Do you feel like your relationship with food can be improved? Do you wish that you could create a deeper connection between your mind and body when it comes to eating? Mindful eating may be the answer you’re looking for! Mindful eating is a practice that focuses on the sensory experience of the food and being fully engaged in the act of eating. By practicing mindful eating, individuals can develop a more intuitive relationship with food and make healthier choices that support both physical and mental well-being. In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of mindful eating and how to incorporate it into your lifestyle. Eating is a natural, healthy, and pleasurable activity for satisfying hunger. However, in our food-abundant, diet-obsessed culture, eating is often mindless, consuming, and guilt-inducing instead. Mindful eating is an ancient mindfulness practice with profound modern implications and applications for resolving this troubled love-hate relationship with food.
So, what is mindful eating?
Mindful eating is eating with intention and attention: Eating with the intention of caring for yourself and eating with the attention necessary for noticing and enjoying your food and its effects on your body.
TRY this: place a forkful of food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter what the food is, but make it something you love — let’s say it’s that first nibble from three hot, fragrant, perfectly cooked ravioli. Now comes the hard part. Put the fork down. This could be a lot more challenging than you imagine, because that first bite was very good and another immediately beckons. You’re hungry. Mindful Eating involves becoming aware of that reflexive urge to plow through your meal like Cookie Monster on a shortbread bender. Resist it. Leave the fork on the table. Chew slowly. Stop talking. Tune in to the texture of the pasta, the flavor of the cheese, the bright color of the sauce in the bowl, the aroma of the rising steam.
Continue this way throughout the course of a meal, and you’ll experience the third-eye-opening pleasures and frustrations of a practice known as mindful eating.
The concept has roots in Buddhist teachings. Just as there are forms of meditation that involve sitting, breathing, standing and walking, many Buddhist teachers encourage their students to meditate with food, expanding consciousness by paying close attention to the sensation and purpose of each morsel.
With the annual chow-downs of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Super Bowl Sunday behind us, and Lent coming, it’s worth pondering whether mindful eating is something that the mainstream ought to be, well, more mindful of. Could a discipline pioneered by Buddhist monks and nuns help teach us how to get healthy, relieve stress and shed many of the neuroses that we’ve come to associate with food? People are used to eating so fast. This is a practice of stopping, and we don’t realize how much we’re not stopping. For many people, eating fast means eating more. Mindful eating is meant to nudge us beyond what we’re craving so that we wake up to why we’re craving it and what factors might be stoking the habit of belly-stuffing.
AND THE BENEFITS?
- Reduced over eating which will result bloated in no more going to bed bloated and over stuffed. You’ll be able to wear your favorite jeans without that dreaded ‘muffin top’
- Increased enjoyment of food. As humans, we can all consider ourselves a big fan of eating. Now that I’m on the path to mastering the art of mindful eating, you will discover a new found respect for food and will gain far more pleasure from meal times.
- Improved digestion. Digestion begins in the mouth with the action of saliva. If food isn’t chewed properly it means that there’s more work for the rest of your digestion system. You will notice less flatulence and other stomach disturbances.
- Being satisfied with less. Linked with reduced over eating, the real benefit here is being able to trust yourself to feel satisfied after one or two squares of chocolate so there is no temptation to scoff the whole block. Suddenly there’s no need to deny yourself the occasional treat which makes for a far healthier relationship with food.
Ready to change the way you interact with food?
