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Mindful Eating

Are you Actively or Passively Restricting your Food Intake?

Periods of inadequate or irregular eating can occur for a multitude of reasons, including food restriction. A common feature across many eating disorders, food restriction involves limitation of the variety, adequacy or regularity of the foods that we eat. Food restriction may occur as a result of active and deliberate attempts to reduce dietary intake, or it can arise more subtly - due to a lack of conscious attention to meeting our nutritional needs.

Active Restriction

Active restriction involves conscious, intentional efforts to limit or control food intake, often driven by specific goals or fears related to weight, body shape, or food itself. Common examples of active restriction include:

  • Selective eating: Avoiding foods deemed ‘unhealthy’, often leading to rigid food rules and reduced variety of ‘safe’ food options

  • Weight loss dieting: Following prescribed plans with a goal to lose weight, which often involves tracking and limiting daily intake to stay within a set target (eg. calorie counting)

  • Fasting: Skipping meals or going extended periods without eating to reduce overall food intake

For people experiencing an eating disorder, active restriction is often associated with Anorexia Nervosa (significant and prolonged food limitation motivated by an intense desire to control body weight and shape). However it is important to recognise that active restriction is central to almost all eating disorders, including Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder, where restriction fuels reactive cycles of binge eating (and potential compensatory behaviours).

Passive Restriction

Passive restriction, on the other hand, occurs less intentionally. People who are restricting in a more passive way may not actively try to limit their food intake, but lack the drive to eat due to a variety of factors, such as:

  • Forgetting to eat: Skipping meals unintentionally, often due to preoccupation with work, life stress, or distraction with other activities

  • Lack of appetite: Reduced hunger cues, which may stem from psychological and emotional  factors such as low mood or heightened anxiety, or physical factors

  • Health Conditions: Chronic illnesses, digestive issues, or some medications can reduce appetite and cause people to go extended periods without food

  • Sensory sensitivities: Avoiding certain foods due to characteristics such as texture, taste, or smell, making it difficult to eat a balanced diet

While not always related to an eating disorder, passive restriction can be a characteristic of Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), particularly when caused by sensory sensitivity. Passive restriction can also be related to other eating disorders - for example, when someone unconsciously welcomes opportunities to ‘forget’ to eat, or downplays their nutritional needs.

Food Scarcity and Restriction

Food restriction can also be influenced by external factors such as food scarcity. Limited access to adequate nutrition due to financial constraints or unpredictable food availability can lead to involuntary restriction. This is important to understand as a separate factor to other forms of restriction, as it necessitates strategies to improve food access and the consistent availability of adequate nutrition.

Can Active and Passive Restriction Overlap?

Although these forms of restriction can seem distinct, they do often overlap. Someone who initially experiences passive restriction (such as skipping meals due to low appetite) might develop active restriction over time, given inadequate dietary intake can be a trigger for the development of an eating disorder.

Similarly, an eating disorder can disguise itself as passive restriction, making disordered behaviours harder to recognise. For example, someone experiencing an eating disorder might frequently say they’re “too busy to eat," when in fact this has become a way to justify restriction.

Addressing Restriction in Recovery

It’s important to be curious about and to understand what’s motivating restrictive eating behaviours, in order to then decide on the best course of treatment. Both Psychologists and Dietitians experienced in eating disorder therapy can assist with this, and Dietitians in particular can assist in recommending strategies to focus on more adequate nutritional intake.

Active restriction often requires addressing thoughts, fears, and beliefs about food and body image. Passive restriction may call for strategies to support appetite awareness, manage sensory sensitivities, or to build regular eating habits. Both types of restriction can benefit from therapeutic assessment, strategies and support to change, which our team at Mind Body Well are able to provide.

About Mindful Eating

January is World Mindful Eating Month. So what’s ‘Mindful Eating’ all about?

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgemental, accepting and self-compassionate way. Mindfulness is not just about our thoughts, it also includes embodied awareness – experiencing our body from the inside out. We can do this by focusing on the information the body sends to the mind through the senses – what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste. In the context of eating, this can mean being aware of how we’re feeling before, during and after a meal. This includes how our body feels physically, as well as the thoughts and feelings we’re experiencing about eating.

Why eat mindfully?

