May Your Thoughts Be With You
Redefining mindful eating, a bit about some researching showing it isn't weight loss that is preventing diabetes, more about stigma, an upcoming webinar
New Hampshire has finally welcomed spring! What fun thing have you been able to do? While it isn’t weather-dependent, I have been working on a research project on mindful eating, and part of the project has meant going back through the current literature to get myself up to date. A few things stood out, and they really shifted my thoughts.
Two Things I Noticed About Mindful Eating
There is no single agreed-upon definition of mindful eating. Different researchers operationalize it differently. Some lean into the awareness piece, some into the non-judgmental piece, some into the eating-cue piece, and some treat it as a broader mindfulness practice that happens to include food.
There is also no single agreed-upon way to measure mindful eating. There are multiple validated scales, and they don’t measure the same construct. Studies that use different instruments aren’t necessarily testing the same thing, which means the outcomes won’t necessarily compare cleanly.
I’m not dunking on mindful eating here because I don’t think this is a failure of the field. Mindful eating is a complex practice and experience, and we are still figuring out which parts of it are clinically relevant to health. But it does matter for how we read the research, so when the definition is fuzzy, and the measurement varies, the outcomes will vary too. I want you to hold that reality when evaluating a new study.
So that leaves me with a few questions:
How do I define mindful eating, and
Why does it matter more, not less, right now?
Quick reintroduction
Before I get into it, a quick hello. I’m Megrette Fletcher, a weight-inclusive dietitian and diabetes educator who works at Nourish. If you would like to work with me 1:1, you can, and I’m likely covered by your insurance.
FYI: Nourish is hiring RDs, and if you would like to work for them, you can earn $100 to apply. I love it here and you will do. Here is my link https://app.nourish.com/refer-provider/3n94IceO?ch=direct.
They also give me a bonus if you are hired.
I write three newsletters
This one, at Megrette.com, is for folks who have crossed paths with my work through a talk, a virtual meeting, or a CPE program.
The second newsletter is No Weight Loss Required, helps folks try to prevent or manage diabetes without dieting. At the end of this newsletter, you can read about some research I was part of and why we have even more evidence that preventing and managing diabetes isn’t about weight.
The 3rd newsletter, Inclusive Diabetes Care, centers on the IDC pyramid. Please check out the webinar I am offering for Diabetes Sisters on weight stigma. This program will show you how to use the IDC pyramid to step out of diet culture.
How I define mindful eating
Mindful eating is a practice. It isn’t an outcome.
When I say practice, I am being very clear that it’s what you do. Not what you achieve.
The other thing mindful eating offers is a place to focus your attention. Much like every 7th grader knows your mind can go ANYWHERE, so having something to focus on is helpful.
Mindful eating also gives you a WHEN: when you are eating, you practice mindfulness when eating.
It’s a practice (what you are doing, not achieving)
It focuses your attention
When eating
Mindfulness is becoming aware with nonjudgmental attention. The pause, which allows you to observe almost anything, can include the food's temperature. You can be mindful of the tightness in your shoulders before the first bite. You can be mindful of the thought that just walked in uninvited about what you should or shouldn’t be eating. You can be mindful of the flavor, the texture, the fullness, the company, the silence, the rush.
The practice of mindful eating is really about compassionately returning, over and over again, to the present moment, to the bite in your mouth, and to any or every experience that shows up before, during, and after eating.
What Mindful Eating Isn’t
What mindful eating isn’t is also worth realizing.
It isn’t striving.
It isn’t achieving. In a culture that runs on go-go-go, and in a clinical world that runs on measurable outcomes, that can sound strange.
So let me answer the question I imagine you are all asking:
Why isn’t this about achieving?
Why isn’t this about becoming something?
Mindful awareness, at its core, is about letting go of what isn’t serving you while increasing your awareness of what is. It isn’t about becoming someone. You are already you. The work is not a transformation into a different person. The work is removing the barriers that keep you from living in alignment with your own values.
That means mindful eating isn’t about becoming a slow eater.
It isn’t about becoming a thinner person.
It isn’t about eating X foods instead of Y foods.
It is about noticing what happens when you eat, seeing what serves you, and making it easier to incorporate what works into your life.
I want to say something about why this matters even more right now, in the GLP-1 era. When the medication changes hunger/fullness cues, mindful eating becomes the place where the person stays connected to themselves, to their comfort, and to their values.
In the GLP-1 world, not eating can become the goal of life. The medication suppresses hunger and amplifies fullness, meaning the old hunger and fullness cues are no longer the most useful questions.
So when I read the literature and see the field still working out the definition and the measurement, I am not discouraged. I want to remind everyone that we can do something simply to practice what makes us feel alive.
Additionally, my practice and awareness are mine. It doesn’t need to look like your practice. It doesn’t need a tidy outcome (like weighing X or eating Y) to be useful or important to me.
What Happening May-August
New research about what prevents diabetes.
Review from the Weight and Healthcare Newsletter wrote the following articles
Here is my review of the research (in which I was part of the team)
Here is what I’ve been writing about at No Weight Loss Required
Upcoming webinar
Upcoming webinar for Diabetes Sisters June 3, Expert Series – Untangling Weight Bias and Diabetes Care: https://diabetessisters.org/events/expert-series-untangling-weight-bias-and-diabetes-care-86509393738/