--- title: TIME Weight Loss Guide description: Experts in mindful eating are finding that dieting isn't the only way to weight loss; meditation and mindfulness exercises are also key canonical: https://time.com/collections/guide-to-weight-loss/4306564/mindfulness-diet-meditation/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-27T18:35:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:25:34.527Z article:section: Health og:title: Can You Lose Weight On The Mindfulness Diet? og:description: Experts in mindful eating are finding that dieting isn't the only way to weight loss; meditation and mindfulness exercises are also key og:url: https://time.com/collections/guide-to-weight-loss/4306564/mindfulness-diet-meditation/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd611c1921593dec8/6988b81ebc6cfcf7b73dffee/healthy-and-filling-walnuts.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Can You Lose Weight On The Mindfulness Diet? og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Can You Lose Weight On The Mindfulness Diet? twitter:description: Experts in mindful eating are finding that dieting isn't the only way to weight loss; meditation and mindfulness exercises are also key twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd611c1921593dec8/6988b81ebc6cfcf7b73dffee/healthy-and-filling-walnuts.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 27, 2016 # Can You Lose Weight On the Mindfulness Diet? > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: The Island That Holds the Secret to Long Life [Watch (HLS stream): The Island That Holds the Secret to Long Life](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/orlnwhNb.m3u8) (7:08)  _Published 2014-05-23. Here's how the people of Ikaria, Greece reach old age_ by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/) ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.  Danny Kim for TIME Do anything three times a day, every day of your life, and you’re bound to get bored. Eating is no different. Humans, however, are masters of distraction—which is how our screens became our loyalest dining companions. But they can get in the way of a healthy diet and a healthy weight in ways you may not realize. Researchers in the fast-growing field of mindfulness research are learning that simply changing how we eat might be a key to weight loss. Mindful practices like meditation are being used as tools to improve health, [lessen pain](http://time.com/4263383/mindfulness-meditation-pain/?iid=sr-link2) and [dodge sickness](http://time.com/4204235/how-to-not-get-sick/?iid=sr-link9) in large part because they reduce stress. And since stress is often at the root of overeating, mindfulness seems to make us eat better meals, which means it’s likely possible to lose weight without dieting. Mindfulness is the act of focusing attention on present-moment experiences. Apply that to a meal, and mindful eating means actually paying attention to the food you’re eating, making you less likely to thoughtlessly plow through a bag of potato chips, for instance. “The only thing you have to focus on is the food,” says Michael Mantzios, a mindfulness researcher and lecturer in health psychology at Birmingham City University in the U.K. “Mindfulness brings you back to the present moment, back to the present meal.” According to new research, mindfulness sharpens a person’s ability to recognize internal cues that signal hunger and fullness. In a 2016 study, researchers taught people a short body scan meditation that primes them to become more aware of their own body. (Try out our guided meditation below to see what it’s like.) The meditators then received either a small or large Snickers bar. Later, they were allowed to eat as many chocolate cookies as they liked. Something special seemed to happen to the people who did the body scan meditation. While they didn’t necessarily eat _less_ than everyone else, they adjusted their cookie consumption to compensate for what they’d already eaten—meaning that people who had the large candy bar ate fewer cookies than people who had the small Snickers. “What’s interesting is it had an effect not so much on consumption, but on compensation over time,” says study co-author Evelien van de Veer, who at the time of conducting the research was a doctoral candidate at the Marketing and Consumer Behavior Group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. The researchers saw no such compensation from people who hadn’t received mindfulness training, or from those who had been taught a mindfulness exercise focused on their environment instead of their body. That caloric balancing act may be a long-term habit of the mindful. In the same paper, the authors tracked people for about three years and measured their mindfulness scores with questionnaires. People who were more mindful and paid more attention to body sensations didn’t weigh less than their less mindful peers, but they experienced fewer weight fluctuations over time. Mindfulness also helps take the claws out of cravings. “When you see a cake or chips, you