Mindful Eating
When you are married, have kids, in short when you have different responsibilities on your shoulders, your perspective towards your life, habits and personal health completely changes. I remember when I was in my early twenties, I never bothered about taking meals on time. The major reasons for me being like that was maybe because I had a typical Indian mother who was always on her toes to feed me my meals on time and never let me go empty stomach out of the house and even, she used to pack me stuff to eat or maybe it was because of me as I am an avid foodie.But as the time flies and coming to the present scenario, it’s a different story altogether. Remembering a very recent incident, in the morning, I had my breakfast in the car while dropping my kids to the school. Is it quicker to eat the breakfast like this? Absolutely. But by doing so, am I getting the benefits of eating breakfast like that? Or is eating breakfast like that doing anything good? The answer is absolutely not. So, what is the solution to the above-mentioned problem and issue of fast paced life full of responsibilities and less time for personal health and body? The solution is a two-word concept which has a deep meaning and great impact on a person’s life i.e. ‘Mindful Eating’.
Mindful Eating is having self-awareness about what are you eating in the given environment. In more simple words Mindful Eating is enjoying every bite of food we intake and enjoying each sip we gulp of each and every meal we have. Here, I am not talking about keeping track of calories, carbs or workout diet rather here we are talking about enjoying different flavors of the food or drinks we are having in our meal.
Many of the times, people tend to eat mindlessly only for the sake of eating the meal. But that should not be the case. Even I have a habit of overeating and eating refined sugar when and anxious. But this is wrong and completely unforgiving for my body. Why do we hear old and experienced people say that we should not eat while working in the laptop or watching T.V. or for that matter doing anything? The main reason behind these pearls of wisdom is that we are not watching what we eat and hence whole bodily function gets disrupted. Some people tend to gain weight while other suffer from digestive issues. It is a tend nowadays that people eat while watching T.V. or being simply on the phone. They don’t pay attention to the food. They just gulp down the morsels and are in a rush to finish the plate and be on their way. In simple words, eating slowly with full awareness is like waste of time. rather than relaxing, their main focus is on watching or whatever recreational activities they are doing. Some people tend to eat to fulfil their emotional needs, to relieve their stress or cope up with their emotions like sadness, loneliness etc. This I can say with my personal experience that it is not a very good option or choice.
The other reason for not eating mindfully can be sedentary lifestyle which people nowadays are accustomed to and find it easy to follow and practice. Today’s life is very fast paced. Everything is like sitting in a supersonic jet and touching the sky in no time. nobody has the time to sit back and relax even for a few minutes. Mothers have to look after their children and family. Hence, they don’t have time to feed themselves wholeheartedly. They mix everything in the bowl and will shovel done the food without even taking a breath. Same is the case with working population or office goers. They have deadlines and they need to multitask, they tend to eat their morsels while working continuously. These are just few examples but life for everybody fast paced in their own way. For them mindful eating not exist.
Mindful Eating does not mean that we need to focus on calorie deficit diet or be tensed about the no. of calories in the food or what kind of carbs are being consumed. It does not mean we have to eat the right food every time and we cannot have the food at super speed again. We can still enjoy a pizza whilst practicing Mindful Eating. We don’t need follow it every time bit still practicing the concept for few days in a week or month may be helpful for body as well as mind. Basically, mindful eating is like rejuvenating the mind whilst enjoying the food we consume. According to a very famous author a zen teacher and pediatrician, ‘Mindful Eating replaces self-criticism with self-nurturing. It replaces shame with respect for your own inner wisdom.’ That means when we eat food with full attention towards the food while enjoying the same, we tend to nurture ourselves in terms of body like we understand our bodily functions and whatever is going on inside the body. When Mindful Eating comes a sense of satisfaction and a sense of being full. We tend to enjoy the food more and hence, our self-confidence boosts up.
Another aspect of Mindful Eating is to have a sense of when we are actually hungry and we just have a sensation of being hungry which in actual sense we are not. Sometimes we are not hungry either we are thirsty or we feel hungry according to the time. most of the time in common households we feel hungry by looking at the clock. When the clock strikes 1 P.M. our mind says, “Lunch Time” and we start craving food. This is basically our mind playing games with our stomach. Mindful Eating prevents those hunger pangs by making us full sooner and for a longer duration. Moreover, Mindful Eating does not only include the consuming part of the food. Every aspect starting from the procurement of groceries to the preparation of food till the food is served, all are part of mindful eating. Let us further explain the point, when we think with our mind open about the kind of food we want to eat and we generously thoughtful of it, we get the groceries followed by preparation to serving, we shall enjoy it more as compared to the food eaten aimlessly and without giving a second thought and just gulping down the food.
Mindful Eating also involves the use of our senses to the extreme sense like we notice a color, the texture, the aroma etc. without feeling and understanding the food, we can never eat with full consciousness and satisfaction. It helps to have a control on what we eat and how much we eat. Thus, preventing any kind of anxiety or guilt. In other words, it helps the prevention of guilt trips from overeating or unhealthy eating.
Benefits of Mindful Eating
Like discussed earlier, mindful eating has lots of benefits we shall discuss only few:
1. It helps in preventing binge eating: when we eat with our minds open and senses heightened with full attention to the food we eat, we tend to eat less and be full earlier as compared to aimless eating. It makes us full for a longer duration and we don’t feel the urge to eat again soon.
2. It helps to promote weight loss: weight loss and careful eating goes side by side as discussed earlier. When we eat mindfully, with full attention, we tend to eat slowly which further increases our metabolism and thus increases the chances of weight loss. Moreover, when we eat, we eat less as we our conscious about the healthy part of the food and thus enjoy the food more rather than just shoving it down our throat.
3. It helps in controlling emotions and reduce unhealthy eating behavior: When we binge eat, we tend to eat more either because we are emotionally unstable or we can’t control the urge to eat especially when we see delicious food or smell the aroma of the same. Mindful Eating helps in controlling these instincts and thus prevents behavioral problems associated with obesity.
How to practice Mindful Eating
- Grocery shopping: we need to make a list of articles to be bought before going to the supermarket. This prevents the impulsive buying and helps in sticking upto the plan. thus, by making the list we only pick up the necessary items that are actually needed rather than buying all that cola and chips.
- No skipping meals: when we skip meals, we get aggressive at one point of time at the rate of eating anything present on the table without even enjoying. Instead, we should come with an appetite but not on the verge of extreme hunger.
- Grocery shopping: we need to make a list of articles to be bought before going to the supermarket. This prevents the impulsive buying and helps in sticking upto the plan. thus, by making the list we only pick up the necessary items that are actually needed rather than buying all that cola and chips.
- No skipping meals: when we skip meals, we get aggressive at one point of time at the rate of eating anything present on the table without even enjoying. Instead, we should come with an appetite but not on the verge of extreme hunger.
- Small bites: Like small portions, bite size should also be small. The main reason behind such statement is that we enjoy the food more when our mouth isn’t full.
- Eat slowly and chew properly: Eating slowly and properly has two-fold benefits. It not only helps in capturing the essence of the food completely but also helps in digestion and increasing metabolism.
- V. and other distractions need to be avoided: These shall be avoided as they shift the concentration of individual form the food towards the screen or any other act the person is doing while eating his/her meal and thus we are not able to enjoy the food.
In the nutshell, I would like to conclude that Mindful Eating is an important and powerful tool to control our eating habits as well as making our mind stress free. When diet doesn’t work, these techniques can.