without any distraction. No entertainment, no YouTube, no
reading, nothing.” I ended up not binging. I started eating but I realized the
magic wasn’t there. Binging without distraction wasn’t nearly as fun. When I
had to focus on the act itself, not only was it not nearly as pleasurable, but
it was disgusting. Maybe that’s why I distracted myself all those years: I
didn’t want to see how awful binge eating and overeating were.
If you can’t find five minutes in a day, you might need to reevaluate your life and your priorities. Maybe you’re not being productive during your working areas. But if you have trouble with this habit, ask yourself this, “why do I feel the need to constantly consume media?” If you take the time to ask yourself, you might arrive at some interesting answers.
Next time you have a meal, see if you can eat without pulling out your phone and looking at your Instagram feed. If it’s too difficult, ask yourself this question, “do I remember what I saw on the news or my social media feeds yesterday or a week ago?” The answer is probably not. I encourage you to slow down, focus on the meal, taste the food, focus on your hunger, and eat in a completely undistracted environment.
Conclusion
To
eat right and lose weight, you don’t have to do keto, Whole 30, or any other
restrictive diet. You don’t have to cut 1,000 calories, exercise two hours a
day, and constantly obsess over food. All you need to do is connect with your
hunger, eliminate distractions, slow down, and be more mindful. It’s one more
example of the beauty, power, and simplicity of mindfulness.
Kevin Burciaga is a physical therapist based in Dallas, Texas and also an eating psychology coach. He helps people overcome unhealthy eating habits and eating disorders. Kevin suffered from every type of eating disorder in his 20’s and early 30’s and is on a mission to make sure nobody suffers the same problem. When he’s not working, Kevin likes to read, make videos, travel, learn, and workout.
You can find him at www.kevinburciaga.com/empoweredeating
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/KevinBurciaga/videos
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevindburciaga/
[i] Wansink B. Mindless Eating. New York: Bantam, 2006.
[i] James O. Hill and John C. Peters, “Environmental Contributions to the Obesity Epidemic,” Science, 280 (5368): 1371–74.
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