6 Benefits of Mindful Eating

6 Benefits of Mindful Eating

Updated 10/12/2023

Mindful eating – using the tenets of mindfulness meditation while eating, has done nothing less than transform mind-body nutrition. Practitioners everywhere are incorporating it because it helps our clients change what they eat. Simple as that!

What is Mindful Eating?

Mindful eating is a type of meditation wherein you focus your attention on the sensory and other aspects of eating with an attitude of non-judgmental awareness. In essence, you slow down, eat with all five senses and stay curious about the process, about the food, and about your own relationship with food.

When I work with an individual, I almost always combine clear steps to bring food and lifestyle into balance (the what of lifestyle) with mindfulness (the how of lifestyle).

Since I’ve become a student of mindful eating myself, I enjoy my food more, often eat less, and am more satisfied. It takes longer to eat, (and to do the dishes as I really slow down), but I’m happier. Thich Nhat Hanh (who said he’s happier when he washes this teapot as though it were the baby Buddha or Jesus) is right.

The Science

The research community agrees that mindful eating is an effective tool. It can help promote a healthy natural weight (1) and curb destructive emotional eating (2). While the science is still young, it is evolving quickly – we are learning more about it all the time.

For emotional eating, mindful eating has been found to be most effective when combined with other behavior change techniques like coaching with a qualified nutrition professional. For effective weight management, again, mindful eating is most effective when it is done within a more comprehensive nutrition program and delivered by a well-trained professional.

 

6 Benefits of Practicing Mindful Eating

  1. Enjoying your food – First off, when people slow things down – and eating is a dramatic example – they tend to taste and enjoy their food more. It might seem ironic, but eating slowly is more interesting and enjoyable, once you get the hang of it.
  2. Epigenetic benefits – Epige-what? Epigenetics is the impact that choices have on gene expression. When you choose to eat a plant-based diet or move your body, you actually impact your gene expression, which in turn builds a more resilient future for you. It’s some of the biggest news in lifestyle medicine now.
  3. Neurobiology benefits – Mindfulness manages stress. When you slow down and breathe – particularly when you extend your exhale – you activate the whole rest-and-recover side of your nervous system. That not only manages stress but can improve digestion.
  4. Turn down the external messages on what and how much to eat. Face it, modern life is filled with messages from the media – commercials for fast food, billboards – it’s just everywhere. We are told we need to be eating basically all the time. It’s hard to ignore, but mindfulness can help you un-hook from those messages. That helps you to begin to find your own way.
  5. Tune in to your internal guidance system – instead of responding to cues from the outside, mindful eating gets you more in-tune with your internal guidance system – to if you are actually hungry, and when you are satisfied.
  6. Improve your relationship with what you eat. Eating is a two-way conversation. Mindfulness is an excellent way to tune in to the conversation. Beginning a mindful eating practice can bring up some uncomfortable aspects of your relationship with food. But, if you stay with it, keep your heart open as best you can, and practice compassionate self-observation, it can be a pathway to profound peace and self-compassion. 

 

An Awareness and Caution

One caveat – this practice can uncouple eating and satiety. It can help you eat less, but it can also help you undercut your nutritional well-being if your emotional eating has evolved into a more serious condition like an eating disorder. This is not a practice to help you stop eating or to eat less than your body actually needs. But, it can be misused in this way. Don’t do it – it won’t end well for you. You can avoid that risk – here’s how.

In addition to mindfulness, use nutrition guidelines for adequacy – adequate protein and energy needs – for your body. For example, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM, formerly the IOM), a non-governmental nonprofit affiliated with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which among other things tracks the research on dietary needs and creates recommendations, suggests that most humans need about 50 gm of protein to be reasonably healthy. I’ve found that a reasonable screen – is a starting place, for someone. A qualified nutritionist can help ensure that you are getting the nutrition you need to be who you want to be – strong, energetic, and healthy.

So How Do I Start?

Here is a free tip sheet to help you use mindful eating through the holidays.

Here’s another post:  Mindful Eating: The Art & Science of Eating Better 

Ready to practice? Check out my Mindful Eating Mini-course: How to Eat. Do it on your own, or bring me in to help. 

