Many people think that mindful eating is about chewing slowly their food. It seems something boring and lonely to do. Some other think it’s some sort of meditation. And meditation doesn’t suit everybody. But this is a mistake.
To me mindful eating is a fancy word, with a lot of rules and principles that refers to something very simple: making eating a pleasure!
You see, for many eating has become a biological, physical function to achieve for their body to let it function properly. Many of us consider eating as a way to fuel our body. It’s not new. It has started a couple of decades ago when eating became more and more something functional rather than a pleasure and a social event. This way of considering eating has had many consequences. And even if these consequences are now part of our everyday lives, it’s important to identify them and to avoid those mistakes. Here are some of those mistakes:
I – Don’t multitask while eating
Most people combine their eating time with something else: they eat while walking from point A to point B, they eat in the subway or even while driving. And of course they eat in front of their computer! We also hold meetings during lunch time, either in person or during our zoom calls (especially since the beginning of COVID pandemic).
Even our kids are concerned. They have very little time to eat at school (the actual time to eat at school is around 15 minutes, once you take off the time to go to and come back from the cafeteria, the time spent queuing and so on). And now that schools are slowly back to normal, now that kids stay in their classrooms to respect social distancing, they watch a cartoon on the white board, at least for some of the youngest kids, those in elementary school.
You may wonder why is this bad? We all have only a certain amount of time in our days and if we can make those hours more productive, why we should avoid it?
The problem is that multitasking in general doesn’t keep its promises. You want to do more things and often time you end up messing everything. And in this particular situation, it’s even worse:
Research has shown that when you eat while distracted or stressed out, you eat faster and take bigger bites than when you spend that time only for eating (of course you can eat with loved ones and talk with them!) And, as a result you end up eating too much.
By taking time only to eat, will you take more time eating? Yes, for sure! But if you do it on schedule (as we’ll see in the next point), you won’t “waste” that much time. You will just opt for quality over quantity.
So instead of multitasking, take time to sit down at the table and eat, either alone or with your family or colleagues!
II – Eat on a schedule whenever possible
As many consider eating as a low value “task”, they end up eating all the time and at anytime. And over time they lose that connection to their body and sensations. You can’t fit eating into that little time slot you have! Otherwise you won’t be able to feel the sensation of satiety (which is different from being “full”) and hunger. As a result you may fear the sensation of hunger and eat in anticipation.
Feeling hungry isn’t something bad per say. Of course if you have a health condition you should absolutely follow your doctor’s recommendations. But if you have no health condition, you can wait a little bit before rushing to eat the first thing you. We are talking here about waiting something between 30 minutes and one hour, nothing more. But letting yourself to experience hunger will help you to recognize your body sensations.
Eating on a schedule means that you decide in advance how many times you will eat during your wake time and try as much as possible to maintain that schedule. A traditional (and still very effective) schedule is … eating breakfast, lunch, dinner and if necessary snack once (for example once in the middle of the afternoon).
And this schedule suits kids very well too! Even after having spent so many years in the US (coming from France), as a mom I’m still surprised to see that after REC activities (for example after my children’s soccer practices), kids receive a snack just because they ran and played for one hour! We even have a worksheet where we take turn to bring food AND sugary drinks. I remember in France, after the soccer practices, kids didn’t receive any snack. They just waited until the next meal (for example the mid afternoon snack).
III – Spend at least 20 minutes to eat
As mentioned above, you should avoid eating on the go because it will lead you to gain weight! And here is why: studies have shown that once we start to eat our brain and our stomach communicate and send signals back and forth. They communicate to signal the beginning of the eating session and they also communicate to signal that we have had enough of food and that we should stop eating. But what is important is that we need about 20 minutes for these signals to be effective. This means that if you eat in less than 20 minutes, chances are that your body hasn’t have enough time to recognize the satiety signal. And the consequence of this is that when you eat in less than 20 minutes, you eat a lot more than necessary. This doesn’t mean that you don’t need to chew (super) slowly. You just need to eat slowly, for example by talking with your family or friend or whoever you’re having a meal with and by taking a good time! It’s that simple!
Conclusion: mindful eating is something very simple and accessible to all.
It doesn’t mean transforming your eating times to some kind of meditation session. It doesn’t need fancy equipment or crazy organization. In fact it refers a lot to common sense. Eating is not only to fuel our body and to provide it with energy. It’s also a pleasure we can practice with moderation, alone or with loved ones.
And unsurprisingly, when you listen to your body, it will get easier to lose weight J
And if you want to surround yourself with likeminded, supportive people who have weightloss goals just as you, join our Facebook group dedicated to weightloss and Selfcare! We would love to see you there 😉