Mindful eating is an approach which is often recommended to help us be more engaged in the process of eating. It’s also a way to pay more attention to our bodies signals of hunger and fullness, and to assist with appetite regulation – the ability to know what the body is telling us about the need for food, or when it’s had enough.

It is important to note however that it’s not inherently ‘better’ to eat mindfully - it’s perfectly natural to also have times when we eat with less mindfulness – like while watching television or at the computer. This less mindful eating though is more likely to cause a sense of disconnection from the experience of eating, and to confuse our hunger and fullness signals, also resulting in less pleasure or satisfaction from our food – which may cause us to keep seeking more.

Mindful eating and Diet Culture

Unfortunately Mindful Eating is yet another of the potentially helpful strategies which has been co-opted by the diet industry as a method of food restriction and impulse control. It is important to keep in mind the central premises of self-compassion and non-judgement which mindfulness is based on – and not to let this become yet another way to moralise and punish ourselves for what and how we’re eating.

When we can bring that spirit of self-compassion to mindful eating, it can be a way to enhance our connection with our body and our relationship with food, to build intuitive eating skills, and to allow ourselves more joy and freedom with eating.

How do I eat mindfully?

If you’ve never practiced mindfulness before, try starting with a general introduction – i.e. learn mindfulness skills in other (less ‘loaded’) areas first, then practice transferring those skills to eating. You can gradually learn to be more mindful by regularly bringing awareness to your breath, to the sensations in your body or the things happening around you. If you’re in therapy, you could ask your therapist for strategies, or experiment with some of the great app’s which teach mindfulness practices (we like Calm, Smiling Mind, and Headpsace).

Once you’ve become familiar with the practice of mindfulness, you can begin to transfer this awareness to eating - try sitting down to eat with no distractions, and bring non-judemtnal awareness to the experience of eating. Pay attention to the sight and aroma of the food. As you eat, pay attention to taste and texture. Chew slowly and notice how these change over time, notice how the taste changes as you eat. Notice if you feel a change in your hunger and fullness cues as you eat. Keep coming back to self-compassion and non-judement as you do this, and start slowly – maybe just for the first few bites of your meal, and begin with foods that feel more comfortable and less threatening for you.

When Mindful Eating is difficult

If you’re experiencing an eating disorder, working on mindful eating might not be appropriate for you right now. Sometimes paying too much attention to the experience of eating can be unhelpful – especially for those who may already be obsessing about eating, and feeling really uncomfortable in their bodies when they eat. In this case you may need to rely on some deliberate distraction rather than mindfulness – use strategies such as reading, music, games or conversation to enable you to eat without increasing anxiety may be more appropriate for now. Like all strategies, mindful eating isn’t a panacea, and isn’t the only tool in the eating disorder recovery toolkit. If you’re not sure whether mindful eating is appropriate for you, discuss this with your therapist, and ask them for alternatives, or practice working toward mindful eating over time.

Would you like to learn more? Enrol in our upcoming Mindful Embodiment online program.

 
 

What is Intuitive Eating?

What is Intuitive Eating?

At Mind Body Well, our clinicians use a number of different therapeutic approaches when working with our clients. One of these approaches is Intuitive Eating.

So what is Intuitive Eating?

Whilst Intuitive Eating is currently receiving a lot of attention, the approach has actually been around for quite a while. It’s a mind-body health approach that was created by two registered Dietitians from the USA, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, back in 1995. 

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What is the Non-Diet Approach?

What is the Non-Diet Approach?

The term ’non-diet’ is one you will often see used by health professionals and advocates who encourage approaches to health and wellbeing that are contrary to popular messages promoting restrictive weight loss diets.

Many of the team at Mind Body Well were fortunate to be introduced to the non-diet world by Dr Rick Kausman, author of ‘If Not Dieting Then What?’ and one of the pioneers of the non-diet movement. The title of Rick’s book sums up well what many of our clients are asking…. “I’ve tried restrictive weight loss diets and they haven’t worked for me, so what now?”

Can Meditation Help People with Eating Disorders?

Can Meditation Help People with Eating Disorders?

Until recently meditation was considered a practice exclusive to gurus in caves and swamis on mountain tops. Now more mainstream than alternative, you’ll see meditation mentioned in even the most conservative of medical and psychological journals. Academics and researchers are increasingly interested in how meditation effects our thoughts, our behaviours, and even the very structure and function of our brains.

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