The Power of Mindful Eating
The Power of mindful eating – is something that I’ve been talking more and more about over the last 2 years.
How slowing down can improve your relationship with food. Not only that – with yourself.
I talk about this a lot with my clients. Especially those who struggle with binge eating, eating disorders or mindless eating – eating on the go.
In today’s world where everything is go go go, life is so busy, we’re going from here to there, we’ve got notifications coming in from everywhere, we make split-second decisions on everything.
Including our food. We eat on the go, we skip meals, we choose convenience and speed over nutrients. We have put our health as the lowest priority. We grab what we can without thought or intent. But do you realise the impact this is having.
The Impact of Mindless Eating
Not just on your overall health, your long-term health, your current health, but your mood, your mindset, your behaviour, and your behaviour around food in general. As well as – how you feel about YOU. Your self-confidence.
Nutritional food has power. But if we’re not prioritising it. Then we lose all benefits.
Why We Eat
Remember we eat for 4 reasons. Health, nutrition, socialisation and enjoyment.
For most people – the fastness of how they consume food on the go falls into none of these categories.
Quick, easy, convenient food is usually neither good for your health or nutritionally valuable, and it certainly isn’t enjoyable and usually not done in a social setting. Then we have things like skipping meals out of “time restraints” which then leads to prolonged hunger which in turn can lead to afternoon and evening binges when you finally get to eat.
The cycle then continues and we wonder why we continually feel flat, unmotivated, tired, lethargic, impatient, get every sickness that goes around and can’t seem to just get ahead with our health goals. Something has to change.
Something’s got to change
Your relationship with food.
Your mindset around why you eat I the first place.
And Mindful eating, is where it’s at.
So what does this mean? How do I eat mindfully.
Step one. SLOW DOWN.
SLOW DOWN
Now before we keep going. To make changes in your life – somethings got to change. You can’t expect to change without changing something. That means re structuring your life. You can’t expect to make new changes with your current life structure – because it’s obviously NOT WORKING currently. So – are you ready to change?
This could include:
- Getting up earlier
- Going to bed earlier
- Removing something from your life that isn’t a priority
- Start scheduling in certain things/time blocking in to a diary (you’re 40% more likely to stick to things if you write them down you know my fave diary is HERE from Write to Me use danni20 as well)
- Putting your phone down
- Prepping
So now that you’ve decided how you’re going to change your life in terms of time – how do you eat mindfully?
Back To Step One
So back to Step one – SLOW DOWN. Before you put hand to mouth – think about why you’re eating it. Remember this isn’t about calories or good or bad food, or demonising foods. This is about making mindful choices when it comes to what you consume. Because how you FEEL is the ultimate end goal, and what you consume ultimately determines how you feel for the most part (in association with movement, sleep and water…just saying).
So does what you’re about to eat fall into one of the 4 categories. Is it for your health? Your nutrition? Is it thoroughly enjoyable? Are you socialising with your nearest and dearest?
If the answer is no. Put it down. Be intentional with your choices. Remember your WHY? Why is it important to you to make more mindful choices. Ask yourself – am I hungry. Is this helping me thrive in some way. Or am I eating out of boredom, emotions or as a stress response?
Taking the time to take that step back is so powerful. You don’t have to make the decision straight away. Waiting 30-60 seconds can make such a difference in your choices.
Once we actually slow down, we bring our cortisol levels down, we slow our breathing, we engage our brain and you will find you may either say no – or then really enjoy the food you’re consuming….but we need to move on to step 2.
Step Two
Step two – sit down. Your digestive system is yelling at you to slow down, sit down and digest your food properly. When we grab and go, stuff things in our mouth some of the time we hardly even register that we have eaten a food. Which in turn at times means we go back for more because we want to, for a second, taste what we’ve eaten. Your digestive system doesn’t love it, your brain doesn’t love it, and you have then taken away any enjoyment from food that as possible. Because news flash – who doesn’t ENJOY eating.
So sit down. Engage all your senses – look at it, smell it, feel the texture on your fork, or in your hands, listen for the crunch or the slurp, feel the texture in your mouth. Chew it and take slow mouthfuls. By doing this your digestive system gets ready to work properly, and your brain releases dopamine and serotonin in the anticipation of enjoying nourishing food. This will also help you with feelings of satiety (feeling full) as it makes you aware of what you’re consuming. In turn – reducing the likelyhood of mindless snacking later on.
Once you’ve mastered steps one and two. You move on to step three.
Step Three
Step three – consistency. To create a habit it takes between 18-254 days – an average of 66 for an habit to become automatic – for it to move from your conscious brain, to your subconscious brain. Like brushing your teeth. You need to get used to the mundane consistency of habit formation. Because once you do – you will find your relationship with food changes. You eat for Health, you eat for your mind, you eat for future you, rather than having zero clue why you’re eating at all.
Over time you will notice small changes, you no longer get that 3pm slump. You enjoy food more. You don’t over consume. Once you FEEL better, once you start functioning at a higher level – the drop to where you used to function feels atrocious.
Be Kind To Yourself
Now be kind to yourself. This takes work, like anything. You’ve had this habit for ages. You have been running on a non-stop cycle for so long, it’s going to take time. The process is simple, the implementation is hard work. But you can do hard things – and hard work leads to an easier life.
How To Keep Learning
If you’re struggling to implement these changes in your life alone – maybe you need a coach. I mean – who doesn’t need an accountability holder right?
Private coaching is available, the ultimate in coaching – lock in a free call with me here to discuss.
Information on our next round of group coaching can be found here. Be held accountable and surrounded by women striving to make changes too.
Not ready for coaching but want to implement some changes. The Mind and Body Project is my self-directed 8-module online course with all the tools and info you need to kickstart your health journey to a better you.