You may already be familiar with mindful eating, but if not, this post if for you. Learn more about the what and why of mindful eating.
What is Mindful Eating
What is mindful eating, anyways? Dr. Lilian Cheung, a nutritionist and lecturer at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, describes it like this:
Mindfulness means focusing on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting your feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. The tenets of mindfulness apply to mindful eating as well, but the concept of mindful eating goes beyond the individual. It also encompasses how what you eat affects the world.
The Center for Mindful Eating defines mindful eating as:
- Allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food selection and preparation by respecting your own inner wisdom.
- Using all your senses in choosing to eat food that is both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body.
- Acknowledging responses to food (likes, dislikes or neutral) without judgment.
- Becoming aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decisions to begin and end eating.
The beautiful thing about mindful eating is that extends beyond putting food into your body. It can include the process of shopping for food, cooking, eating and reflecting on your meal.
Why Mindful Eating Matters
Mindful eating can influence a multitude of internal and external factors. From the regulation of bodily hormones to enjoyment, mindful eating can move the needle on multiple factors in our daily life. In our fast paced world we have lost sight of something so simple and important, as enjoying a meal. Here are a few reasons why mindful eating matters.
Elevate enjoyment
It’s no secret that when we slow down, we notice things. In regards to food, slowing down allows us to leverage all our senses to enjoy our meal. We create space to enjoy tastes, textures, smells and everything else that comes with eating. Being able to identify ingredients in your food allows you to appreciate and explore each meal more. To test yourself, describe as much as you can about the last meal you had. What do you remember and how many of the senses can you describe from that meal? Do you remember the flavors and textures of your food? Imagine how that meal may feel different if you treated your meal like your favorite work of art. Slowing down to appreciate the composition and mood.
Support healthy digestion
Sparing the deep science around hunger hormones, eating slowly allows encourages healthy digestion. Did you know it takes about 15-20 minutes for satiety signals to reach our brain after we start eating? That’s right. Leptin, the “satiety hormone,” tells your brain you are full. Leptin is produced by fat cells, but consuming your food too quickly, doesn’t allow your to send the message in time. To put it another way, quickly eating is like using email to send a message but your fat cells are still using snail mail. You need to allow time for the mail to arrive. This means, many of us are likely full, much sooner than we think. That’s because those Leptin “letters” haven’t reached the brain yet.
More simple things include chewing your food. It is easier to digest food that has been chewed rather than swallowed whole. We aren’t snakes that swallow our food whole and we aren’t ruminates with multiple stomachs to digest foods. Therefore, we have to manage the traffic coming through our digestive track, more thoughtfully, so we are able to absorb all the nutrients.
Promotes portion control
This directly relates to the healthy digestion and hormone production mentioned earlier. Our bodies are magical, mysterious, and complex creatures. There is still so much we don’t understand. In fact, besides hunger (ghrelin) and satiety (leptin) hormones used in eating, there are 4 other hormones that help us regulate hunger, digestion, appetite control and so forth. I mention this because it takes time for all of these things to signal and it starts when you look at, smell or taste food. Those senses kick off the chain reaction of bodily communication, but when you don’t give your body time to respond, you miss information.
Think about the last time you rushed an important decision. Maybe you missed important details that you wouldn’t have, if you slowed down. Digestion is kinda like that. Your body knows what it wants and needs intuitively, without your thoughts getting involved. Think of this process as “digesting” all the information, so you can come to the right decision. The right decision in this case, is knowing you don’t need any more food to feel content. Slowing down to allow for the hunger and fullness cues helps us eat less, because they alert us when our body is content.
Cultivates self-awareness
This may be surprising for some readers but for us emotional eaters, this is important. Many of us choose food when we feel angry, bored, or sad. Pausing to reflect on why you are eating, especially when you aren’t hungry, can help uncover new insights. For example, think of those times when you mindlessly stare at the fridge or pantry. Chances are you aren’t hungry, but food gives you something to do. It reminds me of the Awkward Yeti cartoon where the tongue tells the brain to look inside the fridge again, but with lower expectations, because it’s bored. Many of our trips to the fridge are due to boredom, but only realize that when you slow down and approach food more mindfully.
Naturally manage your weight
Intuitive eating isn’t intuitive for many people, but that’s OK. It is a skill that can be re-learned and cultivated. Babies are intuitive eaters, before we learn all the rules, customs or behaviors governing food. For example, anyone else here from the childhood clean plate club? I was and as a result, I have chronically overeaten for most of my life, because I better not leave anything on the plate. However, those rules don’t serve our bodies or our health. Once I learned to stop when I was full, weight naturally started falling off. Once I stopped bored eating, the weight really melted off. I learned to replace the bored eating with other healthy habits.
Only eating what serves you
Another example is eating foods that make us sick. As a kid, I loathed eggplant. My Dad grew the most beautiful eggplants in the garden, but I just couldn’t do it. Even breaded, fried and covered with ranch dressing, I wanted to give mine to the dog. What I later discovered is that I have an intolerance to them and they make me really sick. In fact, if I accidentally eat eggplant, I get terrible joint pain. I likely had it my whole life but wouldn’t have realized it had I not stopped to slow down to see what caused me issues.
I see this often with my clients that can’t eat gluten. They think because they only have an occasional bite, it’s OK, but one bite is all it takes, of the wrong food. If you suffer from auto-immune disease, there are direct links to the food you eat and inflammatory reactions in the body, keeping you sick. By eating what your body loves, not only will you experience less pain, inflammation will go down, and likely the number on the scale, as a result.
Emotional Satisfaction
Don’t underestimate the power of good decisions. Think back to the last time you watched TV and mindlessly ate an entire bag of chips. How did you feel afterwards? My guess is not great. Maybe your tender tummy felt fine, but did you feel guilty? Now think about the last time you ate a really beautiful salad, a fresh peach, or soup rich in healthy veggies? Did you feel different from when you ate the chips?
Healthy and delicious foods often lead us to more content and calm emotions. I have a beautiful herb garden and whenever I make an herb salad, I feel so fancy and healthy. Not only did I eat a beautiful herby salad, I grew those herbs organically, in my herb garden. I blissfully eat those salads and not only do I feel good about my health, I feel proud of my little garden.
Despite the myriad reasons to consistently make healthy food choices, don’t underestimate the power of choice and the occasional elective pain. Life is about balance and mindful eating is, as well. We can’t always be chewing every bite until it’s liquid, but even the little steps can make a huge difference. Struggling to find healthy balance in your life? Pomona Wellness can help. Book a free breakthrough session to learn how we may be able to support your wellness journey. Until then, wishing you abundant health and limitless joy.