MINDFUL EATING: An Incredibly Easy Method That Works For All

What is it?

So what exactly is mindful eating? Mindful eating is the art of controlling your emotions, sensations, and mental calmness when indulging in a meal. It is about listening to your hunger cues, realizing when you’re full, and taking your time while eating.

For example, when you sit down to eat, are you eating slowly or scarfing down that sandwich you just made with a handful of chips? Mindful eating is chewing slowly, engaging your sense, and not overeating.

When you mindfully eat, you become more aware of your physical hunger cues oppose to just eating when you’re bored. So many people eat to cope with their emotions, and that will be your downfall.

There is a mind-gut connection when you eat. When you eat when you’re distracted, such as watching TV or driving, your digestion may slow or stop. It takes 20 minutes for the brain to register when your satiated (1). If you’re not focused on your food when you eat, your mind may not register you’re full until you have overeaten.

How can mindful eating benefit you?

Mindful eating can reduce stress, slow binge eating, enhance digestion, help you cope with eating disorders. It is a form of meditation. It improves your senses and can help ward off a lot of complications, such as eating disorders, anxiety, and depression. If you suffer from any of these things, it’s worth giving a try if you would like to take a natural or holistic approach to ease your symptoms.

It can assist in helping you control your hunger triggers. Emotional eating prompts weight gain (2). Are you starving or you just wanna eat that family size bag of Lay’s potato chips while binge-watching Game of Thrones. Yea yea I know.

You will learn only to eat till you’re full, not let your emotions control your eating, and you will now thoroughly enjoy your food. You will stop compulsively eating and grasp the method of changing your eating behaviors. Learn how to meet your needs without food.

Will I Lose Weight?

The research behind mindful eating shows that by incorporating this way of eating into your lifestyle, can control binge eating, emotional eating, and eating due to external cues (3). Because you are watching or being more “mindful” of what you’re eating, weight loss is a positive side effect.

Mindful eating is not like a traditional diet. It is a lifestyle change. Traditional diets are restrictive, you’re increasingly more hangry, and you become more focused on what you shouldn’t be eating rather than finding balance and calmness with the meals you prepare.

Just by being more conscious of what goes on your plate, how much, and you are relaxed and focused on your food, losing weight will come naturally — no overthinking. Just sit at the table and eat slow and calmly. I know I said earlier mindful eating is a meditation style. This does not mean you have to meditate before and after each meal. It just means focus on your food and not what’s going on around you.

Mindful Eating Challenges

The biggest challenge to transitioning to a mindful way of eating is most of us living a more fast-paced lifestyle. Everything nowadays is made for everyone’s convenience and efficient productivity. That’s why there so many fast-food chains and unhealthy quick snacks. They are prepared for convenience and cheap, so you don’t mind making that unconscious purchase.

Another challenge can be for those people who need structure and guidelines. Mindfully eating is not a diet; it is a mental connection with your food. For example, are you starving, or are you just stressed out and you know that double cheeseburger with extra pickle and mayo will make you feel better? The concept of mindful eating is learning your emotions and how they relate to what, when, and how much you eat. If you are a person that needs exact portion sizes, times, and specific foods to eat and to avoid, then this may not be for you.

Who should try mindful eating?

Anyone can give mindful eating a try; it definitely won’t hurt. You learn more about yourself and emotional triggers. You learn how to distinguish physical hunger from emotional hunger. Distractions such as watching TV while eating will be minimal, and you will focus on what you’re eating.

Mindful eating is for those who want to have a better or positive relationship with food. If you feel you stress-eat a lot or the type of person who just eats when their bored and snacks mindlessly, this may be for you.

How to start

Here are three quick tips on how to start eating mindfully.

1. Ask yourself, are you hungry- Determine if you are actually hungry, or is it just an emotional trigger your experiencing.
2. Remove distractions- Sit at the table and eat — no cellphone, TV, or laptop.
3. Eat slowly- Because we eat so fast, our brain is delayed in realizing when we become full. When this happens, we have already overeaten.

Recap

Mindful eating is a Buddhism or meditation approach to eating.  There is a difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger. It is a lifestyle change and may take some time for you to get use to it. Learning your external cues and controlling your emotional connection with foods plays a significant role.

Many benefits come with mindful eating such as it can help people with eating disorders, assist with anxiety, depression, and enhance digestion. A natural side effect of mindfully eating is also weight loss, which most people are looking forward to.

This way of eating is not for those people who need that rigid structure like set meal times, what food to eat and not eat, and how much to eat. It’s for those people who want to learn their emotional connection with food.

Let me know in the comments if you are new to mindful eating or have already been practicing this style of eating.

Talk to you soon

Andie 🙂