6 Tips for Mindful Eating

Eating With Mindfulness

The act of sharing a meal is something that unifies cultures all over the world. How we prepare food and nourish ourselves has changed a lot over time, and the modern distractions of TVs, smartphones and computers can bring us further away from actually experiencing and enjoying our meals.

Think about the last meal you had – you may remember what it was, but do you remember how you felt while you were eating it? What were the smells and tastes that you remember the most? Incorporating mindful eating into your routine can help you slow down, reconnect with yourself and enjoy your meals.

If you’re ready to bring mindful eating to your table but aren’t sure where to begin, here are six easy ways to get started.

1. Setting Your Intentions

One of the most surprising things about being present while you eat is that it starts before you actually eat. In fact, it starts before you even prepare the meal. Mindful eating begins with establishing your intentions, and this is a process that you can begin as you prepare to go to the grocery store.

Establishing your intentions can look like:

• Making a list and assessing the nutrition of each item
• Sticking to the list to avoid impulse purchases
• Focusing on high-quality foods in the produce sections rather than the middle aisles that are full of heavily processed convenience foods

Giving more thought to how and where you fill your cart can get your journey to mindful eating off to a great start, and having increased awareness of what thoughts and feelings come up during the shopping trip can also be helpful while changing your eating behavior.

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2. What Are You Bringing to the Table?

When we were kids, many of us had parents who had specific rules for the table, and just as it was hard then to leave all of your toys and video games behind to go eat dinner, it can be just as hard as an adult. While it may not seem like a great time to simply sit with yourself and with your food, mindful eating works best when you allow your mind and body to rediscover each other and reconnect. 

Whether you’re eating solo or with family:

• Choose a table or at a quiet, reflective space away from screens and visual distractions. 
• Bring an appetite but not so much hunger that you’re ravenous. Coming into a meal with intense hunger can cause you to eat faster and experience less.

Putting distractions aside can be difficult at first, but noticing the level of inattention that you’re used to bringing to meals can help you and your family take a momentary pause  and eat with awareness. 

Are you having a hard time slowing down? Check out our 7 Days of Slowing Down in a Fast-Paced World on-demand content!

3. Showing Gratitude For Your Food

Another part of eating mindfully is taking a few moments to show gratitude for the food in front of you. In order for that meal to be available for you, farmers had to grow the vegetables and raise the animals. Truck drivers had to transport those items to the grocery store that you bought them from, stockers had to arrange the food on shelves so you could find them, and there were others along the way making sure that food got to you from its original source.

With the hunter-gatherer days far behind us, we are more disconnected from our food than ever. Having that attitude of gratitude at meals helps reconnect us to others and to the Earth. As you eat, also contemplate the soil and rain that helped nurture this food and the cultural traditions or recipes handed down between generations to keep us connected to one another. 

4. Using All of Your Senses

In addition to focusing on the food, you can also incorporate mindfulness by being aware of your body and senses as you eat. These are a few examples of how to turn your senses inward during mindful eating:

• What are smells or aromas that you notice? Are they nostalgic smells that remind you of meals past or is this a new and interesting experience?
• As you begin to eat, consider the flavors that you’re noticing and how they all come together on your tongue
• Do you feel different textures from the foods you’re eating? Notice those and how they feel as you’re eating them. 
• Can you hear yourself crunch or make other noises as you eat? If you’re eating with others, what noises are they making as they enjoy the meal with you?
• Take a minute to observe the food on your plate – what are the different colors and shapes?

5. Just Eating, With Small Bites

During distracted eating we tend to take big bites, hurrying the meal so we can finish and move on to the next task. Eating with awareness is not only about just eating, it’s also about taking your time to savor and enjoy the food. Taking small bites increases the pleasure of eating and also helps reassure your mind that it does not need to jump ahead and focus on the next thing – it is exactly where it needs to be.

It may surprise you to learn that during distracted eating, many people only chew each bite two to three times before swallowing. Notice when you feel the urge to swallow, and try chewing each bite between 15 and 30 times depending on the type of food you’re eating to help slow down the pace.

6. Listening to Your Body’s Signals When You’re Full

One of the best benefits of practicing slower eating is that you are more in tune with your body’s natural signals when you’re full. Distracted eating with large bites often causes us to not only take in more calories but also not have an accurate feeling of when we’ve had enough. After you begin eating, it takes the body about 20 minutes to start sending signals of fullness. When you eat more mindfully, that strong connection between your mind and body can alert you when you’re full.

Once your body has given you clear signals that you’ve had enough to eat, it’s okay to allow yourself to stop eating even if there’s still food on your plate. Enjoying the meal and being grateful for it does not also mean you have to eat to the point of discomfort.

Mindful Eating Every Day

In addition to bringing mindfulness to the table, you can also practice it in other areas of your daily routine. Using mindfulness to recenter yourself first thing in the morning, as a way to focus inward before an important meeting or event, or to let go before bed can all  help you maintain your inner peace and feel more present throughout the day.

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Written by Becky Greiner