Week 1: Mindful Eating

 

Welcome to the Fall 2012 Healthy Eating Challenge, a part of the B'more for Healthy Babies Project through Planned Parenthood of Maryland.  Over the next 12 weeks, join in a new challenge designed to move you towards healthier eating habits.  Each challenge, will be just that - a challenge in which you change your behavior.  The goal is that you'll join this journey for the next 12 weeks, that you'll learn new things about yourself and your eating habits, that you'll push yourself in ways you haven't before, and most important that you'll share your successes with others who've made the decision to take this challenge.

Journaling - each week there will be questions to help you with the week's challenge.  Journaling can help you gain insight into what habits may be helping or hindering you; as well as, help you identify your areas of strength and weakness.

So let's get started!!

Week 1: Mindful Eating

Most of us eat semiconsciously, swallowing food without really tasting it or focusing our attention on the next bite before we’ve had an opportunity to enjoy the present one. We also talk, read, or watch TV while eating, directing our attention on other activities instead of the food. As a result, we tend to overeat. Haven’t you mindlessly shoveled in large quantities of popcorn or chips in your mouth while watching a movie or staring at the television screen? In addition, we are robbing ourselves of the full sensory experience from food. Based on research, eating while doing something else increases the chances of a person gaining excess weight, but regardless of how much you weigh, distracted or mindless eating is an unhealthy habit.  

What's Mindful Eating?

Mindfulness is awareness without criticism or judgment. It is deliberately paying attention, being fully aware of what is happening both inside and outside yourself - in your body, heart and mind - and outside yourself, in your environment. In mindful eating you are not comparing yourself to anyone else. You are not judging yourself or others. You are simply witnessing the many sensations and thoughts that come up as you eat.

Mindful eating involves paying full attention to the experience of eating and drinking. You pay attention to the colors, smells, textures, flavors, temperatures, and even the sounds (crunch!) of your food. You pay attention to the experience in the body.  Why mindful eating?  Because when you reconnect with your food, you reconnect with yourself.

Challenge Yourself - pick at least two of the following activities to challenge yourself to eat mindfully.  Do the activities that you pick at least 3 to 4 times during the week.

• Take the first four sips of a cup of hot tea or coffee paying full attention to the act of drinking? Was the liquid too hot or too cold?  If too hot, did it burn your tongue?  Could you feel it going down pass your tongue, down your throat, and beyond?
• Beginner: Cut a food item in half (for example an apple or a sandwich) - eat one half while doing an activity (talking, reading, checking e-mail, etc).   Eat the second half mindfully - without any distractions.
• Advanced: Eat an entire meal mindfully.  Turn off all external stimuli during a meal - turn off the TV, the radio, the computer, the smartphone, the telephone, put away all reading material.  During the meal pay attention to the food on your plate, think about how the food was prepared.  Did you prepare it? Is it visually appealing? What are your thoughts as you are eating?
• Chew your food.  Chew each mouthful 21 times before swallowing. No cheating - 21 times.
• At a family meal, ask each person to spend the first five minutes of the meal in silence.  During the five minutes of silence, each person should consider their gratitude for the food they are eating.  After the five minutes, each person can share what about the meal they are grateful for.
• In a social dining environment try doing each activity mindfully.  When you are having a conversation, focus on the person you are talking with.  Put down your knife and fork, do not put anything in your mouth, this will make it easier to concentrate on the conversation..  When you are eating, focus on just eating and do not talk during that time.  Notice the difference in the experiences.  Did you find both the eating and conversation more rewarding when each was done separately and mindfully?

Food for thought:

1.  Which mindful eating activities did you choose?
2.  What was the mindful eating experience like for you?
3.  What were your successes with this challenge?
4.  What were your challenges with the activities?
5.  How will you take the mindful eating challenge beyond week 1?