The Benefits of Mindful Eating

Before we dive into our first habit, I want you to read this excerpt from the book “Atomic Habits” below.  This will explain why building habits or as he refers to them your “system” is so important for long-term success.  These habits are laying the foundation for living a healthy lifestyle! 

https://jamesclear.com/goals-systems

Now, onto your first Habit! 

Eating without distraction

For the next two weeks, I want you to explore the benefits of mindful eating. More specifically, I want you to focus on eating at least one meal per day without distraction. This means it’s just you and your food.

No phone, no book, no TV, no computer. Loved ones are acceptable, but be aware of your food as you are eating with them!!  Pretend you are on a hot date, you wouldn’t shovel food into your mouth on a hot date, would you???

What you are aiming to achieve here is mindfulness while eating. How many times have you eaten a meal while so distracted that you can’t even remember what your meal tastes like because you shoved it into your mouth and were too distracted to notice?? We are going to work on that, and you will find it can be a very powerful tool! 

Below you will find two articles on the reasoning behind this biweekly habit. The first one talks about the importance of slow eating, and the second one talks about a study done on distracted eating and how it leads to overeating later in the day. I recommend reading the first one. The second one is summed up below. 

https://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-slow-eating (read time 5 minutes)

What if I told you that you could have better digestion (Bloating, GI discomfort, irregular bowel movements anyone?), better hydration, easier weight loss, and a greater satisfaction with your meals by doing one thing? You would probably be dying to know what it is. 

It’s simple, but in today’s society, it’s not always easy. It's eating SLOWLY. Fast food, watching TV, Rushing from meeting to meeting, eating while on a cell phone, eating in the car, etc. These are all reasons why this can be a hard habit, but when people slow down they eat less, they feel better, and they lose weight! 

I implore you to read the above article. It goes into detail of why eating slowly can be such a powerful tool for weight management, overall health, and well-being! 

In addition, this research study is another great read regarding mindful eating. If you don’t want to read the full article, here is a summary:

This research study had 16 females eat lunch while watching a 10-minute video, and then 2 days later eat the same meal with no distractions. 2.5 hours later the subjects came back and were offered an assortment of cookies. The researchers tracked how many calories worth of cookies the subjects ate….

The study found that on the days the individual ate lunch with “the Distraction”, the subjects ate on average, 55 more calories worth of cookies…

Now you may be thinking 55 calories is nothing.. How about this? 55 calories every day for a year adds up to roughly 20,000 calories or 6 lbs of fat!! 

The reason that people tend to eat more calories, even hours later after eating a distracted meal, is that the subjects reported not remembering their lunch as vividly. They didn’t savor their meal, and they hardly remembered eating it in the first place!

MAIN TAKEAWAY

Eating a meal while watching TV may make you snack more hours later. Eat without a distraction so you can savor your meals and be less likely to snack later!