If you want to lose weight, think more about what you eat.

(Photo: Todd McNaught)

A new study found that yoga enthusiasts who are more "mindful" about their food tend to eat less, weigh less and avoid the middle-age spread that afflicts an ever-growing number of boomers.

Specifically, the study at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center looked at 300 people at gyms, yoga studios, weight-loss programs and other venues in the Seattle area. The average participant was a 42-year-old white woman of average weight. About two in five practiced yoga more than an hour a week; almost half walked at least 90 minutes a week; and more than half engaged in more than 90 minutes of physical activity each week.

The participants were asked 28 questions about how they ate. Do they eat when full? Do they notice how food tastes and smells? How do they respond to ads? Do they eat when they're sad? And so on. They were also asked if they focus on other things while they ate.

The people who were more aware of their meals turned out to weigh less than those who "ate mindlesslly," according to Alan Kristal, the epidemiologist who led the study.

The yoga practitioners had an average body-mass index of 23.1 compared to 25.8 for the others, according to Kristal, who has been a yoga enthusiast himself for about 15 years.

"These findings fit with our hypothesis that yoga increases mindfulness in eating and leads to less weight gain over time, independent of the physical activity aspect of yoga practice," said Kristal, who is also a professor  at the University of Washington School of Public Health.

Kristal, who conducted an earlier study on the same phenomenon four years ago, published the latest study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Nothing Physical
"In our earlier study, we found that middle-age people who practice yoga gained less weight over a 10-year period than those who did not. This was independent of physical activity and dietary patterns," he said. "These [new] findings fit with our hypothesis that yoga increases mindfulness in eating and leads to less weight gain over time, independent of the physical activity aspect of yoga practice."

Why is yoga so effective? Kristal thinks it's because yoga cultivate "mindfulness" by causing the practitioner to observe the discomfort of a challenging pose in a calm, non-judgmental way. 

"This ability to be calm and observant during physical discomfort teaches how to maintain calm in other challenging situations, such as not eating more even when the food tastes good and not eating when you’re not hungry," he said.

Kristal concludes that mindful eating augments other approaches to weight loss, including dieting, calorie counting and limiting portions.

"Adding yoga practice to a standard weight-loss program may make it more effective," he said.