What and how we eat is often swayed by how we are feeling at the time and not always in positive ways. Here are some suggestions as to how we might change bad habits around eating and making eating a mindful, positive experience.

Eating with others

There are lots of good reasons to eat with others. There is the opportunity to share the pleasure of the cooking for someone, and the special treat of feeding someone a meal you care about and you put your heart into preparing. There is the emotional support and connection of eating with family, with friends. We are more motivated to prepare a meal, when we're sharing meals with someone else.

Get rid of distractions

It is a good idea to turn your off mobile phone when eating, to avoid the possible distraction of interacting with it. Technology adds another layer between you and mindful eating, and disengaging with your phone, or pc while eating, helps you to focus on your food.

Understand your emotions, but don’t eat because of them

Our emotions influence how we feel, which in turn affects what and how we want to eat. Some people stress eat, while others don't eat when they're stressed. The best thing to do is to stand back and acknowledge your emotion, while making conscious choices about what to eat.

Get rid of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ labels

While we hear about foods that are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ for us all the time, there is no reason to feel guilty for not making healthy choices, all the time. If you are taking care of yourself, then you deserve a treat and snack from time to time without worrying about it. Also, once you start eating more mindfully, you will find that your cravings change, and what once was satisfying, may be less satisfying.

Take your time when eating

This seems like a very simple suggestion but is surprisingly difficult. We are used to eating on the go, often without even sitting down. An important element to mindful eating, is giving yourself time to think about your food while you're eating it, tasting each bite while chewing slowly. Put your fork down in between bites makes as pause as we are eating and will help us to slow down our mealtime.

Stop before you feel full

When we are mindlessly eating without thinking about it, it is easy to keep eating. Part of mindful eating is knowing what it feels like to feel satisfied, which is not the same as being full. Eating slowly helps us to not overeat. Research shows it takes our brain about 20 minutes, before it gets the message that we are full by which time we can easily have over-eaten. also in all probability, what we think is a sensible portion is more than what we really need to eat.

Conclusion

It is important to enjoy your eating experience. Try to figure out what part of mindful eating you really enjoy and do more of it. Is it the cooking you enjoy, or dressing the table, particularly when it comes to dinner parties.

Whatever it is, find ways to incorporate it into your routine, so that it becomes part of your food preparation and dining experiences. If you want mindful eating to work, you need to enjoy it.

Source: https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu