Do something Friday

Are you measuring your success with mindfulness in terms of how much weight you lose?

I know this might seem like an appropriate measure of success -- after all, weight loss is your stated goal, right?  But consider this:

You could eat nothing -- not a bite-- one whole day and you would lose some weight but would it be enough to make up for the discomfort you felt not eating?  You might get on the scale the morning after not eating and say "That's it? That's all I lost??"

The same is true for exercise -- you could workout like a crazy person for a whole day and get on the scale and think that it wasn't worth it because you only lost a pound (or maybe not any at all).

If you're working on developing mindfulness to manage your weight, measure your success on whether or not you were mindful.  If you were mindful at a meal or snack then you have succeeded.  If you zoned out and ended up eating too much, you have some room for improvement.

Weight loss is the byproduct of mindfulness -- with a greater understanding of how hungry or full you are feeling, you make adjustments to the amount you eat.  As you make these adjustments, you start noticing how much better you are feeling -- more energetic, less sluggish, less guilty and obsessed about food, etc.  These are the feelings that spur clients on to success -- they want to feel better.  If they're feeling more energetic and less food obsessed, the weight comes off without all the drama and self punishment.  And isn't that what you're really looking for?