The Power of Awareness in Eating Habits

Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Sanda Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body as we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy, so take care of it in the most in a natural way. Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode on the Holistic Dentistry Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Sanda Moldovanovan, and I'm excited to talk to you today with Gina Worful regarding mindfulness. In this busy world, it's just so hard to remember to be mindful, and we're going to find out why that is so important for our overall health. Let me tell you a little bit about Gina Worful. She is the founder of Mastering Mindfulness Institute. Originally trained as a registered dietitian, Gina saw that traditional diet approaches failed to create lasting change. She developed a mindfulness-based technology that helps people build self-trust and transform their health from the inside out. So thank you so much, Gina, for being on our show today.

Thank you so much for having me.

I, I'm very excited about this topic because it's something that I practice on a daily basis. I have to slow myself down and just be, have that mindfulness what I'm doing and being in the moment. How did you get to do this type of work from a registered dietitian? What was the world like for you then when you were a registered dietitian and what is it like now?

Yeah, mindfulness, it really changed my life and I think it is such a powerful tool that many people can use because one of the things that a lot of people who, who are working on their oral health or their physical health, their wanting to change their eating habits often, like they're wanting to eat better. And sometimes they find that knowing how to eat healthy just isn't enough. And a lot of people are wanting to change their eating habits, but they're struggling to be able to do it. And so what I realized was that logic wasn't really enough. Just knowing how to eat healthy sometimes isn't the whole story or what drives our behavior around why we make the choices that we make. And if we can understand what actually drives our food choices, then we can feel so much more empowered in making healthier and better choices. And so when I first became a dietitian, kind of to your original question, when I first became a registered dietitian, I learned so much about nutrition and I really wanted to inspire people to eat healthier. And I thought if I just gave them the perfect plan, they would, they would all do it. And every person was struggling to change. They were having a hard time actually changing their eating habits. And I was so confused and I almost quit my career because none of my clients were actually permanently changing their eating habits. They were all coming back to me like it was confession of all the bad food choices that they ate. And they were really struggling to change. And I didn't understand the deeper layers of why do we make the food choices that we do? And for me, at the same time, even though I had 2 degrees in nutrition, I knew all about eating healthy. I was also struggling to sometimes stick to my healthy eating program. And all the great eating plan that I came up with, I was struggling to stick to it myself. And so it sent me on a deeper discovery to understand what actually drives our food choices so that if we are wanting to change our health just for a better, better health, or even from an oral perspective, having a better, eating less sugar, eat, making better food choices, understanding what actually drives those food choices is what really changes everything.

Yes, that's, that's incredible. And you seem very passionate about this and I, I love that about you cuz there's so many people suffering from this. And, and what kind of methodology are you using now? Like what is mindfulness? I guess let's go back to the essence cuz a lot of people think, well, mindfulness is kind of logical, isn't it? But, but it really isn't.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people when they hear the word mindfulness, they might think it's about, it's about meditation or it's about, you know, being very calm or being very zen. Or I think of the word mindfulness as awareness. It's what you you put your attention, what you put your focused attention toward. So we could be mindful towards how much we— like, what we do, what we eat, what we do throughout the day, what we're really learning. And so mindfulness is about awareness. And what I realized was that when people were trying to change their healthy eating or change their eating habits, they were trying to use willpower, which is more like overpowering their cravings, overpowering what they were experiencing, and not understanding their cravings or understanding what they were experiencing. And so willpower was like an overpowering— is instead of overpowering your cravings and overpowering what you're experiencing, mindfulness is about increasing your awareness, becoming more aware of how your thoughts, your cravings, and your body is a stronger influence on the food choices that you make, because it's really hard to change what you're not aware of. So for example, I'll give, give you an example of this. The person who uses willpower, they might come home after a long stressful day and say, Gosh, I'm really craving some chips right now, but their mind will say, don't eat those chips. Don't eat those chips. Don't eat those chips. And they have to put all of their like mental focus and energy into like not eating the chips and like trying really hard. And willpower is really the weakest form of change, which is why all of my clients were failing. That's why I was failing and struggling. It's the weakest form of change because you're overpowering that don't eat the chips, don't eat the chips. Now, the person who uses mindfulness. Will instead, after a long stressful day, feel and become more aware of what they're experiencing. Okay. I'm feeling like I want chips. I've had a long stress. What else am I feeling? What's driving that desire for chips? I'm feeling tension in my body. I'm feeling stress. Now that person might have that awareness that they're feeling stressed or feeling tension. And what they're really deeply craving is actually to feel good, especially for women who have been giving to their children all day, for example, or anyone who's really been working and giving and giving and giving and depleting themselves all, all day. When you use mindfulness, you can feel inside of your body. What I'm actually looking for is to feel better, to nurture myself, to feel good. From that place of awareness, awesome. You can make a choice that is very empowering. What would I want to do for my body to feel good today after a long day of exhaustion? And so mindfulness allows you to understand what is underneath and driving your food choices so that you can feel, you can make a change from an empowered place. Does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely. It makes sense. And even when it comes to like sugar, right? And as a dentist, we deal a lot with people that are craving processed foods and sugars, and that has a big impact on oral health, obviously, because not only it harbors bad bacteria, it creates oral dysbiosis, and it's a trickle effect. Effect of their habits, essentially, if their lack of mindfulness. So ultimately, why do people crave— why do people crave sugar and carbohydrates?

