Category: Fitness and health

1. The Mindfulness Diet Think yourself Thin and how to eat mindfully

   Posted on 4:19pm Wednesday 14th Jan 2015

   A new Book called The Mindfulness diet seems to be jumping on the bandwagon to help with weight loss. It's actually got some great advice. I know that because they are advocating exactly what I have been teaching my weight loss clients for the past few years!

   The book, by Dr Patrizia Collard and Helen Stephenson, is called a new approach to eating which gives you the power to take control of your eating and think yourself to a better body and soul. Stars such as Meg Ryan and Goldie Hawn have spoken about how mindful eating has helped them and you can follow the same advice to help you lose weight and feel healthier and fitter.

   The concept behind the Mindfulness Diet teaches you to appreciate food , nutrition and healthy eating, as well as how to deal with the kind of cravings that hamper many diets and healthy eating drives. Alongside the advice the book also contains recipies. Of course recipie books are interesting because most of them just stay on the bookshelf in the kitchen gathering dust..and grease.

   The techniques of eating mindfully that are talked about in the Mindfulness Diet are the same ones that I teach my clients. When we start to eat in a mindful way we can ejoy our food and when we enjoy it, it no longer becomes about just eating for eating sake.

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   Eating mindfully,  will train your body to know what it needs and Patrizia said the diet’s biggest advantage is “being truly connected to this moment, enjoying every meal as if it is your wedding feast, fully and truly getting all the benefits out of it by savouring the moment”.

   Here are their ten tips... I have to agree with how well these work because they are pretty much the same tips on the worksheet I have given to my clients for years. Have a read and then think about how they could help you to lose weight...Mindful eating...
   

    

   1. Listen to your body. Are you hungry? If you are, how hungry are you?

   2. Use smaller serving plates and bowls. Studies have shown our satisfaction is tied in to “relative” portion sizes. So, if we have a very small plate piled high with food, we’ll feel much more satisfied than if we have a large plate with a small amount of food.

   3. Be flexible when eating out. There is no obligation to have a starter, main course and dessert. Why not have starters instead of a main course?

   4. Serve up at source. When serving food at home, try to plate it up by the oven or hob, rather than at the table. If the excess is on the table in front of you while you are eating, that’s where your mind is likely to be. Studies have shown you are likely to eat faster with the excess in front of you. Presumably this is prompted by some survival instinct from the past, when we weren’t sure where the next meal was coming from.

   5. When you eat, just eat. If you sit down at a table with a large box of chocolates and no distractions, you are unlikely to polish off the entire box. But when you’re watching TV or involved in another activity, this awareness can be drowned out.

   6. Learn what a portion size is. As a general rule, a “cup” is about the size of a large tennis ball, 85g of meat is about a deck of cards and 30g cheese is the size of a domino.

   7. Think little and often. Try to maintain a stable blood-sugar level and moderate level of satiety by eating small meals throughout the day rather than a couple of ridiculously large meals.

   8. Have a salad as a starter. Be smart and eat raw vegetables or salad to burn off that extreme hunger before the meal itself.

   9. Have a glass of water before eating. Sip a good-sized glass of water in the 10–15 minutes leading up to a meal. This way you can be sure you are serving up only what the body actually needs.

   10. Shop smart. Bulk buying foods can often enable you to pick up great bargains. If you are unable or unwilling to break those down into smaller portion sizes when you get home, consider the possibility of buying smaller versions. While you may not get the same value for money, think of the cost (financial, physical, mental and emotional) of overeating large portions of food.

   You can read all about my approach to helping you to end diets forever and lose weight that you keep off for life here: http://www.markpowlett.co.uk/slimmeryou.html

   Don't forget you can also listen to a FREE relaxation MP3 by clicking the link at the top of the page.

2. Scott Mitchell Hypnosis for darts success

   Posted on 9:51am Tuesday 13th Jan 2015

   If you watched Scott Mitchell win the spellbinding BDO World Championship final against Martin Adams at Lakeside to secure a 7-6 victory, maiden world crown and £100,000 prize bounty, you may not realise that hypnosis and hypnotherapy helped him to his winning form.
   

   ‘Scotty Dog’ as Mitchell is known on the darts circuit admitted to more than a hint of cynicism about hypnosis for sport to begin with, however after being introduced to a hypnotherapist and working with him on changing the way he approached his game he saw the remarkable results than meant that he went on to win his world championship crown.

   He explained to his local paper the Bournemouth Echo, how the feeling of letting go and relaxing felt to him..

   “As a darts player, you have to make everybody believe you can do it so to then do the total opposite and give away all your fears is a funny sensation. Deep down, I never believed it would work until we started seeing these amazing changes in me, not just as a dart player but as a person. I don’t get as angry as I used to. I would get stressed over nothing but Sharon (Scott Mitchell’s wife) has noticed a change in that over the past year. I now find ways to laugh at the things that used to frustrate me. It makes you a much nicer person and then people are nicer to you. Your whole persona feels better and that is good for your darts."

   Hypnotherapy for sports performance is much more common than you may imagine. If you take any top sportsperson then part of their training regime will be looking at the mental side of the game. If you don't think you will be able to relax enough to perfom and win then of course you will not be able to!

   I work with many clients who want to improve their sport. You may just play golf at the weekends and want to improve your game or you may have other goals to play sport for a team. If you have any questions about how using hypnotherapy for sport performance can help you then just drop me an email at [email protected] or call me on 07980 233160