Mindful Eating

Last night as part of the 14 - Day Challenge I attended a session on mindful eating. Mindful eating isn't about judging yourself on what you are eating or why you are eating it, but to just acknowledge what is going on. I can get behind that premise. 

We learned to pause before we eat and think about the following-

1. Why we are eating- there are three reasons for eating: Hunger, Emotion, and Environment. Apparently very few people eat because they are hungry. The Nutritionalist had some interesting facts about environment and eating like the fact that the chance you will make increasingly unhealthy eating decisions is directly correlated with the number of people you are eating with (mo' people = mo' problems?).

2. How much we eat- your stomach is the size of your two fists side by side. So you should keep that in mind when deciding how much to eat. We talked about actual serving sizes and how the size of the plate/bowl can be deceiving. 

3. What we are eating- this was more than just knowing what it was and all the ingredients involved. She had us practice by eating a few different things. First we tried blueberries. Instead of popping them in our mouthes one after another we rolled them around in our fingers, smelled them, rolled them in our mouthes, chewed them (acknowledging the flavors and textures all along the way) and then finally swallowing them. The process reminded me a lot of wine tasting. The idea is to savor every part of a meal.

4. How do we feel after we eat- understand that what you eat impacts how you feel and find out what makes you feel good and what makes you feel bad.

She recommended keeping a food diary and writing about all four items.

They also gave us a reusable salad bowl from Sweetgreen with a handy dressing holder so my leaves won't get soggy! 

Postscript-
After a less than stellar day at the office I was feeling up for some emotional eating, I thought Shake Shack sounded good, but all that cheesy goodness in the shroom burger and milk in their milkshake just isn't approved for the challenge. So I came home and had a salad. And was satisfied. haha. Just Kidding, I had the salad and then made a delicious "milk" shake of my own. One frozen banana (peeled with a veggie peeler) and a cup of almond milk blended together tastes amazing. I appreciated and acknowledged every sip.