5 Reasons for Mindful Eating after Gastric Sleeve or Bypass

Mindful eating is the act of being present and aware during a mealtime. Using mindful eating after Gastric Sleeve of Bypass provides several benefits including better tolerance of foods and identifying fullness.

In this video and article, I will cover five benefits of eating mindfully after bariatric surgery including Gastric Sleeve, Gastric Bypass, Duodenal Switch or when using obesity medications.

Reason #1: Mindful eating decreases food anxiety after Gastric Sleeve or Bypass

The results are in. We are anxious people living in an anxious world. We all need more peace in our daily lives and certainly when it comes to eating after Gastric Sleeve or bypass!

Taking time to sit at a table and practice mindful eating not only decreases food anxiety, it can also help you to feel less anxious about other things in your day. You get to take a break. Clear your mind. Take some breaths in between bites.

The opposite of mindful eating is mindless eating. We often eat mindlessly because our mind is ruminating on something else. Bringing your mind into the moment of eating can slow your mind from worrying about something else.

It can also help you to feel less anxious about food if you find yourself overwhelmed about what to eat and how much to eat after bariatric surgery. Being mindful means bringing your mind to the present moment. You are not worrying about past diets or how much you used to eat. You are not worrying about the future and whether you’ll lose more weight before your next doctor’s appointment. You are simply focusing on and enjoying the moment and the meal in front of you.

Reason #2: Increases awareness of comfortable fullness

When you eat more mindfully, you are more in tune with your body’s natural cues. Hunger and fullness are basic body cues that we sometimes miss or even ignore. Patients often wonder how much food they should be eating after Gastric Sleeve or bypass. My tip? Mindful eating will allow you to listen to your body cues so you can find the right amount of food for you, at that moment.

Each day can differ and each meal can differ. Paying attention to body cues helps you to know what you need at this moment, not what you think you should eat.

Reason #3: Mindful eating leads to small bite sizes and a slower pace of eating

You’ve heard before that taking small bites and eating slowly is important after bariatric surgery. That doesn’t mean it’s easy!

We ALL struggle to slow down at our meals. You’re not alone, I struggle too! Practicing mindful eating helps you to stay aware of your pace of eating. You can use an app like Baritatsic for a timer to ding when it’s time to take another bite.

It’s also a good tip to cut your bites before you eat if you tend to get distracted and forget once you start eating. It’s normal for our minds to wander. It takes practice to bring our minds back. Cutting bites before you eat helps you stay small if you do get distracted.

Reason #4: Increases tolerance of solid protein

Because of reason #3, small bites and eating slowly, mindful eating means a better tolerance of lean, sold proteins.

Dense and lean protein sources are a wonderful thing for hunger control and weight control. Tolerating them after a Gastric Sleeve or Bypass is no easy feat. Eating mindfully helps bring awareness to eating behaviors and therefore increases the comfort of dense protein sources!

Reason #5: Allows you to gain insights and learn from each meal

There are more than five reasons why mindful eating is so rewarding but to wrap up the list, you’ll gain more insight about yourself and foods when you are paying more attention.

Whether you are early out of surgery or you are getting back to basics years after surgery, taking notes can be helpful as you notice things about yourself or your food that you had not before.

Mindfulness means you are noticing things around you. You aren’t distracted. You are present. Your eyes are open to what’s in front of you. This might help you notice what you do like about your meal and why. Or what you don’t like about that food and why. You might make a recipe a little differently next time because of something you noticed, and increase your enjoyment of healthy foods by doing so.

The things you notice by eating mindfully are more likely to bring you knowledge than Google! Try it and let me know.

Don’t forget your freebie!

This placemat will ask you questions about your meal to help you eat more mindfully and notice more!