Mind Over Munching Takes Practice

 The brain is a powerful thing, especially when it comes to eating. Faced with food choices all day long, the power to forego needless calorie foods takes practice.

In fact, research published last year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found from brain scans of successful weight loss maintainers (kept 30 + pounds off for at least three years) that their brains are more ?in control? when it comes to inhibiting implusive eating behaviors, whereas obese participants were more likely to act (eat) when food is put in front of them.

What an exciting revelation to think that healthy, low-calorie eating doesn?t happen overnight. It takes practice to master overeating. Like Malcolm Blackwell talks about in his book, Outliers, mastery of anything takes at least 10,000 hours of practice. With 365 24-hour days in a year, that?s 8,760 hours in a year (however, the time is cut in half when you consider that we are only awake half of those hours). So that?s more than a year of steady practice.

Skip the Fad Diet

So it?s no wonder that these brief on-again, off-again diets don?t work. The consistent practice of balancing calories in with calories out and eating whole, unprocessed foods for snacks and meals is never truly mastered, if you don?t put in the practice (and train your brain) to eat well. Practice eating well today ? it?s a brain-altering step in the right direction.

By Victoria Shanta Retelny, RD, http://livingwellcommunications.com