Mindful Eating Strategies
During your medical weight loss program, it’s important to develop healthy eating habits. Mindful eating is a way of eating that involves complete awareness of your food and how you digest it. It can be a useful tool when it comes to digestion, portion control, losing weight and eliminating “mindless” eating. In fact, mindful eating can even enhance how enjoyable your meal is.
How to Practice Mindful Eating
When you aren’t mindful of the way you eat, you might end up eating more than you had planned, or eating too quickly. These are both bad habits to form when trying to lose weight. Having proper portion control as well as awareness of what and how you’re eating is how you become a mindful eater. Here are some ways to eat mindfully:
- Focus on every bite. Every time you take a bite, be aware of the food. Acknowledge its texture and flavor.
- Slow down. One of the more important aspects of mindful eating. Relax while you eat and take your time. Often, your stomach is full before you realize. By slowing down the pace of your meal, it gives your brain a chance to know when your body is full.
- Finish chewing. Don’t take another bite of food until you’ve finished chewing and swallowing the last bite.
- Don’t multitask when you eat. Distractions cause you to lose track of how much you eat. It’s easy to eat three times as many chips as you first planned if you’re mindlessly watching TV during lunch.
- Start small. Since you may be new to mindful eating, don’t create an unrealistic expectation for yourself. If you can be mindful of just one meal or snack every day, you’re already better off than you were before.
Benefits of Mindful Eating
Mindful eating has many benefits, and combined with healthy dieting and an active lifestyle, it’s an incredibly beneficial tool for working toward weight loss success. Some benefits of mindful eating include:
- Reduce the possibility of over-eating and feel satisfied with less food since you’re able to understand when you’re full sooner.
- Improve your digestion by slowing down your eating process.
- Enjoy your food more by embracing all aspects of its taste and texture, while savoring every bite.