Mindful eating is being aware. Instead of spending your mealtime checking Facebook, texting or watching TV, you concentrate on the act of eating.
The brain and body health benefits of mindful eating can truly boost your health and well-being.
The following mindful eating tips can help you overcome emotional eating, and uncover unhealthy eating patterns and behaviors.
☐ When you are not mindful of how you eat, your odds of developing cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, as well as mental and physical health problems, significantly increase.
☐ When you eat highly processed food, much of it contains chemicals that create a pleasure response in your brain. This is how you become addicted to junk food.
☐ The process triggered by sugar, salt, and other additives and chemicals in highly processed food creates the same chemical reaction that makes drug addicts crave cocaine and heroin.
☐ Be mindful of your emotions before you eat. It could be that you are eating to suppress some emotion or feeling you need to face, rather than true hunger.
☐ If you think you are hungry, drink a 12 to 16-ounce glass of water and wait 10 to 15 minutes. Many times, this exposes false hunger.
☐ Chew slowly, savoring every bite and the texture of your food. How does your food look and smell? How did it feel in your hands when you were preparing it? Be conscious of every step of the eating process.
☐ The 6 questions you should ask yourself before you eat are why, when, what, how, how much, and where. Answering these questions honestly can help you decide if you are physically or emotionally hungry, and keep you eating healthy as opposed to unhealthy food.
☐ Think about what had to happen for your food to arrive on your plate. Being aware and conscious of safe, clean, and humane food manufacturing processes is a big part of mindful eating.
☐ Drink lots of water and herbal tea all day long.
☐ Eat more "real food", and less processed food. When you eat foods as close to their natural state, you regulate your mental and physical states of being and become more mindful of nutrition.
☐ Practice gratitude. When you take time to be thankful for the food you have, you are practicing conscious awareness of your eating behaviors.
