Mindful Eating

Let’s be frank about this.  I am a bust at mindful eating.  When I am eating alone, I fix my food, I sit down and eat while reading a magazine and half-watching the TV.  I barely pay attention to what I am eating, although I know that it is healthy (plus for me).  With so many food sensitivities and hypoglycemia, I can’t load up on food that I react badly to unless I want to feel really awful.  But this year I would like to take more pleasure in eating and have more gratitude for the food that I do eat.  Enter a mindful eating practice.  I want to enjoy my food like this girl:

 
I am reading a couple of good books on the subject of mindful eating, “Savor, Mindful Eating Mindful Life” by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lilian Cheung and “Eat What You Love and Love What You Eat”, by Michelle May, M.D..  Also check out www.tcme.org, The Center for Mindful Eating.  I recently went to a class on mindful eating to get me started.  Here are some principles of mindful eating:

• Allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food preparation and consumption by respecting your own inner wisdom.
• Choosing to eat food that is both pleasing to you and nourishing to your body by using all your senses to explore, savor and taste.
• Acknowledging responses to food (likes, neutral or dislikes) without judgment.
• Learning to be aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decision to begin eating and to stop eating.

My goal for the next month is to choose one meal daily to eat mindfully, from preparation (with prayer and gratefulness) to sitting down and focusing on enjoying the food with no distractions.  This was suggested to me by my spiritual director.  Would you like to try it too?  I’ll keep you posted on my progress……