What is mindful eating?
Mindful eating is taking time to notice what you are eating and really appreciating each delicious bite.
How do you eat mindfully?
Make everything you eat feel like a little food celebration.You can still eat everything you always eat. But I want you to sit down and enjoy it. Do not watch tv. Do not read your email. No distractions. Just eat and focus on every bite. The textures, the taste, the smell. Think about how delicious that first bite is. Take one bite and really enjoy it. Wait a minute before you take your second bite. Take your second bite. Does it taste just as good as the first one did? Savor that bite and wait a minute before you take the third bite. Keep doing this until you notice that your bites don’t taste as special as the first one did. Once the enjoyment of what you’re eating goes away – stop eating it.
I think what you’ll discover is that after only a handful of bites you’re just eating because it’s in front of you. So much of our eating is mindless eating of things that don’t even give us all that much satisfaction. We also tend to eat all of what is in front of us whether we’re still hungry or not. If you’re still hungry after the above process, find something else to eat that you can get enjoyment from and repeat the process.
I get that it might not be practical to do this for every meal, at least initially. You’re busy, late for work, the kids are screaming – whatever may be going on in your life. This is not about adding another thing to your to-do list. Maybe you can only do this for one or two meals a week. That’s ok. Start there. Or maybe you start with the dessert you eat after the kids go to bed. Or that doughnut you’re eating before the kids get up. That’s ok too. Start with something, whether it’s an entire meal or just a special treat.
This is not about making diet changes. Not yet anyway. 🙂