Want to lose weight? It is all in the MIND

Want to lose weight? It is all in the MIND: Study reveals overweight people who attend ‘mindfulness’ classes lose 6.2lbs more than those who don’t

  • University of Warwick experts trained people to think more carefully about food
  • Comfort eating is a source of many people’s excess weight, they warned 
  • People who practised mindfulness lost more than 20 times as much weight

Training people in ‘mindfulness’ techniques to stop comfort eating helps them lose weight, a study has found.

Many people eat as a coping strategy when they are stressed, anxious or emotional.

Experts at the University of Warwick trained obese people to overcome this – with dramatic results.

After just four 90-minute mindfulness sessions people lost an average of 6.6lb in six months, far more than the 0.4lb lost by people who did not undergo the sessions.

Mindfulness is a form of meditation in which people pay attention to the present moment they are in and try to understand and address why they feel the way they do (stock image)

Mindfulness seeks to overcome psychological problems by making people much more aware of their thoughts and feelings and how they react to them.

Participants were taught to recognise when they were about to start eating because of their mood.

Lead author Dr Petra Hanson said: ‘Unfortunately a lot of people use food as an emotional pick-me-up.

‘That is not a problem now and then, but if it becomes a systematic way of coping it can really have an impact on someone’s health.’

The team trained people to overcome this by recognising the things that triggered over-eating.

Writing in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the researchers wrote: ‘Adoption of mindfulness equips the patient with insight and awareness of their own emotional state, and the mental tools to avoid habitual unhealthy eating patterns.’

One of the sessions also covered ‘mindful eating’ – in which participants were taught to eat more slowly, savour every mouthful and concentrate on flavour.

Dr Hanson said: ‘Many people eat in front of the television, they do not talk to their family, they don’t even really notice what they are eating.

‘Advice includes how to become much more aware about what you are eating – such as sitting down at a dinner table.’

The research project, which included 53 people, is the first British study to assess the benefit of mindfulness training on weight loss.

The scientists hope in time it could be adopted for use on the NHS.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF MEDITATION?

Meditation can be traced back to as early as 5000 BC.

It is associated with some philosophies and religions but is practiced as a secular, stress-relieving activity more and more.

A recent study revealed that meditation can reduce one’s risk of heart disease by decreasing risk factors that can lead to the illness.

Specifically, it found that the practices can lower one’s blood pressure and their anxiety and depression levels.

It can also help people quit smoking, which can lead to a fatal heart attack.

Experts are warning that healthy lifestyle changes such as being more physically active are still the surest way to ward off the disease, but adding that meditation can also decrease one’s chances. 

‘This research is significant as we have shown that problematic eating behaviour can be improved with mindfulness application,’ Dr Hanson said.

‘We are the first centre in the United Kingdom that created a structured multidisciplinary course incorporating mindfulness and assessed its effectiveness in patients attending obesity clinics.

‘Individuals who completed the course said they were better able to plan meals in advance and felt more confident in self-management of weight loss moving forward.

‘Similar courses can be held in a primary care setting or even developed into digital tools. We hope this approach can be scaled up to reach a wider population.’

Dr Thomas Barber, of the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, another researcher on the paper, said: ‘Mindfulness has huge potential as a strategy for achieving and maintaining good health and wellbeing.

‘With the burgeoning impact of 21st century chronic disease, much of which relates to lifestyle behaviour choices, it is logical that focus should be on enabling the populace to make appropriate lifestyle decisions, and empowering subsequent salutary behaviour change.

‘In the context of obesity and eating–related behaviours, we have demonstrated that mindfulness techniques can do just that.

‘Adoption of mindfulness techniques is scalable to the wider population, and as such this strategy could represent a useful expedient to facilitating healthy eating–related and potentially other lifestyle behaviours, as part of population–wide obesity prevention and management.’      

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