think about what it would be like to take some of it, what it would feel like in your mouth,” says Esther Papies, a social psychologist studying self-regulation and health behaviors at the University of Glasgow in the UK. “All of that is based on your previous experiences. In neuroimaging research, you activate the same areas in brain simulations as you do when you actually eat the food.” That’s what makes it so tempting to tear into something salty or sweet. But mindfulness can disrupt that automatic reaction by reducing the appeal of unhealthy foods, Papies says. Through her research, she’s discovered that the trick is to think of your food craving, when it pops up, as nothing more than a mere thought. “It’s really like a soap bubble,” she says. “As soon as you touch it, it’s going to disperse.” It’s not easy to get people to think mindfully about their food, however. “We cannot convince people to stay on a diet, to do very basic things,” says Mantzios. “How can they commit to a lifestyle change that involves meditation?” Mantzios wondered if there was a shortcut to mindful eating that didn’t involve meditating. He created a food diary—with questions like “how does this meal smell?” and “what are the colors and textures of it?”—for people to fill in while they ate. Surprisingly, people who used the diary lost just as much weight as those on a meditation program. Three months later, they even surpassed the meditation group in maintaining their weight loss. Best of all, people did not even have to write in their answers to reap the benefits. Another experiment found that just considering the questions in the diary, without putting pen to paper, resulted in a more mindful meal. Now, Mantzios asks himself those same questions when he sits down to a meal. “I’ll try it, smell it and see whether this food is actually causing me any joy, and this will define whether I eat it or not,” he says. “I think this is the way we should live our lives, really.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ]. Ikaria is a very unique island. The people are not what you would find in other places, they have a different lifestyle, a different way of looking at life. We might seem like we're not getting things done, or we might be moving slowly, but we just move at our own pace and things do get done in the end. Being Ikaria is an identity unto itself. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ] People wanna live long, it's natural. Life is a gift, and people want to enjoy it. [ MUSIC ] Unfortunately, you know, Athens is not a carrier. Athens is a big city, people are crowded, crowding alone is a major stress. It's difficult to live there, connected life. There is a lot of obesity, there is a lot of anxiety. We've started already to be seeing the results of stress. In Ikaria they're not crowded, they have the water right next to them. Just the environment where they live, it's better. [ FOREIGN ] [ INAUDIBLE ]. [ FOREIGN ]. It's the people of Ikaria that make the difference, the people are really for Ikaria. In Ikaria, it's cultural, it's an epicurean culture, they avoid stress, or cope well with it. When they cannot avoid it, they seek small pleasures. They live the day as it comes. So, somehow naturally, they're doing things that we should all be doing. [ FOREIGN ]. I got money from my uncle Giannis. He said to me, come with me for work, for one week and I will give you money, I said, okay. I went first three days, and then I said, I, I quit, I cannot do it anymore. I was waking up at 6 o'clock and working until, four, five and he was saying, come on, let's go, let's go until night. [ FOREIGN ]. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ]. In the documentaries they show only old people, they don't show nothing else, old people and the nature. They don't show the young people, what are they doing in their lives, you know? [ NOISE ]. I don't think that I would live so many years as them because, with the live that we are doing now it's, it's bad because we drink alcohol so much. We don't sleep good. [ NOISE ] [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. I'm looking forward to the people of Ikaria being able to come together, and work for the good of their island. And I'm also looking forward to the next generation, to see how they turn out and where they're going to be in 20 years time. I think it's gonna be a very interesting journey. We like the tradition of Ikaria, the history, the music, the culture, everything. We like it, and we trying, I think, my generation is trying to keep it, you know, not lose it. What I learn a lot from the older people is their sense of continuity, their strong sense of family, their strong sense of, my children have grown. I've seen my grandchildren, my life is complete, I'm fulfilled. They're not looking for new things. They're enjoying the things that they have in the moments they have. They're not looking for the next one, and the next one before they've actually enjoyed the present one. 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