Mindful Eating: Why HOW you eat is so important
There’s no doubt that there is a LOT of health advice out there. Everything from what you should be eating, to what you shouldn’t, to supplements you should try, to methods to support detoxing. Our world talks a lot about health!
Yet what is much less talked about has nothing to do with what you do or do not eaet, but rather HOW you eat. Enter the concept of mindful eating, which doesn’t just focus on what you’re eating, but the method by which you do so.
Keep reading to discover why this often ignored detail can play such an important role in your health.
What is mindful eating?
First of all, mindful eating is NOT a diet, and it’s focus is not to promote changes in weight (though that may naturally be an outcome). The Center for Mindful Eating defines this practice as:
Being aware of how food can nurture your body
Slowing down and being present during meal times
Using a variety of your senses (sight, smell, touch, and taste) to notice details about the eating experience
Choosing foods that will both satisfy and nourish your body
Acknowledging beliefs about and responses to food (positive, negative, and neutral) without judgment
Being in tune with hunger and fullness cues to guide you on when to start and stop eating
Someone who eats mindfully pays extra close attention to the experience of eating and how their body feels personally. Mindful eating has many similarities to Intuitive Eating, which is based on a set of ten principles that teaches how to tune into your body’s innate signals, break the cycle of dieting, and ultimately make peace with food. Yet mindful eating is a bit more specific, focusing entirely on the method of eating.
Benefits of Mindful Eating
As mentioned, HOW you eat plays a big role in your health. Some of the benefits of mindful eating include:
Better digestion. Eating slower and chewing food thoroughly means more time for the body to process and absorb nutrients, and more time to recognize natural hunger and fullness cues. Alternatively, eating quickly brings more air into the digestive tract, which can lead to more gas and bloating. It also doesn’t allow enough time to produce adequate digestive secretions to optimally break down food. This can result in symptoms like bloating and indigestion — just from HOW you eat.
May help manage diseases. The Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training program was developed to support Diabetes self-management, and is associated with positive outcomes for those who follow it. Mindful eating may also provide benefits to those who deal with things like cancer, heart disease, and others.
Promotes better food choices. Mindful eaters tend to have an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption, and a decrease in energy-dense and less healthy food choices.
May help with eating disorder recovery, due to the emphasis it places on acknowledging and responding to beliefs about food without judgment, which promotes more acceptance associated with the eating process.
Helps prevent overeating. This is because a mindful eater eats with attention and focus, and pays attention to how the food makes them feel. In addition, mindful eating promotes eating more slowly, which allows more time for the body to recognize fullness cues.
Supports your body’s desired weight. While the purpose of mindful eating is not weight loss, it may lead to weight changes (either higher or lower) that are more in line with where your body naturally wants to be at. For those at a higher weight, mindful eating may promote gradual weight loss while it may promote slight weight gain for those who may be underweight.
More satisfaction and enjoyment of food. When we pay more attention to our food and eat based on what we really want, we are almost guaranteed to enjoy it more.
Tips for eating more mindfully
Mindful eating involves bringing full awareness to the eating process. Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when implementing this practice:
Check in with yourself. Ask yourself what sounds good, and assess hunger and fullness cues.
Eat on a regular schedule. For most people, this involves 3 meals, and perhaps a snack or two, spread as evenly as possible throughout the day. This helps prevent getting overly hungry, which often makes you much more likely to eat quickly and select foods based on convenience rather than desire or nutritional quality.
Eat while sitting, using appropriate utensils. This will help prevent mindless grazing and also promotes more enjoyment of the food.
Minimize distractions. This includes your phone, TV, radio, reading material, etc. The exception to this is that having other people present during eating can actually help with the mindful eating process, since conversation may actually cause you to slow down. This can vary, though, depending on the style and eating habits of those at the table.
Take a couple of deep belly breaths. This helps your body to be present, and to promote a temporary distraction from whatever else may be on your mind.
Chew food slowly and thoroughly. Pay attention to how the food tastes and feels in your mouth, which promotes more enjoyment. It can be helpful to minimize fluid intake while eating simply because it may interfere with adequate chewing, a process I sometimes call “cheating on chewing”.
Use meal time as an opportunity to take a pause. No matter how busy you are, there is always time to eat. Even if it’s a ten minute break, the time you take to dedicate to eating using the other tips outlined above will not be wasted. Think about using meal time as an opportunity to manage stress versus a reaction to stress.
In Summary
How we eat, and not just what we eat, plays a large role in our health. There are many benefits associated with mindful eating, and the flip side of not eating mindfully is associated with health problems. Mindful eating takes practice, but it is one that can be learned over time. Consider what one or two mindful eating practices you can work to adopt and focus on developing those new habits before moving on to others. Before you know it, mindful eating can become second nature!