What is Mind Body Nutrition?

Mind Body Nutrition focuses on how the mind has a profound influence on the body when

it comes to how we metabolize a meal.

More specifically, Mind Body Nutrition looks at the psychophysiology of how digestion, assimilation, calorie burning and all the nutritive functions of the body are literally and scientifically impacted by stress, relaxation, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, pleasure, eating rhythm, eating speed, awareness, our personal story, and more...

To put it another way: What we eat is half the story of good nutrition – the other half of the story is who we are as eaters. That is, the person who we are literally and scientifically influences how we digest, absorb and calorie burn a meal. Previously in the field of nutrition, we’ve made the assumption that the nutritional value of a meal is given exclusively in the nutrients it contains - macronutrients, micronutrients and so on. So if you wanted to know the value of a meal, you’d merely look at the label and the nutrient profile.

But nutrition is way more interesting than that. The error in thinking here, is that just because a food has a specific nutrient content doesn’t mean we will ABSORB all of those nutrients. We need to look at the person who’s ingesting that food. We need to look at how their physiology is being impacted by mind and emotions. We need to ask the question “Are we in the optimum state of digestion, assimilation and calorie burning when we’re eating?”

The bottom line is this: you can be eating the healthiest food in the universe, but if you aren’t eating under the optimum physiologic state - which happens to be relaxation, then you won’t get even close to receiving the full nutritional value of that meal.

This is not some fanciful notion

This is simple and straightforward science.

According to the well accepted research, stress has the following impact:

• It de-regulates appetite and drives us to eat more
• It increases cortisol and insulin which signal weight gain and fat storage
• It decreases muscle growth
• It causes digestive upset
• It leads to intense nutrient excretion
• It kills healthy gut bacteria
• It increases unhealthy cholesterol levels
• It can lower thyroid and growth hormone levels
• It can make us more susceptible to food allergies
• And the list goes on

Clearly, stress has a massive impact on our health - more and more people know that these days. But here’s the tricky part: We’re all aware of the obvious stresses in our lives - work stress, relationship challenges, financial issues, and so on. But we often miss the powerful stressors that are more hidden.

http://psychologyofeating.com/nutrition-training/