Mindful Eating

What is Mindful Eating?

Help for Eating Mindfully

• Books
• Meditation CD's
• Websites
• Phone Apps

Evidence for Mindful Eating

The idea of mindfulness is an Eastern practice of becoming more aware of our mind, body, and spirit in each present moment.    It is used to develop a more aware, present, and compassionate state of self.  Eating mindfully involves being attentive and compassionate to our body, mind, thoughts, and emotions while we are eating. 

Unlike diets involving strict calorie restriction or limiting ourselves to a few chosen foods, using mindful eating is a way to change our relationship with food to one that is more satisfying than we could have ever imagined!

Try the following meditation exercise the next time you find yourself poised for a bite…

1. Ask yourself what caused you to come to this moment.  Are you really hungry?  Or are you reacting to some emotion, social situation, or maybe even the clock?  Maybe you are thirsty?  Try drinking a glass of water before you take that bite.  Many times our hunger is not driving us to eat.
2. How are you eating?  Are you multi-tasking while eating?  Watching TV?  Distracting your senses from the joy of eating?  Try to eat without distractions, at a table, alone, or sharing the joys of eating with others.
3. Note how the food looks, its colors, size, and shape.  As you pick it up, how does it feel between your fingers?  How does it smell?  Notice the sound it makes as your teeth crunch down as you chew slowly.  Feel the texture of the food on your tongue.  Notice the complexity of its taste on your tongue. 
4. Notice how your stomach expands with each individual bite.  Be mindful of when you are satisfied and STOP! 
5. Finally, be thankful for the food that is nourishing you.  Thank the farmer, workers, chef, and everyone who helped bring you that nourishment.  Thank the earth, rain, and seeds that grew the plant or fed the animal.   Remember that this food did not come to you without much sacrifice and love. 
6. Try this every time you eat and notice how it changes the pace at which you eat, the amount you eat, and how your body, mind and spirit react. 

If you have found this exercise helpful or intriguing, the following pages have resources to guide you on your journey of mindful eating.

Books

"50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food."  By Dr. Susan Albers.  This book focuses on easing emotional eating, giving techniques to find peace of mind.

"Eat, Drink & Be Mindful."  By Dr. Susan Albers.  This book is a collection of worksheets organized as a guide to the seven skills of a mindful eater: observing, being in-the-moment, acceptance, letting go, non-judgment, and mindfulness of the environment.

"Eating Mindfully" by Dr. Susan Albers.  This book discusses simple, straightforward techniques for anyone who has struggled with chronic dieting, weight control, and psychological stress due to mindless eating.

"Full Catastrophe Living."  By Jon Kabat-Zinn.  This book introduced the concept of mindful eating in 1990.  It includes an exercise for mindful eating.  It also a good introduction to meditation and mindfulness in all areas of life.

"Mindful Eating 101."  By Dr. Susan Albers.  This book focuses on college-aged readers who are facing many new pressures as young adults.  She navigates through the college environment and discusses healthful eating and self-acceptance.

"Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food."  By Dr. Jan Chozen Bays.  This book teaches tools for becoming a mindful eater and how to develop a more compassionate approach to struggles with eating. It also includes a 75 minute CD of guided exercises.

"Savor" by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lillian Cheung.  The book discusses mindfulness practices to promote health, well-being, weight loss, and inner peace.

Meditation CD’s

"Breaking Free from Emotional Eating."  By Geneen Roth.  This is a workshop complete with Q&A, visualizations, and discussions of how to listen to your body and enjoy food without emotional ties.

"Everyday Eating" by Geneen Roth.  Provides hands on exercises to rediscover the amazing sensations of everyday eating.

"Guided Mindfulness Meditation" by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  This is a 4 part home guided meditation on mindfulness, designed to cultivate your own personal practice.

"Mindful Eating."  By Dr. Jan Chozen Bays.  This 75 minute CD comes as a companion with her book (see above.)

"Mindfulness for Beginners."  By Jon Kabat-Zinn.  The first CD provides an introduction to the basics of mindfulness.  The 2^nd CD includes 5 meditations, one of which is on mindful eating.

Helpful Websites

www.eatingmindfully.com - Dr. Susan Albers’ website. 

www.geneenroth.com - Geneen Roth’s website has many resources for discovering your relationship with food and developing a mindful approach to eating.

www.tcme.org - The Center for Mindful Eating Discusses the Principles of Mindful Eating, a great website for resources and articles on Mindful Eating.

www.slowfood.com - Find a local chapter of the Slow Food Organization, a group that works to promote savoring food in this fast-paced world and choosing our food mindfully in order to promote clean healthy, sustainable food for the local community as well as for the whole planet. 

For the iPhone, iPad

Mindful Eating App by Mojomolo apps $5.99.

Evidence for Eating Mindfully

1. Dalen J, Smith B, et. al.  “Pilot Study: Mindful Eating and Living (MEAL): Weight, eating behavior, and psychological outcomes associated with a mindfulness-based intervention for people with obesity.”  Complementary Ther Medicine.  2010 Dec: 18(6):260-4. This study gives preliminary evidence that mindful eating interventions for obese individuals can significantly decrease weight, binge eating, depression and stress, and increase mindfulness and restraint around eating.
2. Framson C, Kristal A, et. al.  “Development and validation of the mindful eating questionnaire.”  Journal of the American Dietetic Association.  2009 Aug;109(8): 1439-44. In this study, regular yoga practice was associated with increased mindfulness and increased mindful eating.  There was no relationship of other forms of exercise studied (walking and running) with this mindfulness.  The mindfulness was also associated with less weight gain in middle-aged participants, and weight loss in those who were overweight.
3. Kristeller J, Hallett C.  “An Exploratory Study of a Meditation-Based Intervention for Binge Eating Disorder.”  Journal of Health Psychology.  1999 Vol 4(3). 357-63. This small study showed that after 6 weeks of mindfulness meditation practice the frequency and severity of binge eating episodes decreased significantly in people with binge eating disorder.
4. Maruyama K, Shinichi S, et. al.  "The joint impact on being overweight of self reported behaviours of eating quickly and until full: cross sectional survey." British Medical Journal 2008; 337: a2002. This study of self-reported behaviors in Japan found that eating quickly and until beyond satisfied were associated with being overweight.