For some years, it has become fashionable in society. This is a philosophy of life that comes from Buddhism and is based on living and feeling the reality of the present trying to escape from any element that can distract you. Now, the new trend within mindfulness is based on applying it in our day to day while we eat. Mindful eating can be defined as “taking our attention, moment by moment, to areas related to food. That is, it means raising our consciousness by observing our eating patterns with curiosity and acceptance, being aware of how we make decisions about what foods to eat.
It serves to abstract from reality
So in a fast-paced society full of tasks and where stress is the order of the day, mindful eating tries to stop a bit and abstract from that parallel reality that doesn’t let you focus your attention on what’s really around you, on what foods your body needs at that time, how it reacts to the intake of one or another meal or the appropriate time to eat.
What must be clear is that mindful eating is not a diet but a lifestyle with which you get to know your own body and its needs more and learn to differentiate psychological hunger from physiological hunger. This is because, almost always when we eat, what we are actually doing is satisfying our emotions and not our real needs. In addition, it teaches you to know when we are truly satisfied and we do not need to continue eating.
Steps to practice mindful eating
If you want to practice mindful eating, below we offer you a series of steps to follow with which you can achieve it more easily.
- Before you sit down to eat, drink a glass of water.
- If you’re not hungry, don’t eat.
- Find a quiet place to sit down to eat.
- Try not to fill yourself up.
- Listen to your body and eat everything.
- Taste each food well.
- Eat slowly.
In short, it can be said that mindful eating teaches us to regain full awareness of the importance of food.