Mindful Eating

Hey guys! This blog post will be talking about ”mindful eating 101”.

Nowadays, eating has become something we do quickly and without being fully attentive.

We live on automatic pilot, in our fast-paced world.

If I asked you what you had for dinner two days ago, the vast majority of you would be unable to recall.

We are not attentive to what we are eating and consuming.

I was introduced to mindful eating during my 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course. Our week 5 mindfulness meditation exercise was to eat mindfully. At first, it was very very hard because I constantly looked at my phone or spent hours on Instagram while eating.

But I had to put my phone aside and eat without it. I got used to it on day 3 and it felt very liberating!

So, what is mindful eating and why it is important? How to practice mindful eating? Here are the basics!

Mindful eating has many benefits. Firstly, it can help you digest food much easier. When you focus on the sensations and bring your attention to the present moment while you are eating your food, you will feel more in tune with the food you are eating! Mindful eating is provided to be beneficial for people who suffer from digestion problems, too! ( aka me)

So, how can we practice eating mindfully and make it a habit? Here’s a mindful eating exercise and some mindful eating tips:

It’s actually very simple! You just have to try to focus on your food while you are eating it. You focus on the color, quality and quantity of it before taking your first bite or sipping your tea or coffee. In summary, mindful eating only involves your focus during the activity.

Photo by Valeria Boltneva on Pexels

Before eating your meal, look at it’s colour. Look at the richness on your plate. What kinds of foods are on your plate? Vegetables? Meat? Rice? Fruits and nuts?

Then slowly start eating. When you take the first bite, notice how your mouth feels. How does your jaw feel? Is it tightened? What about your teeth?

Gently, repeat this process throughout your meals. Just try to notice the taste and colour of the foods! The aim is to eat mindfully with your 5 senses!

When you finish eating, you will feel immense gratitude towards the people who took part in the preparation and harvesting period & it will make you feel like you are a part of a huge team. Your gastrointestinal health and mental health will also benefit from this process, trust me.

I think, we forget this every now and then. We are all connected. All whole beings on this planet are connected.

Your food wouldn’t be on your plate if the restaurant’s chef wasn’t working.

Your vegetables wouldn’t be at the market if farmers hadn’t put a lot of effort into them.

If you hadn’t taken the time to prepare this meal, it wouldn’t be on your plate either.

Be thankful for yourself, too. ❤

Did you know about mindful eating? Have you found this post useful? Will you use this mindful eating guide in the future?

By the way, I’m sharing more mindfulness exercises and quotes on my IG: instagram.com/themindfulnesshouse

Hope to see you there!

Until the next post,

Pen x

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