How To Manage Food And Your Thoughts Through Mindful Eating

What is the first thing you think of when I say food?

If it’s not what you eat, then are you thinking about how to get a meal from one place to another in your car without spilling or dropping anything?

What if I told you that there’s actually an art to managing food and your thoughts through mindful eating. Let me teach you what this means. In our fast-paced world, we have lost track of the importance of slowing down for just a few minutes and taking time for ourselves. It is important because it helps us maintain balance with all aspects of life; including work, family, relationships, etc. Mindful eating can help restore balance by helping us recognize how hunger feels so that we know when we need more nourishment.

What is “Mindful Eating”?

Mindful Eating gives you nurturing and positive ways of looking at and selecting food. You will be looking inside yourself to make decisions based upon your internal wisdom.

By using all your senses in choosing to eat food that is both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body, along with acknowledging your responses to food (what you like, what you don’t like, and which foods fall somewhere in between) and doing so without judgment, you can become mindfully aware of what you are eating.

Recognize your physical hunger pains and cues to guide your decisions to begin good eating habits and end bad ones. By doing this, you can change your relationship with food.

What is “Mindless Eating”?

Do you find yourself overeating whether you’re hungry or not? Do you feel like there might be a link between overeating and stress and increased anxiety?

For many men, mindless eating is what they do every day. Despite the fact that you’re not hungry, you find yourself overeating whether it’s in front of the TV or in a restaurant. You might think this has to do with stress and increased anxiety, but in my experience, it goes much deeper.

Mindless eating means we don’t chew our food very well, and we barely taste it. We eat quickly from one bite to the next without taking any breaks in between. Most of us adopt these habits when we’re young by watching what our parents eat during their times of stress, when they sit in front of the TV, or when they go out to a restaurant.

Why Eat Mindfully?

Eating mindfully is you becoming aware of the present moment and what you are eating. You pause and become curious or focus your mind on what you’re putting in your mouth. The taste, the feel—mindful eating allows your eating to become a sensory experience.

Mindful eating can be empowering because it’s nourishing your body and your heart.

By making yourself aware of what you are eating, you can understand what your body truly needs. Mindful eating allows you to become aware of your thoughts, physical sensations, and feelings related to eating.

It helps you shift your eating focus from external decision-making to only eating based on what your body is telling you it needs.
You can make healthier eating choices by knowing you are choosing foods that are good for you versus a “diet,” or just trying to satisfy a craving. Diet usually means food deprivation, which in turn leads to more eating.

By eating mindfully, you are deliberately paying attention to what you are eating. You will eventually free yourself from habitual harmful patterns of overeating and negative thinking and feeling about your food choices.

When you eat mindfully, you are:

• Aware that you’re making a choice that you understand there are no right or wrong decisions when it comes to eating
• Becoming aware that there are varying degrees of awareness with your food choices
• An individual who has your own unique eating experiences
• Making eating choices on a moment-by-moment basis
• Becoming aware of how you are making choices that will support your health and well-being
• Practicing mindful food choices to promote wisdom, balance, and acceptance of what mindful eating can do for you

How To Eat Mindfully

The first thing to remember is to eat ONLY when you’re hungry and then make mindful decisions about your food.

The key is to pay close attention to the physical activity of eating slowly while contemplating the food itself. Pick a meal where you can do this without distraction (it might be best to start with a meal on your own) and where you will not be pressed for time.

1. First, at your meal, take time to be grateful for the food appreciate the person(s) that prepare it. If you prepared it, take some time to express gratitude and appreciation to yourself. Think about the sun, the water, the soil that went into growing it.
2. Think about where the food came from. How did the individual ingredients get to you? Who all might have been involved in that, the farmers, drivers transporting it, stockers placing it on your supermarket shelves, etc.
3. Take a single piece of food and hold it in front of you. This could be an individual piece of food, a bite, or whatever.
   As you look at it, notice the details. Is there steam coming from it? What is the color, or the mixture of colors? Pay close attention to the sensual quality of the food. If it is in your fingers, how does it feel? If it’s on a fork or spoon, what’s the weight. What is its texture? What aromas does it give off? In every way possible, take in the food on each level of your senses. Don’t put it into your mouth just yet.
4. Now, slowly raise it toward your mouth, paying attention to the senses as you do. Do you notice anything new or different?
   As you move toward your mouth, observe your emotions around this bite of food. Are you excited with anticipation? Do you feel in a hurry to get it into your mouth? Are you annoyed at having to slow down and observe the food? What are you hoping to get out of eating this food?
5. Slowly and mindfully put the food in your mouth, but don’t chew it yet. Just sit with the experience of feeling it on your tongue. Focus on the taste it has on your tongue before being chewed. Feel texture on your tongue. You might want to close your eyes. How does your body react to the food?
6. Next, slowly and mindfully chew the food. Focus on being deliberate and aware as you do, being careful to avoid mindless chewing. How is the food changing? Are you experiencing any new or different flavors? Pay attention to the changes in texture. Keep your attention focused on the food and your chewing. A good goal is to aim for 15 individual chews, more if you can. Again, closing your eyes helps.
7. As you begin to swallow, pay attention to the sensation of the food going down your throat.
8. Now just relax, and sit with all the sensations you’ve experienced from eating this bite of food.
9. Repeat this until your meal is done.

I recommend trying this by yourself first. This makes it a little easier when you’re with others. When I eat with my family, I am deliberate about switching between eating and conversation during the meal. As I’m talking or listening, I am present and only talking or listening. Whenever I’m eating, I’m present and only eating, taking the above steps. I give my food the attention it deserves, and my family the attention they deserve.

Try It At Your Next Meal

Try it at your next meal. You can eat anything you want, but with one stipulation. You have to pay attention to everything you are eating, deliberately. It is difficult to eat while watching TV or on the computer. So find a spot where you can focus on your food for 10 minutes, and then get back to whatever else was distracting you before.

Mindful eating is a choice. You have to pay attention to everything you are eating, deliberately. You are not judgmental about anything, only present in the moment.

Mindful eating is a choice that will replace your old habits with entirely new and healthy choices. It will change the way you think about food forever. People who are mindful eaters end up weighing less because they’re not obsessing over counting every calorie they put in their mouth, tracking their weight on some app, or thinking of themselves as failures when they do slip up.

Once you start mindful eating, it can replace your old habits with entirely new and healthy choices. And, as mentioned before, you will not feel as if you’re on a never-ending “diet treadmill” with no end in sight because being mindful is about being compassionate toward yourself. Mindful eating helps you enjoy food more, eat healthier and lose weight naturally.

This mindful eating practice might lead you to a realization that there are other things to life than your preconceptions, deductions, and opinions. You can take what you learn in this mindful eating practice and begin to develop an awareness that slowing down, even with routine activities, might transform them. Paying attention to the experience in a curious, open way can show you aspects of your experience might not have seen before. You’ll begin to notice the difference between eating mindfully and your usual attitudes to eating, impulses around food that are unconscious, powerful, and uncontrolled.

If you are looking to get healthier, or lose weight, mindfulness is an excellent option. It can help change your eating habits and how you view food for the better! Try some of these mindful eating tips today and see if they don’t make a difference in how much happier each meal feels.

“Good questions outrank easy answers.” – Paul A. Samuelson (American economist)

• What are your thoughts on mindful eating?
• How do you approach food when you are tired, stressed, or mentally depleted?
• Are there any certain situations when you need to eat in order to satisfy your hunger needs but turn down the overeating opportunities in said situation?
• When do you remember being the most mindful of what you were eating?

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