Did you know that your eating habits impact your mental health along with your physical health? If your answer is a question, how? Then you might not know much about mindful eating. And its high time to learn about this amazing technique in order to keep yourself well physically and mentally.
Mindful eating is putting all your senses on your food while you eat. Simply put, being aware of what you are eating, when you are eating, why you are eating and how you are eating? Confused? Then let’s discuss in-depth about what is mindful eating and why is it important.
What is Mindful Eating?
The Mindful Eating concept was first started in 1979 by Kabat-Zinn who developed a Mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Mindful eating was developed from the concept of Mindfulness, a practice of meditation derived from Buddhist traditions.
Briefly, Mindfulness simply means paying attention closely to the present moment with no complaints. Hope now you can relate what mindful eating means. But the concept of mindful eating is often misunderstood as a diet or weight loss program which is only partially correct. It is clearly a stress reduction and good health program that boosts your emotional wellness. In order to understand the conflicts and the importance of the concept, you need to first know how to eat mindfully. So, let us have a look at it.
Eat Slowly
Serve a little amount of food on your plate and take small bites. Never take too many bites at once. Enjoy the food chewing for at least 20 seconds each bite. Eating slowly helps you experience all the tastes and flavors involved in food. Also, your brain needs nearly 20 minutes to tell you that you are full. So, eating slowly makes you realize early that your hunger is satisfied.
Eat Only when Hungry
Reach the dining table only when you feel hunger, it doesn’t mean you have to kill your hunger to follow mindful eating. Moreover, skipping meals will cause you acidity and other stomach related issues. So, never skip meals.
Instead, eat whenever you have an appetite but recheck if you are really hungry. The cravings, hunger cues are common but note that they lead to binges and later obesity.
Show Love on what you Eat
Before you hurriedly stuff your mouth with tasty food, take some time to appreciate the food in front of you. Enjoy the colors and flavors of the food. This reminds you of mindful eating. Hence you eat less.
Avoid Distractions while Eating
When you are eating while watching television or some videos on your phone, you will overeat unknowingly. So to avoid that, first avoid external distractions like TV, and mobile phones.
Eat until you feel full
While you are now eating mindfully by eating slowly, avoiding distractions, appreciating the food and are completely conscious of what you are eating, you will know how much did you eat, what did you eat, why did you eat. So naturally, you will now know when to stop eating. During initial stages, you might feel difficulty or frequent appetite, but try following the above steps and you will slowly get adapted to it.
Why is Mindful Eating Important?
When in stress most people overeat. Have you never eaten even when you are not hungry? No, right? Most of us do it, and the reasons are just common. Maybe you are in a hurry or you might want just to eat because you see delicious food in front of you and the other reason people are habituated to overeating. Simply put, people overeat because they cannot control their binge and appetite.
But you need to mind whatever consuming because overeating leads to overweight, obesity, heart diseases and other serious health issues.
Here are the reasons why you should mind while eating…
Focussing on what you are eating will make you conscious about how much you are eating. Hence you will reduce the quantity of eating.
1. You don’t gain too much weight because every time you eat you will think if you are really hungry.
2. Exercising or dieting does not give you long-lasting results, the only best way to maintain a constant weight(or even reduce weight) is following to eat mindfully.
3. You will not consume whatever you desire, as you need to consider what you eat.
4. Finally, the emotional stress will not make you overeat as you pledged for mindful eating. Your stress gets distracted to mindful eating.
Thus your eating habits help you relieve stress and maintain good health along balanced-weight. However, if you add proper nutrients, fresh fruits, veggies, proteins etc. you will enjoy more benefits.
