CWLG: Guest Speaker and Guest Blog:)

Have you ever finally gotten a moment to yourself after the kids are down for the count, and then realized that an entire sleeve of thin mints disappeared while you were watching TV? Not that that has ever happened to me... Just Sayin'.

This Thursday night (March 24th), we'll be having our next "official" Community Weight Loss Group meeting at 7:30pm at 21027 Courtland Village Drive Leesburg, VA. As always, it is an open, free meeting for any of you that struggle with your weight... or just need a girl's night out- and I'm so excited for our guest speaker- Lori Barthlow.

She is a wealth of information and will be sharing tips and tricks about Mindful Eating- and to give you a little preview, she's hijacking my rambling mess of a blog with an actual professional, well-written, insightful piece of literature... Enjoy, and find out even more by joining us on Thursday or by visiting her website at www.rejuvenatecoaching.com.



Mindful Eating: Knowing What Your Body is Telling You
By: Lori Barthlow, MPH, CWC

Why did I eat that again? Have you asked yourself this question about a million times? Do you even remember where you ate your last meal? How many times have you felt stuffed and completely miserable after you’ve eaten?

These are all symptoms of Mindless Eating. What if you could be more mindful when you eat and better understood the reasons why you eat? If you practice mindfulness you can begin to take charge of your ability to make conscious decisions to fuel your body.

Fabulous, but what’s mindful eating? Mindful eating is the ability to focus your attention and awareness on the here and now. It allows you the ability to disseminate between your physical, emotional and environmental cues to hunger. After all, we eat to fuel our body right?

Here are some strategies to help you eat mindfully:

Get off auto pilot: Sit down take a moment and decide if you are hungry? Take a deep breath in and reconnect. Are you hungry or is something bothering you?
Address your needs: You have a choice! Do you want to eat because you are bored, tired, sad, or thirsty? Do you feel hunger pangs, are you grumpy, or are you dizzy?
Determine how full you want be when you are done eating: Deciding how you want to feel when you are done eating can make all the difference in the world. We eat to feel better than we did when we started right? If you don’t know how you want to feel when you are done eating, how are you going to know when to stop?

Create a pleasant food zone: Sit down and eat your meal, make it a pleasant experience. When is the last time you had a nice place to eat, free of paper and chaos?

Midway check in: Check in about midway into to your meal and determine how you feel. Do you feel satisfied? Are you starting to feel a full stomach? Do want to eat more food because is just tastes so good? Know how you are feeling.

Enjoy the experience of eating: Eat slowly and enjoy your food. Savor the aromas, the texture, and the taste; you’ll be glad you did.

Reflect: Pay attention to how you feel now that you are done eating. If you feel full and uncomfortable, use it as a learning experience and try again next time to finish your meal with the intention of feeling satisfied.

When you begin to become more mindful of your eating experience, you will learn to reconnect to your innate ability to know when you are hungry.