 If you're like me and have been working really hard to maintain your diet you are dreading how the upcoming holidays can affect your mental health as well as your weight. So in this video I'm going to give you a very simple practice to make sure that you don't break your diet over the holidays so make sure you stay tuned. What's up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. I have been working on my weight for the last year or so and with this method that I'm about to teach you it's how I have managed to lose 50 pounds this year. Don't believe me? Check out some of my older videos from earlier this year and you'll see the difference. How this pertains to mental health is you might be able to relate to what happens to me. I'm working on my weight I'm either going to the gym I'm eating healthy I'm doing all these different things to help me out with my weight loss then boom we hit the holiday season thanksgiving Christmas all the holiday parties there's sweets there's cakes there's pies there's all this stuff everywhere or even just regular foods and we overindulge because we live in a society where we get together and we eat we stuff our face. Now the problem with that being is when I fall off of my diet that's when the negative self-talk comes in. Chris why couldn't you have more self-control? Chris how come you couldn't just stick to this plan of dieting? Chris was it really worth it shoving all that food in your face for a few days and now you've got to figure out a way to work these pounds off and one of the nasty habits that I fall into is the holiday season makes me fall off of my diet and then I keep that going for a long time. Next thing you know I put back on a significant amount of the weight that I've lost and it's very hard to pull myself back up out of that so if this is something that you are struggling with this is a practice that I'm going to teach you to help. So I am going to put a link up in the info card for my playlist about losing weight mindfully. I use mindful eating. What I've loved about mindful eating is that it doesn't tell me what to eat when to eat it and all those rules but it just helps me be more conscious and aware of what I'm eating when I'm eating and how I'm eating. For example the opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness. So imagine being at Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas Eve dinner or a holiday party and just kind of walking around and stuffing your face with all these unhealthy things without really thinking about it. Mindfulness keeps us in the moment unless it's recognized am I hungry or am I just looking to satisfy that sweet tooth and helps me be conscious of what my brain is actually doing because if not I'm on autopilot and I start to pack the pounds back on. So the practice I'm about to teach you right now is mindful eating. So what I want you to do is go and grab a piece of food. I don't care what it is I don't care if it's a cake I don't care if it's an apple it could be literally anything you want to learn this practice. So go ahead and pause this video real quick and go just grab something that you can snack on. Alright I'm guessing you're back I'm hoping you're back with something I hope you didn't just watch this and not grab something but anyways let's get started. Me I've just grabbed a little piece of candy corn it was right by me so that's what I grabbed. Alright so as we go through this practice here's what I want you to do be like a detective be very curious just watch your thoughts watch your body sensations and just be very very curious as we do this meditation together and you follow my instructions. Let's start out by taking three mindful breaths as you inhale just notice your lungs filling up with air and as you exhale notice the air flowing out of your body as your breathing just get a sense of what your body feels like right now in this moment go ahead and pick up your piece of food and just examine it look at this piece of food like you've never seen it before bring a childlike curiosity make the texture the ridges how does it feel in your hand and if any thoughts arise just simply notice and let these thoughts pass use all of your different senses raise it up to your nose see what it smells like and you're touching it and smelling it and examining it with your eyes maybe even bring it up to your ear does this food have a sound just be curious and examine it now take the food and bring it up to your lips don't take a bite just notice what this food feels like against your lips and notice any thoughts arising are you having any thoughts of wanting to eat it not wanting to any judgments on this food that you're holding now go ahead and place the food inside your mouth but don't chew it just notice what it feels like in your mouth is your mouth salivating do you feel like you want to chew it or eat it just noticing and now begin to chew it and notice how the texture changes in your mouth notice what side of your mouth you're chewing on and what your mouth is doing as you chew it from your tongue to your teeth your cheeks and notice any sensations arising do you feel that you want more are you satisfied do you not want anymore just noticing these thoughts and now try to notice the impulse to swallow now go ahead if you haven't yet and swallow the food and just notice what it feels like as it travels down your throat and into your stomach to nourish your body now just be curious what does it feel like with this food in your stomach now do you have any more thoughts about wanting more not wanting anymore just sit and be curious now go ahead and just take one last deep inhale in and exhale and bring yourself back into the moment all right what was that like was it different was it not the way that you usually eat if you're like most people it was because a lot of us were not even paying attention while we eat so I want you to reflect on that and ask yourself like huh what kind of things came up did I notice that I wanted more did I notice that I didn't want any did I notice any thoughts coming to mind did this remind me of something just being curious about it because remember mindfulness is paying attention on purpose in the present moment but without judgment so what this has done for me is that it's changed my relationship with food but it's also helped me recognize what's going on in my body I have had much smaller portions because I can recognize when my body's full rather than when my brain is just saying go go go get more get more get more so what I want you to do leading up to the holidays is take at least one two or three meals a day where you do mindful eating for at least one or two bites okay slowing down the process paying attention to what you're eating noticing when you're full and if you can practice this before you get into the holidays you're going to see that on the holidays you're not over indulging and falling off track with your diet so again be sure to check out the whole playlist of losing weight mindfully that's linked up in the info card like I said using this method and a variety of other techniques I'm down 50 pounds and still going so make sure that you check it out but if you like this video give it a thumbs up and if you are new here make sure you hit that little round subscribe button down below I'm always making videos to help you with your mental health addiction recovery and all sorts of other stuff and be sure to click or tap on one of those thumbnails check out the other videos on this channel thanks again for watching I'll see you next time