Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Food for Thought

This fascinating study suggests that belief, not just food intake, influences how the body responds to meals.  It's not just about the calories in the food.  It's about what we think  we're eating, and how we feel  about it.

So this seems like another place where mind over matter could be tremendously useful.  Meditation can impact other bodily processes.  One option for food satisfaction, therefore, might be meditating to improve those metabolic shifts to deliver better satisfaction with lower calories, and more efficient use of fuel rather than packing it into fat storage.  Unlike other dietary manipulations, this one doesn't cost money and it's likely to improve mind/body interaction.  Worth a try.
Tags: food, news, science
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  • 4 comments
siege

Double-check the science

siege

April 16 2014, 15:54:40 UTC 7 years ago

Unfortunately, this needs to be a more long-term study in order to be useful, and it needs to control for more variables. This may in fact say what we already know about guilt and its ability to control behavior.

This is interesting and helpful in the short term, but it's honestly not a weight loss tactic for long term use. Your body's cells need what they need. What you should be altering is not your need for nutrients and calories, but the way you feed yourself to satisfy those needs.

Dieting is hard because you're trying to trick your metabolism into burning off your fat reserves. There's no other reason it's hard as far as I can tell. That's why you exercise, maintain regular sleep habits, and adjust the stress in your life in addition to dieting. You want your hormones to be at a steady and positive level if possible, focused less on making you happy with "happy foods" and more on making you healthy.

Calorie restriction for long life is about species survival: because humans evolved in abundance but had to deal with cycles of non-abundance, your body wants to last long enough to find a rich strike and feed yourself and your family well again -- and assumes despite your belief that the abundance will return. Skinny is not the only beauty, humanity in opulence is simply obsessed with the signs of youth and longevity. Taken to extremes, it's a terrifying pattern, pointing to a coming downfall of the overfed in favor of those who live in sufficiency. In a less extreme view, it means that balance is the best way.
natf

Re: Double-check the science

natf

April 16 2014, 18:19:59 UTC 7 years ago

I am glad that it was not only me that was shocked by ysabet's reasoning. This "study" was definitely not scientific.
natf

natf

April 16 2014, 18:18:45 UTC 7 years ago

Oh dear. NO.
http://natalief.livejournal.com/2054660.html
http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/647240.html
dhyvd

dhyvd

April 17 2014, 03:38:44 UTC 7 years ago

I will hopefully come back to this later, but in my limited experience, aiming to eat a certain amount is the wrong way to look at it. Yes, you could improve the efficiency of your body through "mind over matter", but they are more benefits to "mind with matter", or mindfulness rather than mind-forcing-body. In the short term, the latter might get results, and depending on your reserves and willpower, you can extend it quite a while into the medium term, but mindfulness in general is lacking for most human beings, and increased mindfulness will have you eating what you need, not what you think you should have, assuming that by "mindfulness", you mean, "reflection that creates an accurate map of the self in the mirror neurons".

Moving-body meditation like qi gong builds these structures, but it also depends on how much you invest in goal-setting and daily practice. The food consumption may vary, or it may not change, but it will be what the body needs for growth (because we are always growing, renewing) rather than what the ego needs to create a particular body weight or shape.

Maybe the study says the same thing, I haven't read it yet, but it can be tempting to under-eat when you first start doing certain forms of meditation, and that causes much more problems than it solves. So, just thought I'd throw that in there...

...the mind can do a lot, but in many cases, you shouldn't actually move to put even more barriers between reality and the mind, that what already exist by a consumer-oriented style which we are saturated with from birth. It is important to take time to undo any major damage and rebuild, first and foremost.