Mindful Eating – Part 2: Tips for Beginners

Changing your eating habits won’t be an overnight transformation; start with some of these practical, applicable small steps to begin eating more mindfully:

Eat more slowly. This will give you the chance to be more aware of your food as well as give your stomach a chance to send signals to the brain to stop eating when it starts to feel full.

·    Put your fork down in between bites. Use a smaller fork.

·    Chew more thoroughly –this is good for your digestion, too.

·    If you eat with a friend or spouse, talk to them during the meal and listen to them attentively in between bites.

·    Drink water throughout the meal instead of gulping it all down at once. This will also help you feel full faster and with fewer calories since water takes up space in your stomach.

Pay attention to your meal and how you feel about it. This will make eating more enjoyable regardless of the volume of the meal.

·    Avoid watching TV or doing work on your computer while eating.

·    Avoid shoveling in mouthfuls in between sentences in a conversation.

·    Savor the taste of your meal. Smell that orange before you peel it, notice the crispness of those carrots, enjoy the tartness of the apple, and appreciate the warmth the oatmeal brings to your stomach. (More on this in a later entry!)

·    If you are eating a food you don’t like very much, that’s okay too – take the moment to understand the way you feel about the food and why. Take note of the aspects of the food that you do like as well as the ones you don’t appreciate as much. (More on this later!)

Take the time to arrange the plate. Your effort will increase your appreciation for the meal and add to your enjoyment as well.

·    Set the table; use a tablecloth and cloth napkin.

·    Make the plate look nice; arrange the food carefully and neatly. No piling food onto the rim of the plate! This will also help with portion-control.

Listen to hunger as well as appetite cues. We’ll talk about the difference later.

·    Think about why you are choosing to eat each time you have a snack or meal. (More on this later!)

·    Look at your laden plate before eating to visualize the space the food will fill in your stomach. (More on the anatomy of the stomach later!)

·    Consider the importance of feeling “full” – how full is too full? (More on this later!)

Become more involved with meal preparation. This will help you better appreciate the food you eat.

·    Eat out less often. When you do eat out, take a moment to look at your food and really understand what you are about to eat and where it came from.

·    If you are in sole charge of food preparation, use a family recipe, slice your own vegetables instead of buying them already prepped, and stay with the chicken while it cooks on the stove instead of multi-tasking.

·    If you are not very involved in food preparation in your household, find out how to become more involved. This can involve simple tasks like preheating the oven, slicing vegetables, stirring pasta as it boils, or setting the table. Or, go a step further and learn some basic recipes to acquire a more active role in the kitchen.

Try out some of these tricks and let me know what you think! Check back soon for more on this topic.

Thanks for reading!

Anna