To become healthy and support weight loss through mindfulness and mindful eating, we need to develop our willpower and awareness around emotional eating and mindless snacking. We must also learn how to acknowledge and accept all of our feelings

The big issue at the moment is, of course, weight loss. In respect to obesity, the question of whether this can be dealt with through willpower alone has been raised.

So if you’re trying to lose weight but find yourself snacking mindlessly or fearing hunger, a mindfulness-based approach may help. Instead of relying only on willpower, mindful eating teaches you to notice cravings, anxiety and discomfort with greater calm, so you can make healthier choices and build sustainable habits.

Much of our addiction to snacking with improper foods is down to how we’re taught to deal with emotions

We all want happiness, do we not? We want happy feelings and all the positives that come with them. Does this then mean we must be averse to feeling the opposite of happiness? How about the feelings associated with stillness? When there’s nothing happening.

Winter months can sometimes feel a bit flat when it’s cold, and there doesn’t seem to be much going on. Add to this our natural tendency to put a little weight on during the winter months, keeping the weight off, can be very challenging. Inactivity and the cold have an adverse effect on us humans.

In answer to whether will power alone is enough, we can clearly see that it isn’t. Even so, are drugs the answer?

For some, they prove very useful. Recent research has suggested, though, that all the weight lost through a drugs programme is very quickly put back on once the treatment stops. To make matters worse, the weight, it would seem, goes back on much quicker than if weight loss was achieved through a change of diet alone.

Part of the problem is our inability, or unwillingness, to suffer

None of us want to suffer. How much suffering do we need to endure through being hungry and unhappy? How long will the suffering of hunger and unhappiness go on?

There is no doubt that feelings of hunger are uncomfortable. If we’re to lose weight, being uncomfortable is something we will need to endure. What’s interesting, though, is that once we learn the important lesson of how to accept and embrace uncomfortable feelings, things change much quicker than we might expect.

Often, the fear of feeling uncomfortable is the trigger to seeking a diversion. In this case, we do it with food. We never actually suffer uncomfortable feelings because we eat them away. We fear the suffering.

When we stop dreading (fearing) suffering and instead embrace it and take care of it, an extraordinary change occurs

A lot of this comes down to how we were taught to deal with our emotions when very young. On a personal level, as a child, I developed the habit of eating sweets to lighten my anxiety and unhappiness. It remains tempting for me to do this now. With mindfulness, though, I’m able to remind myself of the importance of simply experiencing and enduring everything I feel.

With high, inappropriate levels of anxiety in childhood, sweets became something of a life saver. As a man now in his sixties, too much sugar is more likely to become a killer!

There is no point in me being averse to any of my feelings if I wish to be whole and healthy. I must embrace my suffering and take good care of it.

We must say to ourselves: “Hello suffering, hello hunger, hello unhappiness, I know that you are there, and I will take care of you.”

Mindfulness will not make you lose weight overnight, but it can transform your relationship with hunger, cravings and snacking. By bringing kind, steady awareness to your experience, you can reduce emotional eating, choose healthier foods and build habits that last. If you would like support with mindful eating for weight loss, you are very welcome to get in touch with me.