“Before reaching out for the doughnut, ask yourself: ‘What do I really want? What am I really craving?’,” says the author of new book Meditate Your Weight: A 21-Day Retreat to Optimise Your Metabolism and Feel Great.
“Maybe the answer is: “Oh, I’m craving sugar. Am I missing some sweetness in my life?”
Taking that split second to think, to meditate, to possibly reconsider, might be the key to keeping your diet on track, says the yoga medicine guru.
“A lot of people are doing the right thing. They’re eating less, and they’re exercising, and they’re just not losing the weight the way they want to,” says Tiffany.
“Meditation is the missing link.”
Her new book urges people to take a 21-day challenge to meditate each day – even if it’s for as little as three minutes – to create more awareness about the internal forces that can drive us.
Daily meditations are followed by a “mind makeover” moment intended to raise awareness by jotting in a journal, and a daily mantra meant to be repeated a handful of times throughout the day, providing a touchstone moment to step back from the world at large, turn inward and just breathe.
Tiffany believes that too often we turn to food to numb our stressful, anxious feelings.
Going inside with meditation will help people take the first step — observing the feelings — and then identify the negative patterns of eating.
“This challenge is about looking at what is behind the decisions you’re making over and over again.”
Awareness may be all that’s needed to break these unwanted habits, she said.
“There’s this feeling that we can never match up to [what we see on social media], and that sets us up for a difficult road to self-love. The point is to recognise that tendency: ‘This is what I’m doing. That is me, tearing myself down.'”
Tiffany says it’s okay to have the occasional treat.
The problem, she says, is that too often we eat the doughnut – and are then miserable about it.
“To have dessert from time to time is a healthy thing. But that [pink] box may symbolise a lack of something else in your life…. It also represents an opportunity. A chance to find out: ‘What is my body really asking for?'”
For more benefits from meditation, click here.