Mindful eating, conscious living
The art of mindfulness can transform our struggles with food—and renew our sense of pleasure, appreciation, and satisfaction with eating. They say presentation is everything!
The raisin experience is a wonderful example of what mindful eating can be, with its intention to focus on various aspects of the moment-by-moment experience. The focus on the sensual experiences of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste brings about the full awareness of the food in the moment.
Mindful eating is an approach that involves bringing one's full attention to the process of eating—to all the tastes, smells, thoughts, and feelings that arise during a meal. Whether you are overweight, suffer from an eating disorder, or just want to get more out of life, being mindful of what you eat and the presentation makes a remarkable difference.
Also take into consideration to:
• tune into your body's own wisdom about what, when, and how much to eat.
• eat less while feeling fully satisfied
• identify your habits and patterns with food
• develop a more compassionate attitude toward your struggles with eating
• discover what you're really hungry for in your body needs water to work properly. For example, your body uses water to maintain its temperature, remove waste, and lubricate your joints. Water is needed for overall good health.
Path to mindful eating.
There is a strong connection between mind and gut. A series of hormonal signals connect our gut and central nervous system during the digestion process. During this time, the brain requires almost 20 minutes to understand the process of filling our stomach. Fast eating often results in overeating and may cause metabolic disorders such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, certain types of cancers and other related ailments. Several identified factors like serving size, visual cues, involvement in a social gathering, or any other situation where our attention is drawn from noticing our satiety cues can be termed as unmindful eating.
Unmindful eating is one of the primary reasons for overeating and obesity. People often engage themselves in browsing online while eating or watching television. Even cognitive stress during exam preparation can sometimes trigger overeating. Intermittent snacking has gained popularity but the unmindful eating of these snacks contributes to consumption of high sugar, salt, and fatty diets when snacking on processed foods. Nutritionists encourage mindful eating and eating healthy foods to maintain glycemic control and overall well-being.
What is mindful eating?
It involves conscious food selection, alertness of physical versus psychological hunger, consciousness of satiety cues, and the allocation of sufficient time for eating. In other words, an application of attentive awareness while eating a snack or a meal.
Mindful eating can be considered a type of weight loss diet, but it emphasizes the process of eating rather than shrinkage of food quantity. It is a step-wise process of practicing awareness of both the physical and emotional aspects of eating.
What are the benefits of mindful eating?
Mindful eating is a novel intervention to improve overall health. Researchers found that mindful eating has the capacity to ameliorate depression, anxiety, faulty eating habits, food cravings, eating disorders and weight management. Apart from these particular health issues, mindful eating is effective to control some chronic health conditions like type 2 diabetes. Mindful eating combined with a smart selection of food comes under the self-management in diabetic care. A clinical trial has been conducted for a period of 3 months to evaluate the benefits of mindful eating on type 2 diabetic patients. The study result showed improvement in glycemic control and dietary intake along with modest weight loss. These factors are important in reducing diabetes-related morbidity. Adherence to mindful eating habits with a smart selection of food items can significantly reduce hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) value. These health benefits can surely be helpful for type 2 diabetic patients.
Mindful eating is key to good health
Mindful eating can significantly reduce overeating habits, which directly relate to obesity. It is expected that practicing mindful eating will also improve behavioral flexibility, increase self-compassion and reduce stress levels.
To close: “how you do one thing, is how you do everything!”
Presentation is everything. Make it fun. Being mindful of serving deliciously is just a divine way of healthy living and conscious eating.
