Eating With Your Body Not Your Brain
In our society today there are few of us who eat with our actual body, listening to it’s needs and its sensations as opposed to eating with our brain and picking what sounds good to us at the time or worse - not paying attention to our food at all and watching the tv or reading the newspaper instead. We spend so little time focused on our food and what we’re putting in our bodies that sometimes we may not even be hungry or know what it is that we want to eat - let alone what our bodies need us to eat. It’s strange that we’re so out of touch with our bodies when we live in a society that is so completely focused on how our physical body looks and feels all the time but we certainly are. How many of us mindlessly drink coffee as we drive to work, or munch on chips or candy as we type throughout the day, or eat dinner as we watch tv or argue with our spouse? More than just a few I’m willing to guess. The fact is that we’ve completely lost touch with our food and the way it interacts with our bodies and it’s more than time that we take it back.
One of the first things you can do is to get a really good idea of exactly how you feel each and every time prior to eating. Sit down, sit still, and really feel what’s going on with your body. At least for five minutes. Pay attention to your breath for a minute and take stock of how your body is feeling and reacting in that moment. Do you actually feel hungry or is it something else? Are you tired, stressed, worried, upset, angry? Is eating going to fix any of those? Is it truly hunger that’s presencing itself with you or some other issue that needs to be dealt with? Breath and let these feelings come and go.
It’s also important to eat with all of your senses and to really be present as you’re eating. Smell and taste your food, look at it before you put it in your mouth. Give it your full and undivided attention. Enjoy it or don’t eat it at all. Make sure that you’re not blocking out the taste of food or the sensation of it with other distractions. Give your food the attention it deserves. Make a point of checkin in with your body as you eat and make sure everything feels in balance and like it should. It’s so easy to ignore feelings of being full or not feeling good when you’re busy with a movie or a game as you shovel food into your mouth. Don’t allow this to be a habit and always make a point of examining how your body is feeling as you eat and digest your food. Doing so may also make you aware of foods that aren’t good for you and can change how you think about what you eat.
Make it a habit to eat with your body instead of eating with your mind or not being present as you eat at all. Good luck!