What is mindful eating?
Mindfulness practices have been around for centuries, originating from ancient Eastern and Buddhist philosophy. Mindfulness centers your focus on your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations in the present moment. Mindful eating involves using all of your senses to experience the meal and the eating environment to the fullest.
Mindful eating allows us to experience food in new, exciting ways. With mindful eating you are encouraged to explore the sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste of the foods you are eating. In order to do this, you are encouraged to create a mindful eating environment, free of distractions like TV’s or smartphones, and ground yourself in the moment with your meal.
How do I practice mindful eating?
Anyone can practice mindful eating! Even if it doesn’t feel like it comes naturally to you at first, mindfulness is a skill that can be strengthened over time. Watch as dietitian Kristin illustrates how to practice mindful eating in this detailed video:
How can mindful eating help me reach my nutrition goals?
1. Improves Awareness of Hunger and Fullness Cues:
Mindful eating encourages tuning into your body’s signals for hunger and fullness, helping prevent overeating and making it easier to honor your body’s true needs.
2. Reduces Emotional Eating:
Practicing mindfulness allows you to identify emotional triggers, so you can distinguish between physical hunger and emotional cravings, leading to healthier food choices.
3. Enhances Satisfaction with Food:
By savoring each bite, you can experience more satisfaction from the meals you eat, making it less likely that you will overeat or seek pleasure and satisfaction from mindless snacking between meals.
4. Strengthens Food Choices Based on Nutritional Needs:
Mindfulness encourages you to consider how different foods make you feel, leading to a natural preference for nutrient-dense choices that nourish and make your body feel its best.
5. Decreases Eating Distractions:
Turning off screens and focusing on the experience of eating helps you become more aware of what and how much you’re consuming, reducing unintentional overeating.
6. Encourages Slower Eating Pace:
Eating mindfully slows down your eating rate, allowing your body time to send satiety signals, which helps with portion control and prevents eating past comfortable fullness.
7. Improves Digestion:
Eating slowly and chewing thoroughly can improve digestion, making it easier for your body to absorb nutrients and helping you feel satisfied and more energized after meals.
8. Increases Awareness of Food Reactions:
Mindful eating allows you to observe how different foods affect your energy levels and mood, guiding you to choose foods that support your overall well-being.
9. Builds a Positive Relationship with Food:
Practicing mindfulness around food can reduce feelings of guilt or shame, fostering a healthier, more balanced perspective that supports long-term nutrition goals. Mindfulness is a key element of intuitive eating.
10. Encourages Consistency:
By focusing on the present moment, mindful eating promotes making one intentional choice at a time, which can build habits that support your nutrition goals sustainably.
Mindful eating tips
If mindful eating feels overwhelming, try asking yourself these few simple questions next time you sit down to eat:
- According to the hunger fullness scale, how hungry am I right now?
- Will this food honor my physical hunger? Taste hunger? Emotional hunger?
- What can I do to make my eating environment more peaceful?
- How does my food look? Sound? Feel? Smell? Taste?
- Am I eating slowly enough to savor each bite that I am taking?
- How many more bites until I reach comfortable fullness?
- How has this meal made my body feel? Energized or lethargic? Too full or just right?
- How might I show my body gratitude for allowing me to enjoy this meal?
Find these mindful eating prompts and more in this free mindfulness boosting guide!
Summary
Mindful eating is a way of eating that honors your body’s hunger and fullness with foods that feel good in your body. It empowers you, the eater, to listen to and honor your body by increasing awareness of your physical and emotional wellbeing. Mindful eating is a health-promoting practice that can reduce mindless eating, increase intake of nutrient dense foods, and build a positive, non-judgmental relationship with food.
Kristin Jenkins is a dietitian nutritionist based in Maryland. She has been involved in the field of eating disorders and disordered eating for over 6 years and brings both personal and professional experience to her work serving clients who struggle with their relationship with food and their bodies.