Yeah, it's such a good question. And actually, people think that it's their, their level of willpower, but it actually has to do with the state that their body is in. When you know this, you can feel so much more empowered with your choices. So normally on a normal day when you feel happy and you feel really good and your nervous system is regulated, there's an area of your brain that's working. It's called your prefrontal cortex and it gives you really good rational thinking. And that's like on a day when you're like, you're feeling happy, the sun's out, maybe there's a good song on, you're feeling really good. Those are the days you might notice, like it's really easy to say, I'm gonna eat the salad. I'm gonna change my life. I'm gonna be healthy forever. I'm never eating cookies again. You'll notice that you have really good willpower and really good impulse control. Do you ever notice that? Like on a day you feel really good?

Yeah.

So that's when your nervous system is regulated. You're in what's known as like the parasympathetic state, which means your body feels safe. If you go into a state, which is known as the sympathetic state, that's like your fight or flight state. When your body gets stressed, it shifts your brain activity. So now your prefrontal cortex that gives you really good willpower, really good rational thinking, that kind of like for lack of a better word, it like goes offline. It's like not as active. But the area of your brain that is active is your amygdala. And its job is to protect you. So what happens is your body's chemistry will shift and all of a sudden you'll start to feel more hungry and you'll start to crave sugar and all of your attention will go up into your mind and actually in your mouth, like you'll start craving foods. And I've heard that there's some research that will show that in this state, your taste bud receptors will change their shape so that food actually tastes sweeter. So your body shifts into this very animalistic-like state to seek food and sugar as a survival response. And when you live— yeah. And so when you live in this state, you think that you lack discipline, you think that you lack willpower, but really your body is doing its job on a very primal level of trying to protect you. So in this state, you'll feel heightened cravings, especially for sugar or carbs. And you'll kind of almost go like tunnel vision. I almost think of it as like a tiger where a tiger is like zoned in on like, and we can get to that. Like, I really need chocolate or I really need something sweet. So it could be anywhere from like a little bit of like a grazing of like, hmm, I just kind of like want something that tastes good too. If your stress is really high and you're really in that state, it could feel like you're being like hypnotized. Like if you've ever had, I had some of those moments of where it felt like one minute I had really good willpower, really good self-control, and then it was like the flip of a switch. I was just watching myself go tunnel vision on these foods that were not on my plan. And I wonder, and then after that I'd wonder like, what is wrong with me? Why can't I just do it? And it was actually this switch of my body shifting its state.

Interesting. So you were mentioning the— Dr. David, can I, can you gimme like 20 more minutes? Can you log off and log back in? Yeah, absolutely. Because I'm just running a little bit late.

No worries.

Thanks, David. OK, 20 minutes. Bye. I don't know how Riverside is doing. We'll cut this off. Yeah, we have not been able how to figure out in Riverside— I recently started using Riverside— how to prevent people from hopping off.

Yes. Boy, you have a busy full schedule. Holy cow.

Always. I have a day off from the office, so I want to make sure that them. Wow. That's them. Anyway. Okay.

Yeah.

I'm gonna kind of start back up with my thought about the prefrontal cortex. So you mentioned about the prefrontal cortex that when this is activated, we actually are more mindful. So, so what are ways that we can keep this active so that we don't get the cravings?

Yeah. So the biggest thing is about noticing when does your body give you clues that you're shifting into different states? So when you're in that parasympathetic state, you'll have your prefrontal cortex working, you'll feel a lot more willpower. You'll feel a lot more in control. And so just notice like, when does your body let you know? Your body will always let you know what state it's in, and you can get little clues, but you have to pay attention to those subtle little shifts. So when my body feels safe, I'll notice my shoulders will kind of relax. I'll be breathing more deeply. And what's cool is we can use our breath like the switch. The breath is the one switch that will tell our bodies whether we're in a safe state or whether we're going into fight or flight. And so I can use my breath at, at the bottom of our lungs. We have receptors at the bottom of our lungs. And so if we breathe into the, our lower belly, our oxygen will reach those receptors in our lower lungs. And that tells the body that you're safe. So being able to breathe slowly and create a safe state for your body is one of the best tools that you could have to regulate sugar cravings and those cravings that you have for different foods. You could almost tell instantly, like right now, if we take a slow breath in through our nose, you'll notice that your body kind of softens, your muscles relax a little bit. And if you keep breathing like that for about 30 seconds, nice and slow in and out through your nose, what's interesting is your mouth will start to salivate. And that's a sign from your body that says we're switching over into that safe state, which is kind of known as our rest and digest. Our mouth is salivating. Our body is calm. It's when we go into that fight or flight state, when our stress is built up, that we might notice that our muscles contract. Maybe our neck contracts, our shoulders contract. We wonder, why do I always have a tight neck or a tight jaw from all the clenching? That's a sign that our body is going into that stressed state. Also, if you hold your breath or all of your attention is up here in your mind and you're thinking all the time, that tends to be the state of where our bodies go into more of a, a sympathetic craving type state.

Makes sense. You know, especially I feel with eating foods, any, any type of food, but especially starting dinner, there's a lot of mindless eating going on, especially, you know, even me as a resident, when I was a resident at UCLA, I was always in a hurry. You know, I'm always grabbing something, probably not chewing my food properly. And an interesting, what you mentioned about, you know, saliva, because when you're running and eating, you don't have enough saliva, the food doesn't get broken down for digestion because digestion starts in the mouth. So my question to you is how can people start practicing mindfulness, especially let's say before they have a meal so they could be maybe eating less potentially even when they're practicing?

Yes. Yes. And it is, it is really incredible to see how practicing mindfulness will shift not only your, what the foods that you crave, but how full you naturally feel because when you go into Yeah, sympathetic state. What happens is there's an area of your brain called the insular cortex, and that's— that area of your brain is responsible for taking the signal that you have had enough food to eat and processing it. So we want that area of your brain to be active while you're eating, and that comes from being in that calm state. So by taking a couple breaths before you eat, you calm your nervous system, you bring down that stressed state, and all those areas of your brain are going to start working where you have more willpower, you have better rational thinking. So it's a lot easier for you to make healthy choices. And then your brain is also processing that you had enough food to eat. So if all of those are not connected, the way that you'll feel is you'll have cravings and you'll feel like you're eating and thinking about food all the time, and you can't quite stop. And once you start eating, you're like, why, why do I not feel satisfied? Why do I not feel full? Why do I feel like I've had enough food to eat, but I just don't feel full and I don't feel satisfied. So putting it into practice is before you are about to eat, think about how often our bodies are still in that stress response. We've been busy working all day, doing all these different things. By slowing down and taking 3 slow breaths, we'll notice that our bodies start to relax and soften. And that indicates that your body is shifting over into that safe state, that rest and digest. So taking 3 slow breaths before eating is a really great way to help lower your cravings and feel more full and satisfied while you're eating.

Yeah, that's great advice. Now I know there's people out there thinking, oh my God, I have certain food choices and I just cannot get rid of them. How can they figure out what's driving their food choices?

So the biggest thing is using this skill of mindfulness or awareness, which is what do you have your attention on? So I have everybody first, first use the, the skill of awareness, which is what am I experiencing right now? So I might feel, am I having a craving or am I really hungry? And I'm feeling the difference between that. My body will tell me when I'm hungry. I feel that sensation in my stomach of where my stomach is kind of growling. Maybe that sensation has built up over time after eating, and I don't really have a strong desire for any particular flavor. I just— my body needs food. That's the signal my body telling me I need food. When I'm having a craving, my body will tell me very differently. It will— it'll feel almost like this magnetic feeling, like I need sugar, or I need those chips, or I need those cookies. And our attention goes up into our mind, and we might be feeling a certain emotion. So you can feel the difference. Am I hungry, or am I having a craving? And if I'm craving something, that's my body's way of saying, I need to feel good because food can give us the feeling of feeling good. It can give us pleasure, but it can also give us other things. Like when we are growing up, we learn that food can make us feel safe. When we're first born and we're frantic and we're crying and we start breastfeeding, that food can help calm us down and make us feel safe. And so that's that first association that we all make with food is that food helps me feel safe. It helps me feel comforted. It helps me feel secure. And all throughout our lives, food can tell a story of the relationship that we have with it. So for example, if you had a parent maybe who didn't really know how to show you love, but they showed you their love through food, you might develop that association that food gives me the feeling of love. So you can explore where in my life did I learn different associations, and none of them being bad, but they can help us understand ourselves. So if we're craving a food, we can use that power of mindfulness to become more aware of what am I feeling and what am I needing? And the truth is, is that cravings are never about not having enough willpower. They're always about fulfilling an unmet need, which means maybe I need to feel more pleasure. I need to feel love when I'm feeling lonely. I need to feel better when I'm Overwhelmed. And so we're feeling within ourselves, what is it that I'm really needing? And with that connection and that understanding, we can start saying, I'm really needing the feeling of connection or love. Now my task might be, how do I create that feeling of love within myself? Or how do I create the feeling of more pleasure in my life? Because food has been my only source of it. I've been exhausted, depleted from how much I've been working. So what's really special is food can be a mirror for showing us what we're really needing. And maybe really deeply longing for, and it can help us understand like what those unmet needs really are.

