Mindful Eating Tips
Associating Food with How You Feel
Knowing what foods we should and shouldn’t be eating can be confusing, especially since advice is changing regularly. But at the end of the day, being mindful of your food choices and aware of how it makes you feel is the basis of it all. Mindful eating, a popular word in the diet industry, simple stands for an approach to food that focuses on individuals’ awareness of the food and their experience with the food. It isn’t solely focused around calories, carbohydrates, fats, or proteins.
Focusing on mindfulness when eating is simply being aware of what you’re doing and the effects it has on your body, whether it be good or bad. Have you ever eaten something and immediately got bloated and a stomach ache? Recognizing that you don’t feel good when you eat that food is being aware of how it makes you feel. Of course, you might have some classic food items that make you feel this way but they are tradition or something you have occasionally and that’s normal to not totally cut them out of your diet but overall if you’re constantly consuming foods that make you feel bloated, irritated, overly full, and gives you a major crash a few hours later then it might be time to consider being a bit more mindful with your food choices.
A tip to get you going in the right direction is to start using your senses when choosing foods and experiences that are both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body. This will help you start acknowledging your responses to food based on your senses. Not only that, but pay attention to your emotions and hunger cues. Are you really hungry, or are you just bored or stressed?
Here are 5 tips to help you start practicing mindful eating:
Slow It Down
In a face paced world it’s easy to always be eating on the go or shoving food in your face so you can get to your next meeting, but making time to sit down and eat your meal without distraction is something that can greatly help you recognize how much you’re actually eating and provide cues when the body is satiated.
Attend to Your Plate
Mindless eating is common in our world, we get home and sit down in front of the TV or scroll through our phones and all of a sudden a whole bag of chips are gone and you don’t even remember it. Distracted eating when your body probably didn’t even need food in the first place can be stopped if you are only eating when your body truly needs fuel. Before grabbing that bag of chips, ask yourself if you really are hungry or if you’re just doing this out of habit or boredom, etc. Pay attention to what you’re eating and when.
Understanding Your Motives
This thought can be a little old school, but think about why you eat in the first place - to provide your body with fuel to function, grow, perform, and provide you with all the nutrients that are needed to do daily body functions. All foods contain different nutrients, so it’s important to incorporate a wide variety of foods into your diet. In doing so, your body is typically more satisfied and you’re less likely to over eat “comfort foods” that might not be as good for you.
Eat Before You Get Too Hungry
We’ve all gotten to the point where we have waited too long to eat and then all kinds of cravings kick in because our bodies are telling us it needs something. When you’re in a rush to get food is when it’s common to choose choices that are likely not the best for you. Eat before you get to a point of “needing something right now”.
Reflect
Reflecting on how you feel before you eat and again after you eat can help you become more aware with how that food/meal makes you feel. Before your meal, recognize how you’re feeling about the food you’re about to eat, how hungry you are, and why you’ve decided to eat. After your meal, notice how you feel immediately, 30 minutes later and an hour later.
Not all of these things are going to come easy, and not all of them need to happen every time you decide to eat. But, if you’re goal is to become more mindful with your food choices, no matter the overall goal, these tips can lead you in the right direction for supporting that habit. Just like any other nutrition habit suggestion, start with one habit adjustment at a time and do not add another one in until that one is consistent.