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Mind Your Eating

Aug 12th, 2018

Category: Body

Mind Your Eating

Do you remember being a child, feeling full at a meal and being told: “Clean your plate!”? or being rewarded with food or given a cookie when you were sad? How about sitting in front of the television and eating a bag of chips or pint of ice cream without even thinking about it. These types of practices early in life can hinder the mind-body connection that recognizes food as fuel and eating as a practice to be enjoyed and focused on.

Mindful eating is a form of mediation, a practice rooted in Buddhism, yoga and other Eastern
cultural practices, but you don’t need to be a Yogi to incorprate mindful eating into your life.
Quite simply, mindful eating is the practice of being aware and in touch with the process of
eating and the food we are consuming. This practice can be extreamly beneficial in
combating the American tendancy towards overeating and instant gratification, it can also help
to combat many of the root causes of overeating.

Benefits

Re-learning to eat when hungry and stop when satisfied
Further the enjoyment of eating by heightening senses, sensations and flavors of food
Beginning to enjoy the taste of healthy food and reject the teast of unhealthy food
Likelyhood of weight loss if overweight
Acknowledgement and acceptance of emotional issues revolving around food
Eating becomes more enjoyable and food becomes looked at as a fuel source
Eating becomes a meditative practice that can calm the mind


Getting Started
A great first step towards the practice of mindful eating is beginning to keep a food journal that
not only details what you are eating but why you are eating and how you feel while eating. The
food journal also helps to achieve awareness as to the food you are consuming and whether or
not it is healthy.

Ask yourself: “When did I last really feel hungry?”. Hunger is a physical sensation that lets you
know it is time to eat. Try using what is know as “The Hunger Scale”. Don’t eat until you are extremely hungry and then stop eating when extremely full. Approaching eating this way will set you up to enjoy a
mindful eating experience.

Involve your family in the process, make one family meal per week a “Mindful Meal”.

Breathe. Focus on breathing while you are eating. Take a deep breath between each
bit of food.
Eat Slowly. Chew your food for as long as you can. Try using chopsticks. Think about
each bite and where the food came from.
Turn of the External Noise. Turn off the television, laptop, tablet and phone. Allow
yourself to enjoy your meal and the people you are sharing it with.
Taste Your Food. Try to pick out the different flavors, spices and ingredients in the food
you are eating.
Think of the Food Life-cycle. Know what you are eating, where the food came from, it’s
original source. Remember: if you can’t pronounce it or don’t know what it is… don’t
eat it.
Start slowly. We are start somewhere. Try incorporating one or two of these mindful
eating suggestions into your family meal until they become habit.

Source: https://www.mindful.org/6-ways-practice-mindful-eating/