Yeah, absolutely. And considering that most chronic diseases come from our food choices, this is such an important practice. And, um, it's just a matter of finding the time for it and getting started with it. Like I started using mindfulness when I was at UCLA because they have a whole program on that when I was a resident, and it's just like you said, it's about that awareness, you know, so when I play with my two cats, that's when I really become aware. They remind me to play mindfully because they want my full attention. And, you know, then I become really aware about their actions and, you know, the way they're playing and really being in the moment and practicing that and being aware what their next move is and, you know, really being in that moment. So, so mindfulness can be practiced with so many things, not just food.

Yeah. And that's what's beautiful is like mindfulness helps us engage with life more, more with ourselves, with our emotions, with our feelings. And it like mindfulness is the path to engaging with life more. It's becoming more aware. It's like, and I related to health. I think it's like you are lifting a veil. You can see and feel and understand everything that you're doing. And a lot of the health industry really encourages us to follow this path of just making a mental decision to eat well and just doing it. But that doesn't account for the deeper things of why we make the food choices that we do, where those really things come from and what it's telling us that we're really needing. And so when we come at this place of looking at it with judgment and force and forcing ourselves to eat healthy, usually what happens is we repeat the same patterns and end up saying, Why do I always do this? What's wrong with me? When you use mindfulness, you can understand what drives your patterns and what your body is telling you that it really needs. And it's the most powerful way to approach your health, especially because whenever we have cravings, we see them as a weakness, but they're really our body telling us that it needs safety when, when it's in that sympathetic fight or flight state. So if we have this understanding that cravings are just our body in a sympathetic state, in that fight or flight state, telling us that it needs something, now I can learn about myself and say, when I have a craving, this is my body telling me that it really needs something, that it's going into that fight or flight state.

Yeah. How can people learn more from you? Do you know?

If you'd like to do a little deeper self-discovery, um, I have a training on masteringmindfulness.institute. It's called Reclaiming Your Power with Food, and it can open to open up a bigger, deeper self-discovery, can walk you through this 3-step process I have to understanding what's driving your food choices.

Do you work with clients one-on-one?

I do. Mm-hmm. I have a group program and I do some client work.

Yeah. Amazing. That's good. I, I think it's so important for people to dive deeper and having support from someone like you or even a group. I think it's important, you know, when, when we do this in isolation or try to figure out by ourselves, sometimes, especially for those of you listening that have big cravings and you're not living the life that you want and, you know, you have chronic diseases that you're battling through because of the food choices you're making, I highly encourage you to visit Gina's website. What is your website, Gina?

It's masteringmindfulness.institute.

Great. And where else can people find you?

I'm also on Instagram, Gina.Warfel. And that's W-O-R-F-U-L. And I have a ton of videos on YouTube as well that are really useful to go deeper into understanding your relationship with food.

Yes. I think this is at the core place where, you know, where longevity and optimum living starts, really understanding our bodies and practicing mindfulness.

Mm-hmm.

Any, anything you wanna say before we close the show? That we haven't covered?

I think if, yeah, if you're on your health journey and it feels like it's been really hard, my biggest suggestion is to bring in a place of curiosity because we tend to have so much judgment around these things, but curiosity is what really opens the door to understanding ourselves. And if you can just bring in that place of curiosity of understanding what it is that you're really needing, it can be everything. It can be. Everything that you're really looking for and understanding what you're really needing.

Yeah, that's great. I agree. Always dig in deeper if this is something that resonates with those of you listening. Thank you so much, Gina, for being on our show today.

Thank you so much for having me, Sanda.

Everyone listening, I hope you enjoyed today's show, and if you did, please share it with one of your friends or family members and go ahead and message me on Instagram if there's any other shows that you'd like to dive deeper into or any other topics that may be of interest to you. Until next time, keep smiling. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram @DrSandaMoldovan. This is Dr. Sanda Moldovan, and remember, your Your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.