What is this Mindful Eating Stuff?
I get that question above a LOT.
So, since I do get that question so much I figured I would give a brief overview of it…or as brief as my long winded rambling self can be. But, before we get into mindful eating, we need to understand what being mindful is. Being mindful is being fully aware and being completely in the current moment without judgement. All your attention is on what is going on right now instead of wishing something was the way it used to be or looking for something different in the future.
So, mindful eating is actually being in the moment with our food. Fully experiencing the meal on multiple levels. Aroma, taste, texture, sound, and enjoying every single bite of that meal. Have you ever tasted something soooo good that you wanted to eat it as slowly as possible in order to prolong the experience of it? If so, THAT is mindful eating. Unfortunately, most of us tend to gobble it up as fast as we can, barely taste it, and then wonder where the food went.
Truthfully, it is usually not our fault though. Mindful eating is NOT something we are taught these days. Just the opposite is true. As a matter of fact, we are taught as early as Kindergarten or First grade to hurry up and eat. Or even in Pre-School now days I imagine. (my children are all in their 20’s and no grandchildren in the near future)
I remember when I was in grade school that we had 30 minutes for lunch. It was never long enough. I remember always having to shovel food in my mouth really quickly when the teacher told us it was time start cleaning up lunch mess. The first 5 minutes was for each row going to get their lunch boxes or the lunch they ordered from the lunch room and the last 5 minutes were for getting paper towels and cleaning off our desks (we ate in our classrooms at a desk and not in a cafeteria when I was in grade school) That left us 20 minutes to eat.
When I got to middle school and started eating in the cafeteria, It usually took about 5 minutes to get to there from our classrooms and another 5-7 going through the line to get your food if you did not bring your lunch. Leaving about 15-20 minutes to eat since you had a total of 30 minutes and had to get to your next class before that 30 minutes was up.
When my children were in school, their lunch break was 20 minutes! That’s 10 minutes less than I had. Is it any wonder that our society today has more overweight and obese people than ever? We teach our children to mindlessly shovel food in their mouth from such an early age that it becomes normal.
We seldom stop to truly taste and notice our food, but by truly noticing what we eat and drink, we can cultivate gratitude for the food we have.
This can give us a sense of well-being and peace as well as satiety and a change to truly learn our fullness cues.
For a very long time I had no clue what mindful or intuitive eating was. It was not until I took a mindful eating challenge that I had THE LIGHT BULB MOMENT and BELLS STARTED RINGING! HOLY CRAP, THAT WAS AWESOME!
Wanna know what that challenge was? Wanna have the light bulb moment? Make sure you join my tribe so that you can receive my newsletter in order to receive a copy of this challenge as well as learn more about how you too can get more mindful eating tips to help stop overeating, binge eating, boredom eating, or just eating too quickly.
Oh, there will also be a couple of really great recipes for you to practice mindful eating on.
My tribe gets all my best strategies, tools, tips, free recipes, workouts and other randomness that just seems to ramble on out of my head. Make sure you join today to get in on the challenge.
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