Putting mindfulness into practice
Yesterday, I wrote about how mindfulness and simple self-awareness can change body, brain, and behaviour.
I want to tell you about a straightforward thing you can do today to help you get a better sense of your bodily experience.
It’s simple... But it’s not easy.
It’s also incredible how transformational this can be.
Eat slowly
That’s it.
Eat slowly.
It’s that simple.
Try:
- Putting your fork down between bites.
- Relax. Breathe. Take a few extra moments before you pick the fork up again.
- Set a timer if you need to — start with 15 minutes per meal as a basic goal. Work up to 20 or even 30.
- Chew a few more times than you think you need to.
- Enjoy and savour each bite. If you’re eating something delicious, take pleasure in it. Notice smells, flavours, and textures.
- Eat mindfully without distractions such as TV, smartphones, or the computer. (Pleasant conversation with friends and family is, of course, welcome.)
Yes. I’m serious. Eat slowly!
When I ask my clients to do this, they’re often surprised. “It’s too easy,” they say. Before admitting that they don’t eat slowly already.
As I said, this is simple, not necessarily easy.
Why slow eating is awesome
Slow eating does some important things!
Slow eating creates mindfulness. Mindfulness creates awareness.
A lot of people eat poorly simply because they’re unaware. They’re unaware of how to eat well, of what poor (or good) eating feels like, of how their body responds to different food choices.
The thing is, being ‘aware’ is a one-way street. Once you’re aware, you can’t go back to unaware.
A lot of people who want to lose weight know they need to eat less. And they almost always rely on external things to help them eat less. I’m talking about things like calorie counting or eating strict portions. I’ve been here - for a time; I weighed all the food I ate. And of course, as you might expect, I didn’t keep doing it in the long run. Remember the elephant?
Luckily, I learned to get the hang of slow eating and body cues so that I was aware when I overate. And you can too.
You see, slow, aware over-eating (and its aftermath) isn’t fun. You’ll notice when you do it.
Slow eating means you enjoy your food more
Eating slowly attunes you to flavours, textures, and smells of food. You’ll become more aware of holistic food quality.
Junk food tastes like shit when you eat it slowly. It’s disappointing, empty, unsatisfying - even downright disgusting.
But, real food often tastes even better when you eat it slowly.
Driven by taste, you’ll instinctively start to seek out better choices.
That emotional brain elephant is gently guided, rather than wrenched unwillingly.
This might sound weird, but smelling, chewing, tasting, and swallowing food is all part of eating. I know, I know; stating the obvious.
The thing is, all of those parts of eating are involved in communicating with the rest of the gastrointestinal (GI) system. They all give essential data to the whole system.
Ever noticed how smelling something cooking makes you salivate? Well, it goes further than that - our bodies get ready for digestion by releasing enzymes and hormones and kicking off processes to get the process going. Also, retronasal olfaction (the smell that wafts up into your nasal passages via the back of your throat when you chew) is a crucial component of satiety.
If you rush, you don’t smell, taste, or texturally experience your food. Your body doesn’t notice stuff getting shoved into the pipeline until it’s too late.
However, when you eat slowly, your satiety hormones have time to work. You can stop eating naturally, earlier.
Slow eating helps with digestion.
As I alluded to above, awareness of the information your food is giving you helps your body to cue digestive activity properly, so the GI system isn’t caught off guard. Your gut will be ready to deal with something, and if you’ve eaten slowly, it’ll know more about what you ate and what to do with it.
So you’ll feel better after you eat.
You might even find that your heartburn and indigestion seem to go away magically.
Slow eating doesn’t depend on controlling what you eat.
This is a big one. You can eat slowly anywhere, at any time, with any food. Whether it’s a huge Christmas lunch, an important family dinner, or a business lunch. No matter what’s on your plate or who’s around you, you can eat slowly.
You can be doing something mindful for your health while not feeling restrictive or deprived. And we all know that emotional-brain elephant hates being deprived. You can even do this while eating a cheat meal or an emotional eating episode.
Slow eating makes your body the boss.
This is pretty cool.
Getting good at slow eating means that eventually, you won’t need to rely on external controls like weighing food or calorie counting. You’ll know what’s right for you, and even if you’re unsure at the start of the meal, you’ll be aware enough to know while you’re eating. You’ll feel much less anxious about calories and much more self-assured when you eat.
As I learned when I stopped weighing my food, relinquishing (external) control gives you much more real control.
Mindfulness is the path to this outcome.
Simple, but not easy
As I said at the start, eating slowly is simple, but it’s not easy. I listed some strategies you can use - go back and take a look if you want to give this a go!
Eating slowly is easy to understand. The ways you can do it are simple. But it’s not easy to do them. As usual, it’s not so much the ‘what’ to do, but the ‘how’ to do it that’s hard. It’s entirely normal for you to find this difficult - I know I do!
You might notice some resistance in things like:
- You don’t love your favourite junk foods as much as you thought. Be prepared for some grief and loss here.
- You are rushing and stressed much of the time anyway. Trying to eat slowly stresses you out because you “don’t have time”. Start with eating slowly just one meal a day. Ask yourself, am I really so busy I can’t take 15 minutes to eat?
- It’s hard to be alone and quiet with yourself while eating. Maybe you rushed lunch before because you were avoiding being alone. I encourage you to try for a few minutes and sit with any discomfort. Be curious about the discomfort.
Even slowing down by a minute or two in a meal is a victory. Focus on when you could eat slowly rather than when you couldn’t. You haven’t failed at eating slowly if you rushed the first half of the meal but slowed down for the second half. Once you’re aware, you can’t go back to being unaware.
I’d love to hear how you go trying to eat slowly. Let me know in the comments, or send me an email! I’m curious, do you have any other strategies to eat slowly?
