When you lose weight, you want to keep those pounds off for good. Dieting and exercising are a good way to start, but to create lasting change in your body you must also change your mind. Your current state of health and body weight are the result of many factors including heredity, habits and environment. Emotional upsets and life changes also affect your body.

Your thoughts and emotions influence your metabolic rate. Take a moment to think about the habitual way you eat a meal. If you are feeding kids who are all on a different schedule, all with different nutritional tastes, it’s likely that you are racing through your meals. Adults often emulate the patterns their parents created. Think about mealtime when you were a kid. Were meals relaxed, where each person took a moment to reflect on the day, or share a story? Or were mealtimes hurried, with a stressful atmosphere? Were you comfortable lingering at the table, or were you rushing to get away? Was the television on, offering its poor substitute for meaningful conversation?

It’s important to recognize that no matter what type of childhood you had, whether it was idyllic or anxious or somewhere in between, as an adult it is up to you to create the type of pattern that supports a healthy, fit lifestyle. You can’t change the past, but you can change the patterns that affect your life as it is now.

Instead of racing through your next meal, take your time. Encourage a relaxed environment at the dinner table. Turn the television off and put on some quiet music. Light a pretty candle and bring in flowers for your table. When you eat slowly and think about each biteful, food becomes a joy, not a job.

Your emotions affect your metabolic rate. Eating slowly and enjoying your food sensually will help you stay healthy, create lasting patterns of fitness for your children, and you may even lose weight naturally. Every day we face a choice, no matter how hard the sky seems to be falling down around us. Create a meal for your family to enjoy, and you will be nurturing yourselves on every level of your body, mind and soul.