If you haven’t already heard of mindful eating, I’ll help you understand it. It’s a great tool to help you lose weight, while also aiding you in enjoying every bite of food you eat. What exactly is mindful eating? It means living in the moment and really experiencing the food, rather than just shoveling it into your mouth, making eating an experience and realizing how that food affects your health and well-being.
Mindful eating focuses on concepts like culture and how it affects the food you choose.
Mindful eating goes beyond just that moment you’re chewing, but also back to the practices of your culture and how it determines the food you choose. If you’re served a plate of grasshoppers, you’d normally turn them down or eat them reluctantly, but that’s all cultural, rather than focusing on nutrition or taste. While shoveling your food down isn’t wrong, because they’re no right or wrong with mindful eating, it certainly isn’t eating mindfully.
Try a little exercise in mindful eating.
When you sit at the table and have a plateful of food, before you take a single bite of anything, you need to stop and think. Decide what you’ll eat first and then think about how it will nurture you and all the positive benefits of that selection. It can be pretty easy to do if you’re choosing vegetables, but if you have a candy bar or French fries, it’s tougher to find ways it will help your body, except perhaps to provide energy via calories.
Mindful eating isn’t a diet, but it can help you lose weight.
If you think about each selection and focus on its benefits, you’re bound to realize that some food simply doesn’t benefit you. Mindful eating also helps you appreciate the food more that’s a healthy option. While you’re focusing on the moment, you’ll savor the subtle flavors of the food and appreciate how it helps you live. If you have an eating disorder, eating mindfully can help. It aids in reducing depression, stress, anxiety and binge eating.
- People often lose weight when they adopt mindful eating. They no longer focus on calories, but the substance of the food they’re eating, creating awareness and removing many of the emotions attached to food.
- If you’re like many people, especially at the holidays when food is everywhere, you’ll often find yourself eating without realizing it. When you practice mindful eating, you’ll stop and think before you put food in your mouth.
- Being present in the moment when you eat also allows you to enjoy each aspect of the food, from the crunch or melt-in-your-mouth texture to the subtle flavors of the herbs and spices.
- Mindful eating is good for anyone that wants to change, unhealthy and unwanted eating habits.