Mindful eating is the conscious awareness of what you eat, how you eat, and the purpose of eating being aligned with your desired health goals. On the other hand, mindless eating is the unconscious decision to eat without any alignment to health goals. It’s just eating for the sake of eating! The mindless version of eating can lead to overeating and weight gain.
Some tips to keep you aware of your eating decisions include:
- Eat when hungry. Everyone’s got an internal clock that will tell you when you are hungry. Eating with your internal clock is better for your weight.
- Use smaller plates. This is an automatic way of reducing the portion size.
- Portion food out. This means take the amount you’d like to eat out of a bag of potato chips and put that in a bowl. This way you aren’t eating the whole bag!
- Volumize your foods. Eat high volume foods which are low in calories to satisfy hunger with high water or high fiber foods. Choose low calorie density foods like vegetables and make a large grilled vegetable platter, or a large salad.
- Eat slowly. Taking some time to chew properly and swallow before the next bite allows a fuller feeling when eating. Some strategies for this one include eating with a non-dominant hand or using chopsticks.
- Keep evidence of quantity eaten at eye level. This can include empty cans of beer, meat bones, left over crusts, shells, fibers, etc. These visual clues can subconsciously affect fullness.
- Eating with others. Eating with other people can cause you to nibble on extra food you may not have eaten solo. On the other hand, eating with a slow eater may cause you to also eat slower. Strategically, you can remove your plate when you are done eating and continue to socialize with other diners.
- Reduce variety of items. If dinner includes 4-5 plates of various foods, then even if you take a small amount of each one, it can add up to be more than if there was a 1 food meal.
- Unplug. Watching TV or other distraction while eating may lead to rapid or mindless eating. By removing the electronic unit (TV, phone, ipad, computer, etc) while eating, the focus can go back to the food, texture, and flavor.
- Make it inconvenient. The more work one has to do to eat a food, the less likely you will eat it. If you have to climb up a stool to get your snack or dessert, you may forego it every now and then.
- Keep high impact foods out of eye level. Keep sweet and high fat foods away from eye level, as research shows that when food is in sight, it pushes people to consciously decide whether to eat it. Seeing it more often increases the chances you’ll eventually choose to eat that food.
- Read labels. Many foods – health foods even- are labelled with words that conjure an image of wholesomeness or healthy, that we assume they are healthy. Learn about the new and improved labels which note honest nutrition information. Ask restaurants to provide you with nutrition information when you dine out.
- Don’t buy in bulk. Stockpiling foods can push one to eat more unless the extra food is kept out of eye level.