References:

  1. O’Reilly GA, et al., Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Obesity-Related Eating Behaviors: A Literature Review, Obesity Reviews, Published online 2014 Mar 18. doi: 10.1111/obr.12156
  2. Katterman, Shawn, et. al., Mindfulness meditation as an intervention for binge eating, emotional eating, and weight loss: A systematic review, ScienceDirect – Eating Behaviors, Volume 15, Issue 2, April 2014, Pages 197-204, doi: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2014.01.005

Ready to Practice?

Check out ‘How to Eat’: Mindful Eating Mini-course

mindful eating mini-course self-study
Eat Well for Less: Doable and so Worth It

Eat Well for Less: Doable and so Worth It

Quality food and produce – organics, artisanal, delicious –  is more widely available than ever before. Yet when I check out from my whole foods grocery – especially when I’m preparing for a special holiday or family dinner, I imagine my father (a rural farmer cash-on-the-barrel sort of guy) fainting dead away at the grand total.  Yipes! The price of high-quality (like organic grass-fed) meat or dairy, and fresh produce can take your breath away. You can eat well for less.

It takes some time and effort, but once you get into the swing of the practice, it’s just how you do it. The nutrition and taste benefits are very worth the effort.

If you feel the desire to eat high-quality food, but you aren’t independently wealthy, here are 7 ideas to help you eat well on a budget:

1. Try mindful eating.

Many Americans simply eat too much – be it healthy food or not. But just how much is enough? We’re designed to know. Mindful eating can help you find out how much food fills you up and gives you energy throughout the day. In fact, mindful eating is a practice that can help you turn down the external messages about what and how much to eat, and to tune in more deeply to your internal guidance system.

You can experiment by becoming a little more aware of the portion sizes you eat, and use mindful eating to help you experiment with just how much is enough. It’s a real sweet spot – adequate without over nor under-doing eating. It’s a practice for sure, and we humans by nature seem to over- or under-do it. So, if you struggle with this, you are not alone! Be patient and keep practicing.

How about an experiment –  quality over quantity?

Begin by experimenting with mindfully eating various foods – from treats like designer chips, whole foods take-out, gourmet pizzas and stevia sweetened sodas to more healthful choices like fresh vegetables and fruit, beans, nuts and whole grains. See how different foods make you feel, and how much seems to be enough to satisfy and give you energy through the day (I know, easier said than done). Eating lightly (and for some, passing on snacking) can be both healthful and cost-effective. The practice of mindful eating is a great place to begin to explore just what eating lightly means for you.

2. Enjoy plants. 

If you have more than one serving of animal protein each day, you may be healthier and more frugal to look to plant-based protein to replace some of the meat and dairy you’re eating. Need some ideas on a delicious way to focus on plant fare? Check out my recipe page, and my friend The Veggie Queen, who dedicates her working life to helping you enjoy more plants easily.

3. Consider a CSA or community food CO-OP.

Cut out the middleman and ensure the freshest local produce makes it into your kitchen all season long through a direct relationship with a local farm. To get stared check out Local Harvest. They will tell you how to get into the mindset, prepare to join, and help find your nearest community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms and CO-OPs.

4. The bulk food aisle (or discount website) is your friend.

Get a break on nuts, spices, whole grains and just about everything beyond fresh produce. If you don’t live near a grocery store that offers bulk staples, of course the internet marketplace is there wherever you are. The Spruce has a good article on their favorite online grocery sites.

5. Browse your market’s circular.

If you are so inclined to browse your supermarket’s circular, you really can shave a lot off your weekly food costs. My husband (astonishingly) does this as a practice – he plans our shopping around the meat and seafood that is on sale –  and he is truly amazing at it. The deals he gets are phenomenal! You do have to be aware that items on sale might not be the most healthful, so you need to practice discretion here.

6. Organic online coupons? Yep.

Check out All Natural Savings – a gal dedicated to online couponing –  to get you started. Whole Foods also has a weekly deals and sales page.  So many ways to use them to eat well for less.

