New Year New Diet? This is the secret to diet success you’ve been missing.

It’s a new year and many of us are reflecting on the past year and trying to start fresh in an effort to be healthier, happier and more focused on our goals.  Resolutions are supposed to help motivate us along that path.  And despite our best intentions, so many of us fail in the first few months of the year.  If you’re planning on changing your diet this year, please read this first because you really need to understand why diets fail and it’s not because it’s your fault.

Along my journey through the art of practicing meditation, there are many things I’ve learned about how stress affects us.  I had a lot of health problems and what I’ve learned is that stress is at the root of so much that I’ve had to deal with. But what many of us may not realize is that stress is also the source of our diet fails.

According to research by Dr. Christiane Northrup, we’re wired to respond to stress by eating.  Biologically speaking, stress causes the release of cortisol and epinephrine. These hormones inhibit the release of insulin, keeping glucose in the bloodstream and out of the cells. When cortisol is chronically released, sugar can suppress it, leaving us feeling more calm, temporarily. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes perfect sense.  When caveman faced a stressful situation, like having to run from a hungry lion, he would have released a lot of epinephrine and cortisol. Those hormones drove sugar out of his liver to drive energy to his muscles for the run.  Once he reached safety, he would have needed to replenish his energy reserves so he would have been driven to eat calorically dense food.

So for millenia we, as a species, have been using food as a mechanism to calm down after stressful events.  This is a hard-wired response, meant to help us survive extremely inhospitable environments.  So now that we have safe, clean, warm homes and don’t face life-threatening events (most of the time), our brains are still wired to drive us to eat sugary, fatty foods when we’re stressed.  The problem is that most of us are stressed all the time and don’t even realize it.

And so some of you may be thinking that you’re stuck. You’re stressed and there’s nothing you can do but eat.

But you’d be wrong, there’s a better way.  This is where meditation comes in.  Meditation, when practiced on a regular basis, helps to lower stress levels by changing the way our brains work.  Old, deeply ingrained patterns of thought that drive the stress response, become less ingrained.

For example, I used to get really hungry when I traveled for work.  I didn’t understand it at the time, but travel was very stressful for me. I used to have connecting flights, customs, and multiple security checkpoints to endure (every week!). I would get to work after an 8 hour commute, completely famished.  Now that I meditate, I don’t find travel nearly as stressful.  When we traveled to Portugal this past summer, I couldn’t eat anything that was served on the plane. And even though I was limited to only a few pre-packed snacks, we arrived in Portugal 12 hours after we left home and I was prepared to wait for a proper meal.  For me, the experience of travel had been deeply ingrained as stressful, but now that I meditate regularly, my perception of travel has changed.  It doesn’t elicit the stress response the way it used to. And so naturally, I’m not as driven to eat.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could live your life with less stress? If things just didn’t upset you or stress you out they way they do now?  Wouldn’t it be great to lose weight without having to use so much will power? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to keep your resolution to stick to a healthy diet? Meditation can help you get there. It’s not necessarily going to work overnight, but with time and consistency, meditation can help you deal with cravings and feel more satiated without having to constantly ‘eat your feelings’.

Here’s a technique I use when I feel the need to eat without actually being hungry.  It comes from the book “The Now Effect” by Dr. Elisha Goldstein, who uses mindfulness to help his patients overcome addictions.

1. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.  Relax your shoulders.

2. As you breathe, on your inhale, say to yourself “I am”, on your exhale, say to yourself “safe”.

3. Keep taking breaths and repeating the words in your head until the craving dissipates.  Usually it only takes a few breaths.

If you found this blog helpful, share it with your friends.  Leave me a comment with your thoughts, I respond to each and every comment!