BITESIZE HEALTH HACK #6
YOU ARE INVITED TO…
Relish every Bite
What if changing your relationship with food didn’t have to be about restrictive diets, starvation and guiltily beating yourself up about the crap you eat1?
What if the cure to binge eating and mindless scoffing (who me?!?) could be as simple as relishing every mouthful of food2?
Because the reality is that if we can bring mindfulness and awareness to our eating, it becomes a lot easier to make conscious healthy eating choices, making this a VERY important first step to put in place BEFORE starting a new eating plan.
Today, I would love to try an exercise with you called “the raisin exercise”7.
Go and grab yourself a couple of raisins, a piece of chocolate or any small item of food that takes your fancy and a small plate or bowl. Once you have that to hand, watch and follow along with the 5-minute video below.
THE HACK
FULLY SEE, TOUCH, SMELL AND TASTE
EVERY SENSATION YOUR FOOD OFFERS
WITHOUT JUDGEMENT
OVERCOMING THE CHALLENGES
No time to eat so slowly?
Well the good news is that you don’t need to bring the same level of depth and slowness to every bite in the way we did in the raisin exercise.
And start off slowly2 by choosing just one meal or snack a day in your first week.
Simply take a few moments to visually digest what is on your plate before you start, let the smell of your food activate your salivary glands and savour the texture and taste in each mouthful.
Avoid other distractions - let food be the focus.
Never get to eat alone?
While it may be easier to do your first few mindful eating exercises on your own, it won’t be long before you’re ready to level up to practise being present to the conversation as well as present to the food you are eating. And how good does that feel?
You’re an emotional or boredom eater and you're scoffing food before you even realise you're doing it?
Try bringing in the mindful awareness one step earlier. Pop a post-it onto your fridge and cupboard doors to remind you to notice what feels are prompting you to look for food.
Are you stressed, bored, angry, sad or lonely?
If your desire is not actual hunger, then this is a fantastic opportunity to make a choice to do something more aligned with who you are today instead of reacting mindlessly1.
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It’s also a great time to practise your newly developed belly breathing skills from Bitesize Health Hack #1 to bring you back to centre.
You could also create a list of at least 10 things you could do instead of eating to help you feel better (and keep it near the food cupboard).
Still finding it a bit challenging?
Then have a bit of fun with these little tips:
Try eating with your non-dominant hand or chopsticks2 or putting your fork down between bites4.
Think, with gratitude, about the journey of your food, being nurtured from a seed to your plate2.
.Create a short ritual at mealtimes, such as traditional grace or other gratitude offering, lighting a candle or serving food to others4. Itcould be as simple as placing your napkin on your lap.
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MY TAKE ON THE
SCIENCEY SHIZZLE
(IF YOU’RE ALL ABOUT “BUT WHY…?”)
There are many, many, many scientific studies into the benefits of mindfulness on all areas of health (including weight loss) and we will revisit mindfulness often, so in the reference list I have kept to articles and studies that focus on mindful eating, rather than general mindfulness.
Well, first of all, the obvious… if we’re eating more slowly, our body has a chance to become more satiated before we eat as much food.
We all have those friends who tell you they just can’t put on weight, no matter how much they eat. Well next time you’re sharing a meal with them, notice how slowly they eat.
Yup, they’re probably the ones chewing 32 times or talking too much and (somewhat embarrassingly), when your plate is empty, they’re not even half-way through.
Now I'm not saying that the science tells us mindful eating makes you skinny, but it's food for thought indeed.
And we do know that mindful eating helps your food digest better.
Savouring your food, particularly before you start eating, activates the salivary glands to produce more digestive enzyme-containing saliva, which, along with chewing, get the digestive process started. So, the more you savour and chew, the better your digestion and nutrient absorption5.
But if you're stressed or rushing while you're eating, you're in fight or flight and when you're in this stress response, the body shuts down digestion to divert resources to fleeing or fighting, so it's really best to be Present, relaxed and slow when you eat, keeping you in "rest and digest" mode.
Just like we talked about in Hack #1 (Belly Breathing), getting present also helps you to bypass that instinctive habitual reaction (usually generated as a part of flight or fight through anxiety or some other negative emotion) with a more conscious action.
So when you get Present and eat mindfully, you're also practising at breaking a habit!
At the same time, mindful eating can help you let go of past expectations, resentments and negative associations with food, or at least some types of food.
If we break the pattern, we can let go of the negative association and replace it with a new positive, judgement-free experience1. This is clearly in contrast to traditional weight loss dieting, which is all about striving (and often failing) and simply serves to add a whole host of further negative emotions around eating.
Mindful eating has no effort, no rules and no expectations, therefore you are not setting yourself up to fail.
Interestingly, some research has shown that remembering in more detail what you’ve eaten earlier can decrease the amount that is eaten at the next meal. A study tested this by distracting subjects at their first meal with TV or a computer game and found that those who were distracted at the first meal ate more at the second meal6.
I’d like to end with a quote from a Headspace article on mindful eating
“Bringing mindfulness to the table means a kinder, gentler approach to eating. The focus isn’t necessarily on changing the food we eat (though it can be), it’s on changing our thinking around food.”3
This is a lot of fun to play with and the first crucial step that everyone start with in our programs before working on a healthy eating plan.
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REFERENCES
Here is a collection of articles from reputable medical or media sources that make easy reading with references to the original studies if you want to dig deeper. The fact that these are all mainstream points to how the benefits of meditation are so widely accepted by science today.
When science meets mindfulness – Harvard Gazette
Seven Ways Meditation Can Actually Change The Brain – Forbes Magazine
12 Science-Based Benefits of Meditation - Healthline
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/12-benefits-of-meditation
16 Health Benefits of Daily Meditation According to Science – Positive Psychology
Meditation and Mindfulness: What You Need To Know –NCCIH
https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-and-mindfulness-what-you-need-to-know
Meditation: A simple, fast way to reduce stress - MayoClinic
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in-depth/meditation/art-20045858#
If you follow me and my hacks, Presence is definitely something we’ll be touching on time and again. But if you can’t wait to find out more, there are countless studies on the effect of meditation and mindfulness on health and should easily be found by a google search. You can also read and research around neuroscience, embodiment and presencing.
© 2023 EAT. SLEEP. PLAY. REPEAT