Mindfulness-Based Eating

MINDFULNESS-BASED EATING AWARENESS TRAINING (MB-EAT) has been developed to curb overeating by altering your relationship to food. The group or individual program is a psycho-educational program which covers the basics of mindful eating—meditation, hunger and fullness cues, eating behaviour control, and more. It helps participants learn and practice behavioural changes, including:

  • Distress Tolerance Skills
  • Emotion Regulation Skills
  • Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills
  • Core Mindfulness Skills

This will decrease impulsivity and increase healthy self-soothing skills and self-esteem for an enjoyable and fulfilling life.

Who Should Attend?

  • Struggling with eating conditions such as yo-yo dieting, compulsive overeating, and binge eating.
  • Obese and have quit dieting in favour of establishing a healthy relationship to food.
  • Transitioning from a restricted-calorie all-liquid (Optifast) or partial-liquid diet back to food.
  • Pre or post-Gastric surgery patients needing to re-learn to eat and find satisfaction with smaller portions in preparation for or following bariatric surgery.
  • Diabetics needing to learn how to make and enjoy healthy food choices.

Through the process of mindful eating, you will develop a healthy relationship with food and eating. Rather than believing that food is the problem, you will come to see food as the solution. You will learn to bring eating into balance with other important aspects of life. Mindfulness practices have been shown to have a positive impact on many disease states and health concerns, and are now being applied increasingly to eating habits. Mindful eating can have a transformative effect on your entire life.

Mindful eating helps overeaters to feel their hunger, trust their taste buds, and become deeply satisfied with the quality rather than the quantity of food, empowering them to become connoisseurs of food.

Dietary Plans

Key to dietary tables

The daily meal plan is the same for each day, regardless of the phase. It consists of breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and supper. Each main meal (except for liquid main meals) consists of three components:

1) Protein food
2) Starchy food
3) Non-starchy vegetables

To measure the portion sizes you will need:

1) Digital kitchen scales
2) Metric cooking measuring cups
3) Measuring spoons

To alter the texture for example during the puree phase, you will need a food processor.

Food Selection Guides

Pre-Operational Dietary Management Procedure

The pre-operational dietary management plan endeavours to help prepare you for your weight loss surgery. Your dietician will guide you through this phase of the diet.

Post Operational Dietary Management Procedure

Initially Post Surgery

Your doctor will give you the clearance to commence consuming liquids. Commence with sipping clear fluids, starting with 10ml per hour and increasing this volume over the next couple of days.

Free Fluids

You will generally commence consuming free fluids at around day two post surgery. This dietary regimen will continue for the next two weeks.

Pureed Diet

You will be generally commencing the pureed diet at around weeks 2 – 3 post surgery. This dietary regimen will continue for the next two weeks.

Soft / Sloppy Diet

You will generally commence the soft/ sloppy diet between weeks 3 and 4 post surgery. This dietary regimen will continue for the next two weeks.

Normal Texture

Generally by eight weeks post surgery your stomach has healed and it is time to explore upgrading the texture of your diet. When eating, it is important to take small mouthfuls and chew foods thoroughly, ensuring that you swallow each mouthful before consuming another forkful of food.

Your dietitian will support you on your weight loss journey, tailoring your dietary regimen for each phase of your journey. They will assist you in managing your pre-surgery weight loss, post surgery dietary regimens – liquid and modified textures and normal textured eating plans – to ensure a nutritionally adequate intake.

There are two pre-operational dietary management procedures available to help prepare you for your weight loss surgery. Your dietician will guide you on which plan best suits your needs, the Standard Induction Diet or the Rapid Induction Diet.

Sample Meal Plan

To assist with your weight loss journey, below are a few sample menus: