“I can eat an entire sleeve of cookies without realizing it until they’re gone.” “I’ll watch tv and all of the sudden I ate the entire bag of potato chips.” “My biggest problem is stress eating.” “My biggest problem is I eat when I’m bored.”
As a licensed mental health counselor who conducts psychological assessments for people looking to receive bariatric weight loss surgery, people tell me some variation of these statements several times a week.
Growing up, many people were told things like “Finish your broccoli and you’ll get desert” or “You have to eat your entire plate of food before you can leave the table.”
However, few were taught to pay attention to when you’re full and stop eating. Mindful eating is this and much more.
What is Mindful Eating?
Mindful eating is a way to bring awareness to your experiences with food. Mindful eating is paying attention to our food on purpose. An important characteristic of a mindful state is that it’s free of judgment. Therefore, when you’re eating, just eat. It is best to leave all negative emotions out of the experience of eating to the best of your ability. In this approach, the focus is on a persons sensual awareness of food and their deliberate experience when it comes to eating.
If you slow down, you can give your body a chance to catch up to gain awareness of the signals that you’re getting full, your fuller, and now your officially satiated.
Ideally, you want to treat the act of eating like a priority with as much importance as going to work or to the gym to maintain stability in life. It is the star of the show and your focusing only on it.
What Is Mindless Eating?
Mindless eating is basically ignoring your bodies signal that tells you you’re full and it’s time to stop eating. The act of eating mindlessly can also be to suppress a negative emotion or eating while doing too many things. Mindless eating makes anything else the focus other than eating with intention. It ensures that we will not eat mindfully and with purpose and that we will likely overeat.
If you find yourself mindlessly eating, that’s okay. The important thing is that you brought it to your awareness. There’s still time to hit the reset button and practice mindful eating as many times as it takes.
3 Steps to Mindful Eating
- Eat Only When Hungry: Eat at around the same time each day and ideally when you’re actually hungry. Take a minute to consider if you’re hungry or if you are stress, boredom or emotional eating. Once you start to feel full stop eating, even if there is still food left.
- Consider All of Your Senses While Eating: As you look down at your food, take a look at the colors of the food and how it is presented. Take a moment to really smell your food. Is the smell soothing? Invigorating? Listen to the sounds of yourself chewing and be sure to chew thoroughly (ideally 32-40 times). Is it crunchy? Mushy? Finger-liking good? Can you get into a rhythm along with your chewing? What does your food feel like? Is it crunchy, chewy, smooth? Really focus on tasting your food and savoring the flavor. Is it sweet, salty, spicy, or my favorite umami?
- Focus Only On Eating: Look, we all have very busy scheduled and we can make every excuse in the book why we have to eat hand held food and “on the go.” Try your very best to focus on eating and only eating. Make it the main event and you’’ll have a better change at mindfully eating. If you’re eating in your car or in front of your tv, for instance, your focus will be on driving or what you are watching and you’re more likely to mindlessly eat.
People Tend to eat more mindfully when:
Food is prepared at home. This is because you’ve put your time and energy into making a meal. Rather than grabbing fast food, when you make it yourself, you tend to savor the fruits of your labor.
Food is aromatic. It’s one thing to scarf down a bagel every morning. But, imagine eating warm oatmeal wth cinnamon and brown sugar on a cold winter morning. What we are eating can actually be soothing. Using herbs and spices in your food provide a tremendous flavor boost to an otherwise mundane meal.
New research shows that strong aromas lead to smaller bite sizes. One particular study found that when testing ten subjects, (four females and six males), aged between 26 and 50 years, the intensity of the aroma of their food affected the size of the bites of food they took when eating. Higher aroma intensities resulted in significantly smaller sizes.
Eating a variety of foods. Variety is the spice of life. If you’re not bored with what you’re eating, you’re more likely to slow down and make it an experience. Try new foods or prepare recipes for foods that you already love. It’s easier than you think to be your own chef. Cooking can be a great distraction from the very stress that can causes a person to overeat.
We eat with others. When you’re eating with at least one other person you tend to be more aware of your appearance. Instead of shoveling it down, you’ll likely be making conversation and taking more breaks between bites by virtue of having an eating buddy.
Be fully present when eating and make it an experience, even when eating alone. You don’t have to go out to a restaurant for eating to be an event.
We have to eat everyday to keep up our energy, feel good and oh yea, survive. So be sure that when you’re eating it’s to respect your body and consume things that make you feel good about yourself.
Challenge yourself to eat mindfully at least once a day everyday or the next three days.
Next, eat mindfully for two meals for three days. Continue doing this until you’re eating mindfully every time you eat something.
