Slow Down & Taste Your Food - Mindful Eating

I have to frequently remind myself to slllloooooowwwww down when I eat and taste my food... enjoy and really connect with what I am nourishing my body with.

When I had to take classes about Gastric Bypass surgery, one of the sessions was about Mindful Eating.  It was fascinating to me.  Our teacher handed us all 3 raisins and asked us to eat them.  Then she handed us 3 more, but this time asked we chew slowly and think about the raisin and the texture, taste, smell, maybe where they came from (grapes etc.) and just enjoy them.  Al though, I got what she was making a point of and understood the whole lesson, I really do not like raisins....ha!  But anyway, it really made a big difference in showing you how to eat.  When you take the time to prepare, cook, and slowly eat your food, you truly can find that you will make better choices on what goes in your body and the amount that does.  Also, you are more able to start to feel what satiated feels like, not full, but satisfied.  So, when you know when your body gets to that point you stop eating.

After reading a little more about it on the web, I thought I'd share what this website says about Mindful Eating.  In fact, it's called "The Center for Mindful Eating"

Mindful eating has the powerful potential to transform people’s relationship to food and eating, to improve overall health, body image, relationships and self-esteem. Mindful eating involves many components such as:

• learning to make choices in beginning or ending a meal based on awareness of hunger and satiety cues;
• learning to identify personal triggers for mindless eating, such as emotions, social pressures, or certain foods;
• valuing quality over quantity of what you’re eating;
• appreciating the sensual, as well as the nourishing, capacity of food;
• feeling deep gratitude that may come from appreciating and experiencing food

Question:

Do you try to slow down and Mindfully Eat?