Switch from eating in a state of stress to slowing down, savouring, enjoying, and making eating its own activity.
Eating when our body is under stress plays havoc with our digestion! Imagine the scenario you have had a hectic morning, nothing seemed to be easy, computer issues, school run dramas, overworked, stuck in traffic or late for an appointment! It has been a really busy morning and now your grabbing a bite to quickly shove down before it all starts again. This is far from an ideal way to eat yet it is a way most of us do. The problem is eating when your really busy or feeling stressed can leave us feeling bloating, with heartburn, feeling of nausea, IBS symptoms, diarrhoea, overeating, feeling lethargic and cause us to gain weight!
When we are under stress our sympathetic nervous system is dominant which turns off digestion thinking we are in a fight-or-flight stress response to enable us to run from a lion or whatever the danger might be. When we get stressed at work or stuck in traffic our body reacts the same way it doesn't understand the stress from our computer crashing or watching the upsetting news on TV as any different from a life or death situation. Therefor our sympathetic nervous system is activated to stop digestion as we have bigger issues to save our energy for. This will generally lead to digestive upset, decreased nutrient assimilation, and unwanted fat storage, which leads to weight gain.
On the flip side when we eat in a relaxed way the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, the relaxation response turns on and healthy digestion, assimilation and calorie-burning capacity is amplified.
The bottom line is by switching from eating in a state of stress to slowing down, savouring, enjoying, and making eating its own activity can make huge strides in all sorts of health conditions and can transform how you eat. Often, even more so than changing what you eat!
How great is that! It's not so much what you eat but HOW you eat that will help you digest your food better and turn on calorie burning aiding in weight-loss! Yessssss please!
This weeks challenge to you is the 20 minute meal challenge. Here’s how it works:
Eat anything you want! What a Nutritionist telling me to eat anything I want....???? yes my friend anything!
Then starting with your next meal, follow these simple steps:
· Step 1 is to check the clock.
· Eat your meal at the pace that you normally would, don’t do anything different.
· Check the clock at the end.
· Jot down how much time the entire meal took
· Step 2 is at your next meal.
· Check the clock again, and increase your time by five minutes more than before.
· Document in your journal: how long did my meal take? When did I start to feel full?
What was my mood like?
Now, the next thing is to keep repeating Step 2 with each meal - so you just keep adding on five minutes to your meal-time until meals last at least 20 minutes.
Why 20-minutes? Because it takes that long for your body to realize it’s full.
And then the final step of this is making each meal a 20-minute meal for the next seven days. This experiment can be stretched out to 30 minutes, or even an hour.
This is not about all or nothing – it is about developing a new habit or ritual for activating your optimal digestive power. No judgment here. The 20-Minute Meal Journal is NOT a food journal. It’s NOT about being “bad” or “good”. It’s about discovering if you’re taking enough time during your meals for your tummy to tell you what the right amount of food is for your body.
The first time I did this, my meal lasted 3 whole minutes. I repeat, no judgment.
Enjoy your week, have fun with this experiment and leave a comment telling me how long your first meal lasted.
Shared with you by Jennie Dudbridge, Nutritionist & Health Coach @ FatLettuce.com
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