7. Keep it all in perspective.

There’s a certain new math – a longer-term economics we need to consider when we think about the higher cost of clean whole food. That new equation is hidden beneath cheap subsidized corn, sugar, meat and dairy.  As a nutritionist for the past 25 years I know that this cheaper refined food is responsible for a world of disease and pain.  In my practice I see people improve their health every day through committing to higher quality nutrient-dense, low chemical load food. Most people feel better right away when they move away from the standard American diet and learn to make small choices toward health while enjoying what they eat and feeling great regardless of the number of the scale. The benefits continue to build over time with longer, healthier lives.

When it comes to quality food, no one can eat perfectly all the time unless they have limitless income, their own farm and a small team of vegetable choppers at the ready.

So, do what you can to eat well for less, and let the rest go. Small changes can add up, over time, to transformation.

Subtle Body Nourishment: Benefits of Learning the Art & Science of Energy

Subtle Body Nourishment: Benefits of Learning the Art & Science of Energy

Getting the balance of eating and yoga practice down is a challenge for anyone. We overdo it, we under-do it, we practice when we’re full. We under-eat and don’t have the energy to perform. Sigh. Our energy, as well as our hunger peaks and valleys – getting it right is a dynamic dance.
Understanding and experiencing your own subtle body (in yoga, that includes your thoughts, intuition and energy bodies) takes practice. When you practice skillful navigation of your subtle body, particularly balanced with the knowledge of your nutritional needs, it can help prevent you from falling off a nutritional cliff of over- or under- doing it. This is especially handy once you begin the esoteric energy practices and learn that you have greater control over hunger and satiety that you’d realized. Then, having the wisdom of science to anchor you in adequacy is even more important to maintaining physical health.
That’s subtle body nourishment.

 Why Bother? Benefits of Energy Practice

When you learn eating meditation techniques you are learning how to turn inward and participate in your body’s guidance systems – you have the option of taking more control –  be it breath or eating or even thinking. That’s what all the hoopla is about. If we don’t understand that we are taking the steering wheel of hunger and satiety, it’s easy to under-eat once prana (life force, or energy as in your breath) starts expanding and getting excited. Then, it’s easy to overeat through your inevitable energy contraction.
Many a yogini seems to get into eating trouble when learning these more esoteric practices. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Life is an energy experience. Meditative practices are energy practices, and require that you spend time within your inner landscape – the more time you spend there exploring and curious, the better you will know and be able to navigate that landscape.
By learning how to operate your own subtle body, you can ultimately better navigate the chaos without getting overwhelmed by static. You can operate in a more intentional way.
This sort of practice brings consciousness to your personal energy ecology; the conditions under which you shine, for example.
Energy practice, meditation, mindfulness can help you learn how to improve your digestion – how to basically give your bodies what it needs (time and calm, primarily) to digest properly.

What is the Subtle Body?

In yoga philosophy, the subtle body is the aspect of you that is unseen by the human eye. It includes your thoughts and emotions, the wisdom aspect of you – your intuition, and your energy body.
The subtle body profoundly determines how you feel, react and respond to the world around us. When you learn how to guide your own thoughts, for example, you can literally change your perception of your own life. When you learn to ground your energy body, you can handle the spiral of chaos that the world at times seems to be, rooting in the real rather than swirling away in yet another frenzied tweet.

Food & Yoga Practice

The truth of the matter is that everyone is different – physically but also nutritionally. How well you can perform right after you eat, and the ideal makeup of a meal to fuel your practice is individual. There are, however, guidelines – rules of the road. Ayurveda practitioners say that certain foods create certain energies. Western science has their own version of the same idea – in a very different language. The language of macro and micro nutrition, and meal timing.
Ultimately, the way to figure out what works for you is to do the experiment. Notice how it works for you.
I’ve been thinking about subtle body nourishment and how food and practice interact in preparation for a gathering of souls at Kripalu July 8-11, Sunday through Wednesday morning. If these topics get interest you, consider joining me to practice, explore and learn about what the yogis and Western nutrition has to say about it.
Be well, practice on.