Not only what you eat matters, how you eat your food also matters!
Do you know that how you eat & in which environment you eat also impact your fitness goals?
Let me tell you in detail. For your weight loss journey, you aim for a healthy lifestyle. You pick fresh fruits & green vegetables from the market. Prepare fresh meals. You go to the gym & have a personal trainer there as well.
In addition to these activities, there are some simple and easy steps you can follow to get more benefits. It would be like icing on the cake of your fitness journey.
So, Let’s start with these little yet useful tips about eating.
1. Having Meals Without Gadgets
If you are using gadgets of any kind while having your meals, your vision & mind are distracted.
You tend to overeat in a diverted state of mind. Your heart can be affected by the emotions caused by that news or message or games!! Your body tends to convert most of the food into fat when you are in a disturbed state.
Without gadgets, you pay more attention to your stomach fullness signals. So, overeating is less likely to happen. This practice will help in your weight loss journey.
Begin this practice with at least one meal from today. Right?
2. Silence
Sit and have your meals in silence. When you eat while giving full attention to food’s colors & aroma, you are in sync with your hunger indicators. When you feel content, your mind will tell you when to stop. It further helps you in your weight loss journey.
In fact, in some Asian cultures, it is a ritual to have your meals by sitting on the floor mat in a cross-legged posture. It has other benefits too like a strong back, added flexibility to knee & ankle muscles.
3. Practice Meal Portion Map
Mental meal mapping helps in your healthy eating journey. First picture the quantity you want to eat, take half of it, eat in double the time. You will tend to finish your meal with a lesser food quantity with satiation.
4. Gratitude & Guilt-free
Start having the first bite of food with gratitude in mind. Gratitude relaxes your mind & heart. A relaxed state of mind is an ingredient for a healthy lifestyle.
Now, you get an invite to any special occasions like office parties or family functions. What will you do? Skip it or go there & starve yourself.
Instead, go there after convincing your body to your side. Your body will prepare by increasing its metabolic rate & releasing more digestive juices. As you have not cheated it by deciding not to eat & stuff it at the last minute! Do enjoy your feast happily & guilt-free. The body will also reward you by not converting extra calories into fat!
Do try these simple acts of gratitude & guilt-free eating while you are on the long-lasting fitness journey & feel its magic.
5. Big No-No to Water After Meals
Digestion in the stomach takes around an hour to complete. Drinking water just after meals dilutes the stomach’s digestive juices.
The digestion process gets disturbed resulting in acidity and bloating. Undigested food may cause other complications also. Better to move towards the beneficial habit of having water after an hour of eating.
If you really want to drink something after your meals, there are some options. You can have juices after breakfast, buttermilk (or green tea) after lunch & turmeric milk (or herbal tea) after dinner.
Good digestion helps in reducing the build-up of fat.
6. Sit in Diamond Pose after eating
Whenever possible, sit in the thunderbolt or diamond yoga pose soon after eating for around 10 minutes. It is one of the most effective ways of keeping your belly flat. It slows down the blood circulation to lower body parts & increases it in the stomach area to facilitate digestion.
Strong backbone and regular bowel movements are some plus points of this yoga pose. Consult a yoga specialist before trying if you have knee pain.
Final Words
Prepare your meals the same way you have been eating since your childhood.
Your weight loss journey is no different from your fitness goals. It is not advisable to view them separately. You want both to be long-lasting. It has to come with healthy eating & exercise along with maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
On this note, quoting the lines from the book “Science of Self Realization”,
You are what you eat. Our bodily constitution and mental atmosphere are determined according to how and what we eat.
