How to Practice Mindful Eating for a Healthy Body

Eating is something we all do on a daily basis. Yet how much of the time are we actually fully present while eating? How many times have you gobbled up your lunch while responding to a text or finishing a work project at the same time? 

While we all live in a busy world, mindful eating doesn’t have to be hard. Through simple practices, mindfulness can even help you address some of the reasons that make it hard to stick to healthier eating habits. 

According to a recent study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, mindfulness-based interventions have led to significant reductions in emotional eating, binge eating, and weight and shape concerns.

Mindfulness means bringing full awareness to whatever you’re doing. So when you apply it to food, it’ll add more depth and enjoyment to something that you may see as just another “ordinary” aspect of life. With these tips, you’ll be able to feel more at ease with your food choices and eating habits.

When you eat, focus on eating only

This may sound simplistic, but it’s at the root of practicing mindful eating. When you’re eating, the experience should be mainly about eating; it shouldn't be an exercise in multi-tasking. 

Focusing on truly enjoying each bite of food is what makes meal times special. Plus it helps you digest better as your body can turn its full focus to breaking down and processing the food rather than trying to do too many different things at once.

Next time, you eat, allow yourself to just eat without doing other things such as working, watching TV, scrolling through your phone. If you’re eating a meal with others, allow yourself to slow down so you can enjoy both their company and the delicious food on your plate.

Cultivating a more intuitive way of eating starts with connecting to your body. When you learn to listen to your body, you’ll find it easier to discern when you’re on either side of the hunger scale. Certain kinds of meditations (such as a body scan) can help you get more in touch with what it feels like to be in your body so that it’s easier to listen to its signals.

Explore your cravings with kind curiosity

Learning to reduce your stress levels through meditation can eventually lead to better food choices. According to the Scientific American journal, the brain requires 12% more energy when it’s under stress. Eating while stressed may lead you to reach for foods high in sugar or carbs. While carbs and sugar provide the fastest boost of energy, this boost is often only short-term.

So next time you feel a craving for something (whether healthy or unhealthy), pause. Take three deep breaths in and out. Bring awareness to your body and explore these cravings with curiosity. 

Is there a certain sense of tension or stress that you’re feeling anywhere? Is your body actually hungry? Are there any uncomfortable feelings arising that your brain naturally wants to run away from? Are you thirsty?

Try keeping a cravings journal for a week or two. Note the types of cravings you’re having. Is there a pattern? Is there a certain time of day that you experience these cravings more often? Is there a specific task that you always put off that causes you to head to the kitchen instead? Become mindful of what may be underneath these patterns.

Focus on nourishment and the feeling of satisfaction

When you practice mindful eating by paying full attention to your meal and slowing things down, you’ll find it easier to notice a sense of satisfaction. You’ll be more tuned into your body and able to hear its signals when it’s had enough. 

Instead of always thinking about what you shouldn’t eat, you could shift your focus to foods that provide nourishment and contain lots of vitamins and minerals. If you need to brush up on the basics of healthy eating, find a book or an online course on the subject that you may enjoy. This can help you gain ideas for new ways to cook or new healthy recipes to try. 

When it comes to choosing more wholesome foods, you may feel drawn to new veggies or fruits you’ve never tried before. Try an experiment of buying at least one new type of veggie or fruit each week for a month. See if you can get creative enough in the kitchen to whip up some new fave recipes. Then take a mindful pause after each meal to notice how good you feel after eating these healthy and nourishing foods. 

“Every moment nature is serving fresh dishes with the items of happiness. It is our choice to recognize and taste it.” - Amit Ray

Befriend your body and practice compassion

As you practice mindful eating, it can be hard to break old eating habits such as eating too fast or while you’re under stress. The key is to be compassionate with yourself.

As you learn to eat more mindfully, it might even stir up feelings of being more self-conscious about your body. But an intense focus on your body image or a perceived flaw can drain your energy and cause unnecessary stress. Focus on the joy of feeling nourished instead!

If you’ve ever struggled with eating disorders, be especially gentle as you explore your relationships with food. Anorexia (not eating enough) or bulimia (overeating and then throwing up) can sometimes point to deeper emotional needs that need tending to. Ask your body and mind what it most needs and take care of yourself accordingly. Don’t be afraid to contact a qualified health professional if needed.

Try this fun exercise to practice mindful eating

If you’ve been (or are interested in becoming) a student in my Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction MBSR program, you may be familiar with the mindful eating exercise. If not, no worries. Here’s a similar mindful eating exercise that you can try with any food. Let’s use an apple as an example in this one. 

• Get an apple and cut it into several small pieces. 

As you wash and then cut the apple, become mindful of where the apple came from. Think about how it went from a seed to a full fruit on an apple tree and the process of how it made its way to your kitchen. 

• Explore the apple in your hand.
  Once you have your apple cut, put a small piece in your hand. Explore its color and texture. Is it bright green, red, yellowish or multi-colored? Is it smooth or a bit rough? What does it smell like? Sweet? Bitter? Acidic? Move it around. What does it feel like?

• Explore the apple in your mouth.

Now go ahead and place the apple in your mouth – but don’t bite yet. First, notice its texture in your mouth. Do you notice an increased production of saliva? What else do you notice as you gently hold the apple slice in your mouth?

• Taste each bite fully.

Now take a conscious bite of the apple. Notice the taste. Be aware of the full flavor and the juices bursting and touching each corner of your mouth as you bite down on the apple. Notice how sweet (or sour) it tastes. Be aware of the increased production of saliva in your mouth. Chew the apple slowly, noticing the changes in the texture and the taste as you fully take it in with your sense. 

• Swallow and reflect.

When you swallow that first bite, notice how long you can detect the flavor in your mouth? Then reflect on the experience of tasting just this one slice of apple. Were you able to be fully present? 

Now imagine if every day you brought more awareness to eating, chewing and tasting the food you have on your plate. How much more enjoyable would it be? Try to extend parts of this practice to your life with at least one full meal a day. 

To dive deeper into mindful eating or bringing mindfulness into other parts of your life, join me for the next Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class. Sign up for the next FREE MBSR Discovery Call to learn more about the benefits you can experience.