HOW You Eat Matters Flashcards
Why is how you eat more important than what you eat?
It all comes down to the metabolic response that happens and how your body is assisting the response.
What influences the gastrointestinal function in the body?
The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is responsible for stimulating the digestive response.
It is part of the Central Nervous System (CNS) which is comprised of two branches.
What are the two branches of the autonomic nervous system and what to they do?
The parasympathetic system - it relaxes the body and turns on digestion
The sympathetic system - turns off digestion when there is no food in the stomach and when you’re in flight or fight stress response.
What happens when eating during stress?
You will have sympathetic nervous system dominance and experience digestive upset, decreased nutrient assimilation, and unwanted fat storage, thus eventual weight gain.
What happens when you eat in a relaxed state?
The parasympathetic system is activated and turns on healthy digestion, assimilation, and an amplified calorie-burning capacity.
What are strategies for getting into parasympathetic relaxation state before eating?
The 20 minute meal
1. Check the clock
2. Eat your meal at the pace that you normally would, don’t do anything different
3. Check the clock at the end and jot down how much time the entire meal took in the 20-minute meal journal
4. At the next meal, check the clock and increase your time by 5 minutes than before
5. Document how long the meal took and when you started to feel full
6. Document or notice what your mood was
Why is 20 minutes a good time to take to eat a meal?
It takes the body 20 minutes to realize it’s full
What is EBT or Emotional Brain Training?
It’s emotional cleaning to clear out any stress emotions with positive ones to ready the body for food. We always want to be in a rest and digest state for better digestion.
A check in once a day by taking a deep breath and asking oneself what your stress level is. Becoming aware of your thoughts and what effect they are having on your body, especially before you eat.
This can be powerful with those who have challenges with emotional eating, binge eating, overeating, compulsive eating.
What is a third strategy for better digestion?
It’s all in the utensil and chewing that you do during the meal.
1. Put the utensil down between bites at least 3 times. This will automatically slow down your eating speed.
It takes about 20 minutes for the brain to send the signal of fullness out. Feeling full translates to eating less. Giving the brain ample time to do this allows for the feedback loop which involves several hormones between the gut and the brain tot take place.
What is the 4th strategy for better digestion?
Breathing between bites.
Oxygen helps burn all of the nutrients that actually speed up your metabolism.
What is a good digestion protocol for clients who are struggling with weight loss if they are eating healthy?
Have them consider HOW they are eating and teach them these for 4:
The 20 minute meal
EBT a few minutes before they begin to eat
Putting the fork down between bites
Breathing between bites
What is the 5th strategy to better digestion?
Chewing your food and eat with your senses.
Chewing food 20-30 times and using the senses to experience pleasure from eating promotes a slowing down and helping with hormonal cross talk between the gut and the brain.
If the brain doesn’t get time to reach a place of pleasure experience with eating it will send the signal to eat more. It wants to indulge and have the pleasure experience!
What is CPDR?
Cephalon Phase Digestive Response - or what happens in your brain when you encounter a meal. Research estimates that 30 to 40% of the total digestive response of a meal is in response to CPDR.
In other words, the more aware and present we are while eating, the better nutrient absorption and metabolic response there is as well as helping the brain reach a level of satiation in pleasure experience with the meal.
How can overeating be reframed?
Maybe it’s actually a problem with being present and aware than a problem with overeating or binge eating.
How does chewing help digestion?
It sends a signal to start preparing for digestion. It starts the secretion of hormones, activates taste receptors, prepares the stomach lining for the secretion of hydrochloric acid and prepares the pancreas for secretion of enzymes and bicarbonate.
It is also beneficial to dental health - it strengthens your teeth and jaw, helps prevent plaque buildup (saliva secretion), and tooth decay, and discourages food-borne bacteria from entering your gut on larger food particles
