Eating Mindfully

How can you tell if you’re eating mindfully? Why is it important? Isn’t it enough to eat right? What’s right? What’s right for you may not be right for me. Mindful eating involves paying attention to what you eat. Eating is essential for humans to maintain energy levels, health, and life. However, we’ve devolved to eating mindlessly without paying attention to the food we eat, its origin, or its impact on our bodies. Let’s explore mindful eating and its benefits for our busy, stressed, and overworked minds and bodies.

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5 Reasons Humans Eat… Nowadays

Humans used to eat for sustenance and strength. Pleasure eating developed with religious feasts and holidays, associating special occasions with rich foods. With the increase of industrialization and personal resources, eating became based on cravings, convenience, and desire. Understanding our food choices is crucial. Food impacts our bodies, minds, and moods, and we often have unrealistic expectations of it (to fix us, make us feel good, to make problems go away, to make us and others happy, etc.), leaving us in strained relationship with food. Here are just five reasons I’ve noticed that people make food choices. Learn what our food choices mean and how to improve mood, energy levels, and daily functioning from eating mindfully.

1. Fuel/Function 

Of course, we still eat for fuel to function daily. Olympic athletes and moms have similar energy needs. Athletes require glucose for intense activities like running, swimming, and jumping, while moms need energy for tasks like chasing children, managing chores, and grocery shopping. The confusion arises when caretakers wonder why they choose candy or pasta over tuna on a salad. When the body expends large amounts of energy, it needs efficient long-lasting sources. Carbohydrate-heavy foods provide quick access to glucose and sustain energy over time. Understanding our energy needs can reduce judgment and anxiety about food choices. Recognizing the reason behind a meal can help us acknowledge and meet our needs without shame or special diets. Everyday workers who avoid carbs may not be adequately meeting their bodily needs. We eat for fuel and functioning and often choose carb-forward foods without realizing it. Paying attention to our food choices can reveal other needs like rest, sleep, or recovery.

2. Comfort/Soothing

We’ve all heard of emotional eaters. I don’t like that term, but I understand food’s power to comfort us during tough times. When we’re stressed, our kids are difficult, the job is taxing, and we feel alone, we might reach for something sweet and easy like ice cream. Don’t judge this behavior harshly. It’s a way to manage negative emotions. The problem is not choosing this comfort food; it’s doing it mindlessly. Mindful eating means paying attention to your food choices. For example, if you’re feeling stressed and want to have ice cream, take note of your stressors. Engage in self-talk about your choice. Tell yourself, “Sure, you can have ice cream, but first have the leftover broccoli in the fridge.” This awareness helps you realize you need comfort and nutrients.

Self-talk and mindful eating are purposeful and need not be judged or viewed as shameful. Eating broccoli first can flush out toxins your body took in during that bad day and help you feel better. Greens are antioxidants and that’s what they do.

3. Pain Relief/Healing

Humans seek out certain foods for health reasons. Many have learned the medicinal properties of foods like carrot juice, green tea, mushrooms, and raw whole foods and choose to feed on them. The plant-based movement, vegetarianism, meatless Mondays, organic farming, grass-fed animals, and wild-caught fish are all mindful choices to heal the body. Obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments are linked to food choices, prompting people to take control of their longevity and quality of life. Using food as a vehicle for significant change is logical and accessible. I’ve witnessed illness and death in loved ones, leading to a profound awakening about the daily choices we make regarding our diet. I’ve experienced a mindfulness that came on like a new religion about food because it suddenly became clear how much control I could have over the well-being of this body. This is not the only way of becoming a mindful eater, though. It is possible to become more mindful without the sermon of pain, illness, or death preaching to us.

4. Entertainment

Fun, pleasure, and entertainment are valid reasons to eat. Popcorn with butter and salt is a delightful treat for movie nights, social gatherings, or self-care. Be honest about your favorite party foods, like hot Cheetos, chocolate chip cookies, or M&M’s. This is a natural part of being human, and pleasure deprivation is no different from other forms of deprivation. Sometimes, food provides pleasure, fun, and entertainment. Mindfulness is key. Pay attention to what you eat and consider its psychological, social, and physical impact. If you crave party foods frequently, it might indicate a need for a vacation, a day off, or socializing with fun friends. Similarly, enjoying party foods in fun and entertaining places is appropriate. We do this at weekend brunch, Sunday dinner, and the Super Bowl. Be mindful of your choices and avoid guilt, shame, or judgment. It’s not the time or place to be critical.

5. Habit

Ever find yourself meandering into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator or cabinets without thinking about it? This is a common habit in modern times. Boredom, work-from-home, or insomnia can trigger this behavior. Humans are unique in eating for no reason, out of habit. Many of us are well-resourced, with abundant food in our homes. I recently cleaned an ailing family member’s pantry and found expired food from 2014. We don’t need that much food. Perhaps we have a fetish with abundance, filling our plates beyond reason and stocking pantries with Costco-sized products even after children have moved out, and we waste tons of food that goes bad on our counters and in our crisper bins daily. This isn’t mindful. Mindful food habits would lead to other choices when shopping, plating, and stocking food.

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Mindful Labels

Sure, there are many more reasons we eat. These are five that I’ve personally experienced. Because of these experiences, I’ve become more mindful of my food choices. One helpful and mindful practice I’ve found is labeling my food. This is not the same as simply reading food labels and having a third-party tell me what I’m eating. I do read labels and pay attention to what’s in my food, but my meaning here is to be in control of what’s on the plate by giving personally meaningful names and expectations to my food.

We all tend to do this when we feel sick. We make sure to take in medicinal foods; we don’t just go for the most convenient things and hope for the best. We intentionally and purposefully wield food to do a thing FOR us, to meet our need to heal. In my case, I may take honey, ginger, and lemon in my green tea due to the soothing and throat-coating effects of the honey, the tummy settling properties of the ginger, the vitamin C in the lemon, and the antioxidants in the tea. As I sip, I know what I’m ingesting and why. I expect this food to do its work for me.

Another example of mindfully labeling and eating food could be after that long hard day’s work that leaves stress and emotional burden on mind and body. Yes! Let’s make a salad with greens, raw fruits and vegetables and label it “the necessities” BEFORE cutting the cheesecake which could be called, “something easy for today”. Make these labels make sense for you. Using terms such as macros, micros, carbs, fats, proteins may be useless for you and therefore, may contribute to a mindlessness or ignorance about what food is doing for or against you in times of real physical and psychological need. Improve your relationship with food by getting honest and intentional about the purpose of that food and check to see if that food can realistically fulfill the expectations you have for it.

Perhaps you notice your need for energy and how exhausted you feel from your daily to-do list. Noting the demand of your days can cause you to exert control over the type of carb-forward meal that you need, labeling that pasta, bread, or oatmeal as “fuel” instead of calling it a macronutrient which might mean nothing to you besides a violation of the carb-to-protein ratio which can bring on guilt, shame, and even behaviors of over-indulgence and further negative spiral.

Labels don’t have to be a drag. You can make your own labels and be mindful of what you eat and why. This type of mindfulness can help you feel more in control of your physical and mental wellness. Clearly, there are more reasons for eating than I have listed here, but below are some labels that might be more helpful than the usual macronutrient labels we’re used to:

• Healing Foods

  • Medicine

  • Balm

  • Soother

  • Tummy-settler

  • Feel Better Food

  • Get Well Plate

  • Brain Booster

  • Repair

• Comfort Foods:

  • Take it Easy Food

  • It Ain’t so Bad Food

  • I’ll be okay food

  • Restoration food

  • Wounded Soldier Chow

  • Puli it together Plate

  • Reminder of Home

  • Soul Salve

• Pleasure Foods:

  • Mouth Entertainment

  • Treats

  • Party Food

  • Fun Snacks

  • Celebration Food

  • Amusement

  • Social Chow

  • Special Occasion Fare

• Fueling Foods:

  • Energy Pack

  • Battery Booster

  • Endurance Meal

  • Morning Meal

  • Rocket Fuel

  • Get’er Done Plate

  • Vitality Enhancer

  • Power Bowl

Create a personal list of labels like these to build a healthier relationship with food. This small mindful change could yield improved results in your physical and psychological well-being as you gain a more realistic understanding of what you can reasonably expect your food to do for you.