Mindful Eating

Cheryl Mashore LVN, CNWC
Director, Health Education

Mindfulness means being fully aware of what is going on around and within you at each moment. Mindfulness can be applied to various aspects of life. Mindful eating may help with weight management. Mindfulness involves being aware of yourself - physically, emotionally, and mentally. It means paying attention to each changing moment.

When deciding what to eat, ask yourself three questions: What do I want? What do I need? and What do I have? The question “What do I need?” is about your personal health needs, including medical issues, allergies and reactions, family history, and health goals.

Nutrition knowledge is helpful for making decisions, but it is not the only criteria for deciding what to eat. There is room in your diet for foods eaten for pleasure! In fact, regularly including foods you love makes it less likely that you will overeat those foods because you ran out of willpower. While it may seem counter-intuitive, when you are free to eat whatever you want, food loses the power it had over you. As a result, your choices are likely to be more balanced instead of “all or nothing.”

One of the many benefits of mindful eating is that your awareness helps you make connections between what and how much you eat and how you feel—as well as how you feel and what or how much you eat! This feedback is very helpful for making changes in order to feel good – not to be good.

When a craving doesn’t come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it. By learning to meet your other needs in more effective ways, you won’t use food for that purpose nearly as often.

Mindfulness may help you to avoid overeating. First bites may be the most satisfying, and additional bites may not be as pleasurable. This can help with portion control.

In our food-abundant, weight-obsessed culture, eating occupies too much of our time, attention, and energy. You were born with the instinctive ability to eat enough food to fuel your life. Learning how to get back to that place where you can trust your ability to manage your eating without a bunch of rules gives you a pattern of eating that you can sustain almost effortlessly.

High Desert Medical Group offers a variety of free workshops and classes that help our members reach their individual health goals. For more information contact us our Health Education Department at 661-951-3375 or hdmghealtheducation@hdmg.net.