The Mindful Diet

The Mindful Diet: How to Transform Your Relationship with Food for Lasting Weight Loss and Vibrant Health by Ruth Wolever, Beth Reardon and Tannia Hannan

The Mindful Diet is an approach to healthy eating partly developed by Ruth Wolever, PhD, Director of Health Coaching at the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Vanderbilt. It combines psychology with cutting-edge nutrition research and mindfulness exercises.

The Mindful Diet focuses on how food choices affect our bodies on a biochemical level, and how we can become aware of our own internal signals through the practice of mindfulness. Instead of an all-or-nothing approach to eating, The Mindful Diet focuses on the variables that drive our habits — including stress, unhappiness and even unconscious beliefs — and provides a roadmap for sustainable change. By assessing your relationship with food, The Mindful Diet helps you reprogram your body by stopping emotional overeating, curbing cravings and knowing when your appetite is satisfied.

Try these mindfulness exercises from the book:

• Body scan
• Daily mindfulness meditation
• Healing self touch
• Hunger fullness scan
• Loving kindness meditation
• Mapping your emotions
• Mini meditation
• Taste awareness
• Twenty breaths