If you attended The Anxiety Summit online during June, you may have learned some new information about how food and mood can affect one another.
Now in August there is a new online summit that will also provide information about mood and food, including how to stop emotional eating and successfully lose or manage weight. The Mindful Eating Summit takes place August 25-29, 2014 at www.mindfuleatingsummit.com/
You can sign up for the free summit by going to the website and entering your email address. Each presentation will be available during a specific time slot for 24 hours, and you’ll get more information about this in your email.
There are both videos and audio clips of the presentations. Each day there will be four to five presentations posted.
If you want to watch videos or listen to audio after the available time slots or after the days of the summit, the cost is $47.
After signing up, you will also receive a free ebook called “Emotional Eating Survival Guide.”
“The goal is to deliver practical, inspirational, cutting-edge, clinical techniques, and innovative approaches to many of our unique eating challenges – body image, nourishing ourselves, overeating, binge eating, disordered eating, fad dieting, nutrition-linked health conditions, and much more,” said Susan Albers, clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic and the host of the first annual summit.
Albers has written six books on the subject, including “Eating Mindfully.”
So what exactly is mindful eating?
“Mindful eating is stopping when you are satisfied, avoiding overeating, finding ways to soothe and comfort yourself without food and to stop feeling guilty when you eat,” Albers said.
Mindful eating is not a diet. The concept teaches women how to eat instead of what to eat.
She said it does not take forever to learn these concepts. In her workshops she is able to help women start the process in about two minutes. She helps women stop multitasking while eating, and avoid mindless eating, aka zoning out, while eating a bag of chips in front of the TV.
Albers’ website actually has a pledge women can take that helps them start the process with five steps.
Albers has three additional tips to start the mindful eating process:
1) “Eat with your non-dominant hand. If you are right-handed, put your fork in your left. This simple action breaks up that automatic hand-to-mouth flow that you get into when you eat and is one of the easiest ways I've found to slow you down.”
2) “Create a self-soothing box with lotion, cross-word puzzles, a magazine, pictures, anything that you find comforting and distracting. Fill this box and place it in hot spots for emotional eating, like next to your pantry or refrigerator. If you have options that are ready to go, this can help you avoid emotional eating in the moment.”
3) “I created a technique called the 5-5-5-5-5 exercise. Get out a piece of paper, write down 5 things that distract you (TV, book, jog), 5 ways you relax (put on sweat pants, hot shower), 5 people you call when you need support (mother, friend, etc.) and 5 places you go when you need to recharge (your bed, a quiet place in your house) 5 mantras/motivation statements you say to yourself (this too will pass). Place this sheet of paper on the fridge. I recommend trying one of the options for just 5 minutes. If you are truly emotionally eating, doing something else for a short period of time will help you to avoid comforting yourself with calories.”
Albers believes the summit can help women reset and reprogram their relationship with food with the help of more than 20 experts in the field. Some of the professionals speaking at the summit include Brian Wansink, the author of “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think,” as well as Dr. David L. Katz, author of “Disease-Proof.”
Trudy Scott, host of The Anxiety Summit, and Evelyn Tribole, co-author of “Intuitive Eating,” will also be talking at the summit.
“Often, we know that an apple is better choice than a candy bar, but what we don't know is how to make ourselves choose the apple when we are feeling stressed or anxious,” Albers said.
“Mindful eating techniques are creative, simple ways to help you step away from emotional eating and start taking care of yourself, a difficult task for busy women who are often facing a lot of daily stress.”
Sources:
Albers, Susan. Email interview. August 6, 2014.
http://eatingmindfully.com
Mindfuleatingsummit.com. The Mindful Eating Summit. August 7, 2014. Web.
http://mindfuleatingsummit.com/mindful-eating-summit-3/?utm_expid=87936283-0.JfAANS5vTheHAItO1NRluQ.2
Theanxietysummit.com. The Anxiety Summit. Web. August 7, 2014.
http://www.theanxietysummit.com
Reviewed August 8, 2014
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith