Nourishment is not just what you eat (good nutrition) but how you eat, too. That’s where the act of eating intersects the realm of the mind as well as the body, and why it’s so important to practice mindful eating in your every day.
Did you know that you’re likely to mindlessly dip your hand into the candy dish at work 70% more frequently if the dish is clear than if it’s opaque and covered resulting in an extra 77 calories consumed each day without even realizing? It’s true! But why is that? And, more importantly, how can we make simple changes to help us be more mindful?
When we know a little bit more about how to take charge of our external and internal environments, we can actually start to really enjoy our food more and feel ‘nourished’ without feeling stuffed. That’s what mindful—or conscious—eating is all about.
By the way, if those 77 calories don’t seem like a big deal, consider this: they can actually mean a whopping 5-plus pounds added to the body over the course of the year, unfortunately without even realizing it, leaving you wondering... where did those pounds come from?! Turns out the old saying “out of sight, out of mind” also rings true when it comes to food. We do have a tendency to see food and eat it... and research backs this up. In one study, when Hershey’s kisses were in sight and within arm’s reach, individuals ate twice as many candies as when they were 6 feet away behind their desk out of sight on a file cabinet. The study participants even ate 30% more if the dish was in arm’s reach within eyesight on the desk versus an equal distance out of sight—in a closed desk drawer. Out of sight, out of reach, and thus, out of mind. This is one way that making small decisions about how you set up your environmental space can affect your eating habits. Becoming more mindful and aware of our eating takes some strategy since we’re making lots of decisions about food every day.
Researchers have determined that we are making on average well over 200 decisions about food every single day! What’s for breakfast? Cereal or donut? Eat lunch in or out? Have salad or sandwich? A few m&ms from my coworkers desk? Again? Again? An afternoon latte or water? A second serving of pasta?
There is pressure all over to overeat—but with some smart strategies and simple, proven shifts you can become a more mindful eater and conscious chewer.
Five Key Strategies to Becoming More Mindful in Your Eating (and avoiding common pitfalls).
1. Set the table. Presentation is powerful!
No matter if you’re entertaining or in a hurry, setting the table can help you be more aware of your eating. Set the table and make it lovely. A simple placemat with utensils and even a cloth napkin (which is easy to wash and more eco-friendly) remind us that we’re about to sit down to a meal or a snack. Scientists at Cornell University have shown that using smaller and more decorative plates can help you naturally serve yourself (and thus eat) less while still feeling satisfied. Research also shows that using taller, narrower glasses versus wider, shorter glasses leaves us feeling like we’ve had more. And everything tastes better by candlelight. Whether it’s candlelight, dimming the light or adding soothing music, you can use what science has shown to help us create an atmosphere to be more mindful when dining helping us to slow down and ‘linger longer’.
2. Serve Yourself.
Using your smaller dishes and pre-portioning your food will help you eat a more modest amount and naturally stop when the meal is done. Plate the food before bringing it to the table. And if you’re going to serve anything family-style, let it be the vegetables and you’ll help eliminate the mindless noshing on high-calorie seconds that you didn’t want in the first place. Even with snacks, use a plate or bowl. Avoid the temptation to go from bag to hand to mouth with chips, nuts, and crackers. Portion them out and you’ll be more successful and mindful. Re-size the bag or box by making snack-sized packs of trail mix and other snack foods, creating what researchers at Cornell have termed “pause points” or natural signals to stop and reevaluate whether you’ll have or need more. This can save 100s of calories and near endless guilt.
A few other smart serving tricks. Eating in courses can slow down the pace and help with portion control, especially starting with a soup or salad course. Research from Penn State University has shown that when we start with a soup or a salad at our meal, we tend to feel more satisfied and end up eating fewer calories than without. What an easy and delicious shift. Other research has shown that using red pepper such as paprika and cayenne in your appetizers and meals may not only give your metabolism a boost, but lead you to feel more satisfied and naturally eat up to 200 fewer calories. Finally, when possible, try to leave a trail of evidence by serving foods like pistachios and peanuts in the shell and even chicken with bone in (but forego the skin.) You’ll have the shells or the bones as ‘evidence’ of what you’ve consumed and researchers have shown that people stop sooner when they can ‘see’ what they’ve eaten.
3. Sit down and avoid distractions.
Make it a rule—no matter how limited your time—to sit down undistracted when you eat. It should be no surprise that we hardly remember the few nuts we grabbed as we walked through the kitchen en route to another room or even hardly remembering even eating when we stood in front of the fridge or over the counter to consume our morning meal or a snack. And distractions make it even harder to be mindful.
Avoid distractions. While soothing music can help you take more time at the table, if there’s more food readily available, you might just end up eating more. That’s why serving in advance is so important. Even listening to a radio or reading a magazine over food, you may be more likely to refill your cereal bowl or keep munching on the food on your plate. Researchers observed that people ate 15% more food if they were listening to a radio show than if they were not. And TV may be the worst when it comes to mindless eating, One study showed that people eat 28% more food grazing in front of the TV if they watch for an hour than if they sit and eat for 30 minutes. The longer you watch, the more you mindlessly eat.
Remember to sit down and avoid the mindless eating traps including dashboard dining in the car, TV-time, deskside dining at the office, sink-side standing suppers and feeding facing into the fridge!
4. Slow Down.
Everyone wants to know the magic number of times a person should chew her food to practice mindful eating. While there’s no consensus on this per se, a person should chew enough times to really be aware and grind up the food in the mouth, but not so many that she’ll only do it once out of sheer frustration or boredom at the task. Therefore, say about 18-25 conscious chews and you’re good! There’s no question that the ‘speed of feed’ is a major risk factor for mindless eating, but thankfully there are a number of strategies to slow you down and increase awareness.
Eat with your non-dominant hand... the whole meal! If you write with your right hand, place your fork in your left. This isn’t just about manners either, since using your non-dominant hand requires more attention to your coordination and placement. Put your utensils down between bites. A recent survey of more than 2000 people showed that 29% percent reported scarfing down a meal without ever putting their utensils down. Use chopsticks! Not only do chopsticks require more concentration for eye-hand coordination, but generally you get less food per bite. And one study reported that healthy weight individuals were nearly four times more likely to choose chopsticks than overweight individuals in a Chinese restaurant. A simple observational study, but interesting nonetheless! And finally, practice the art of conversation. Turn eating together into dining and strike up a healthy conversation so that you have to slow down and converse between every delicious bite.
5. Savor Your Food.
Ultimately mindful eating is about enjoying your food and your health, too... minus the discomfort and guilt. It all boils down to savoring your food and feeling nourished! Enjoying your bites—what you see, smell and taste in your food—is worth taking the time.
A spoonful of soup, a bite of sweet potato, the roasted chicken you prepared, the smoothness of avocado on a sandwich, a small piece of chocolate... this is when you get to taste and feel the temperature, texture, spiciness, sweetness, sourness, saltiness—all the flavors and characteristics of your food. By setting yourself up for success by setting the table, serving yourself, sitting down and slowing down, you can savor and enjoy the food and drink before you. Mindful eating can be simple if you focus not on perfection, but making small shifts toward increased enjoyment through awareness. Pick 2-3 strategies to start with like chopsticks, smaller plates and portioning your snacks and you’re on your way. Set, serve, sit down, take it slow and savor! That’s what enjoying good food and good nutrition are all about.
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