You can improve your diet and manage food cravings by paying attention to what you eat in each moment. Here are some tips to help you eat mindfully.
What is mindful eating?
Mindful eating refers to observing what you eat and how it affects your body. Mindful eating involves paying attention to how food affects your feelings and listening to the signals that your body sends about satisfaction, taste, and fullness. Mindful eating is about recognizing and accepting the feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations that you observe. Mindful eating can also include the preparation and consumption of food.
Many of our lives are so busy that mealtimes can be rushed. While driving to work, we eat in our cars, while seated at a desk or watching TV on the couch. We eat without thinking, grabbing food and dumping it down. We eat often for other reasons than hunger. For example, to satisfy our emotional needs, relieve stress or cope with negative emotions like sadness, anxiety and loneliness. Mindful eating is the antithesis of this type of unhealthy eating.
Mindful eating doesn’t mean being perfect or eating only the right foods. It also means not allowing yourself to eat out all the time. It’s not about cokoladna torta setting strict guidelines for how many calories you should eat, or what foods you should avoid. It’s more about being present and using all your senses to shop for, cook, prepare, and eat your food.
Although mindfulness is not for everyone, many people find it helpful to eat this way for just a few meals per week. This will help you avoid overeating and make it easier for you to change your diet. You’ll also feel better.
Mindful eating has many benefits
You can learn to enjoy both the food and the experience by paying attention to how you feel while eating. This includes how each bite feels, what your body is feeling, and how different foods affect your mood and energy. You can make better food choices, eat less, and be more mindful about the food you eat. You can also break bad eating habits.
Mindful eating can help you:
- Take a moment to slow down and relax from the bustle of your day. This will help ease stress and anxiety.
- Change your relationship to food. This will help you recognize when you are eating for other reasons than hunger.
- You will enjoy more enjoyment from the food that you eat if you slow down and take in all of your meals and snacks.
- Focus on the way each food makes you feel after you have eaten it to make healthier choices.
- Improve your digestion by eating slower.
- You will feel fuller quicker and eat less.
- You can feel a deeper connection with where your food comes form, how it was produced and the journey it took to get to you.
- You can eat healthier and more balanced.
Mindful eating: How to do it
Mindfulness requires that you engage in an activity with complete awareness. Mindful eating requires that you eat mindfully. This is different from eating while your eyes are on the screen, reading, checking your phone, daydreaming, or watching TV. If your attention wanders, bring it back to the food and the experience you are having of cooking, serving and eating.
Start by practicing mindful eating for five minutes at a time. Then, gradually increase your practice. Remember that mindful eating can be started while you are shopping or looking at the menu at a restaurant. Each item added to your shopping list or selected from the menu should be carefully evaluated.
Take a few deep breathes and consider the health benefits of each food item. Although nutrition experts continue to debate which foods are healthy and which aren’t, the best rule is to eat food as close to nature as you can.
When shopping, cooking, serving and eating food, use all of your senses. What does it look like, how does it smell, and how does it feel when you chop them? What do they sound like when they are being cooked? What do they taste like when you eat them?
Take the time to observe yourself and the food you are about to eat. Pay attention to how you sit, and try to maintain a relaxed posture. Recognize your surroundings, but learn how to tune out. Focusing on the world around you can distract from the act of eating and negate the benefits of mindfulness.
Listen to your hunger. What are your hunger levels? You should be hungry but not starving. Be clear about your motives for eating that particular meal. Is it because you are hungry? Or is it because you need to distract yourself or feel like it’s the right thing to do?
Before you eat, stop and take in the beauty of the food. Pay close attention to the texture, shapes, colors, and smells of your food. How do the textures, shapes and smells of the food affect your reactions?
Try it out. What would you say about the texture? Try to identify the different flavors and ingredients. Take a deep breath and chew the food.
Pay attention to how your experience changes from moment to moment. Are you satisfied? Are you content? Be patient, take your time and be present.
Put your utensils down between bites. Before you pick up your utensils again, take the time to think about how you feel — hungry, satisfied. Pay attention to what your stomach is telling you, and not what your plate says. Stop eating when you feel full.
Refrain from judging the origins of the food, including the animals and plants involved. Also, consider the time and effort it took to get the food onto your plate. It is possible to make better and more sustainable decisions by being more aware of the origins of our food.
Talk with your dining companions and eat slowly. Pay attention to your body’s signs of fullness. Try to be present when you eat alone.