Compliments of the Season

Friends,  

May you have wonderful holiday season.  I wish you much happiness, love and peace in the New Year.  

Thank you for your support.

Strategies for Holiday Eating…and other times, too

    One of the best strategies for eating this festive season is to eat mindfully.   Eating, in spite of its ‘ordinariness’, can also become an activity with several benefits:

·         it can help keep us healthier and trimmer

·         can become the gateway to discovering more about ourselves

·         can become a meditation practise

           

Eating for a Healthier You

     Eating mindfully helps as a weight-management strategy, and aids in making better eating choices. For most of us, we rarely eat when hungry.  In societies where access to food is easy, we become unconscious about the tendency to overeat.  Eating is a habit used to deal with unwanted feelings as we cram food to stuff emotions. And every time we eat, our attention is usually split, so we don’t really taste the food we are eating.

     However, when we eat meditatively, we consciously decide that the action of eating is what we are doing in the present moment, and we won’t rush through it to get to more “important” things.  We practise being present in mind, body and moment with the intention of noticing and enjoying each bite.

     To truly savor each bite, requires you to chew the food a number of times.  This slow chewing and tasting begins the digestive process in the mouth.  The intestines are then better able to absorb nutrients from the food which helps you be healthy.

     Slow chewing also signals the brain that the satiation point is being reached.  As you begin to feel fuller sooner, your appetite decreases.

     Another benefit of slow chewing is that you really begin to notice the taste of food and whether it agrees with you or not.  We may discover that what we eat is based on habit and access and not so much on preference.  This may influence future food choices. 

Discovering Yourself through Eating

    When you eat slowly and consciously, you grow awareness of what’s happening in your mind and body.  The slowing down of your physical body helps you to notice what’s transpiring in the mind. Your thoughts and ideas about food become clearer:  you are better able to recognize the ‘voices’ that cause you to overeat, the thoughts you have about self image, and fears you have about not having enough food etc.    

Learning to Eat Meditatively

    We notice all that is happening and we do not criticize ourselves.  Our task is simply to become aware of the interplay between thoughts, feelings, and our actions.  Being compassionate is important as eating is meant to be enjoyable and relaxing.   

Here’s how you eat meditatively:

    As you dish up your food, pay attention to your thoughts and feelings.  Are you worried there won’t be enough for seconds?  See what reaction this thought creates in your body – do you automatically reach for more food?

•  Sit down at the table.  Try not to read, listen to music, or talk. 
•  Before eating set an intention to enjoy the food, or to be mindful of each bite, or to thank the people who made it possible to have the food.  This act helps create a space between the preceding activity and what you are getting ready to do.

With eating meditation, you use all your senses:

o   First look at the food – see textures, colours, shapes. 

o   As you pick up the food, feel it; is it dry, hard, cold?

o   Smell the food as you bring it up to your mouth.  Notice what’s happening in your mouth and in your body.  Is your mouth watering?  Stomach growling? Does the smell trigger memories?

o   As you chew, pay attention to the changes the food undergoes.  From solid to liquid, tasty to bland.

o   Notice if you are already preparing your next bite even before you’ve finished swallowing. 

o   Become aware of what you do when the food begins to lose its intense flavor – do you automatically spoon more food into your mouth to prolong the pleasant taste?

·         If you are entertaining:

o   practise being aware that you are eating, talking, and laughing.  You are cultivating the habit of awareness. So try to be as present as possible noticing all that is happening in and around you as you enjoy the food, and the company of your friends and family.  

o   Chew your food and when you are done swallowing, put down your cutlery and then speak to guests.  This way you get to enjoy being with friends and with eating mindfully. 

    Be gentle with yourself.  You task is simply to notice.  As this habit deepens, you’ll grow your awareness and attitudes regarding food, and of the forces – earth, sun, bees, farmer, grocer– that go into making the food possible.  This awareness will increase the ability to see and appreciate the inter-connectedness of all things in life.

    Being present and enjoying our food is how we express gratitude for our good fortune to have food, this moment and life.

May you be healthy and happy.