Nina Kaufmann

If you will, take a moment to reflect on your usual eating experiences.
Do you rush through your meals? Do you mostly eat while watching Netflix or doom scrolling? What are you thinking about while eating? About next thing you have to do? About how you “really shouldn’t eat this,” eating your fries with a side of guilt?
How often do you truly take time to experience the pleasure of eating?

If you’ve noticed lots of your eating experiences are rushed and your mind is somewhere else while you’re eating, maybe it’s time to try mindful eating.

By learning to be present in the moment while eating, slowing down and truly experiencing your food – noticing the taste, the texture, the smell, and how it feels in your body, you get to reconnect with your body. When you’re focused on your eating experience, with time, you’ll be able to tune in and notice your likes, dislikes, and how certain foods feel in your body.

Bringing mindful awareness to the sensations of eating might sound overwhelming, but remember, nothing you do needs to be perfect when it comes to eating (or anything else, for that matter) – what will matter most for your well-being is what you do some of the time/most of the time. Mindful eating is about non-judgemental awareness, so it definitely allows imperfection!

Therefore, the most important aspect of mindful eating is self-compassion: you will not do it perfectly, you will probably not eat mindfully all the time – life is still happening, and sometimes you’ll grab a quick bite and be done with it and that’s okay!

What Is Mindful Eating?

Teaching us to reconnect with our physical and emotional sensations while eating, mindful eating is one of the most useful practices you can incorporate in your health journey.

The focus of mindful eating is how you eat, not what you eat – you can choose any food you want is eat it mindfully, increasing the pleasure of that experience!

The awareness that you bring to the table will allow you to stay tuned into your hunger and satiety feelings, and noticing the pleasure factor of eating. With this, mindful eating is a perfect and important support for your intuitive eating journey.

With this, mindful eating is a very useful tool for anyone learning to eat intuitively – mindful eating and intuitive eating work wonderfully together, helping you build trust with your body, reconnect you with your internal cues and discover satisfaction of eating!

The connection with food that you create will help you notice that maybe a handful or two of chips is already satisfying – when you really feel the crunchy texture and the intense flavor, and you don’t need to eat a whole bag while watching TV, not even noticing how much you’ve eaten until you reach the bottom of the bag, and experience the familiar discomfort.

In this way, you can enjoy all the foods that you’ve previously labeled as “bad” and “forbidden”, and they will not have power over you that ends up with you binge eating and instantly regreting it.

How To Start With Mindful Eating?

Choose One Meal Or Snack

As I always tell my clients, smallest steps get us where we want to go. Then we reflect on how they previously tried many diets, and most of them required them to change their whole life, making it really difficult to follow (especially when you’re starving.)

We’re not going to do that mistake again – when it comes to practicing mindful eating (and intuitive eating), there’s no rush, no perfection and no life overhaul necessary. You have all the time in the world to make progress.

Therefore, you can simply choose one meal or snack that works best for you to try practicing compassionate awareness.
It’s important to plan which snack or meal so that mindful eating practice fits your lifestyle – if you know you’re busy all day and won’t have 20 minutes to sit alone, enjoying a delicious muffin, ask yourself what can you do instead?

Many of my clients decide to wake up 20 minutes earlier, when they’re feeling fresh for the day and the chaos of everyday life hasn’t started yet, and then they eat and drink in peace.
For many of them, starting the day with mindfulness and intention changes everything. The more you’re at peace with food, the more your life opens up, so starting a day with a mindful breakfast truly works wonders.
They often report feeling more grounded and grateful, which I think is the perfect way to start a day!

Remove Distractions:

To help you eat more mindfully, make sure you’re able to engage fully with your meal.

This means, no phone, no TV, not eating while getting ready for work, not eating while driving or walking.

For this little practice, carve the time that’s only for you and your food.

Before You Start:

Before eating, check in with yourself:
– notice the sensations in your body,
– notice how hungry you are (perhaps using the hunger scale),
– notice what food sounds good.

Take a few deep breaths, and bring your awareness to the food you’ve chosen.
If you want, take a moment to reflect on the different components of your meal and how much work it took for the food to come to your plate – notice the gratitude bubbling up. Isn’t it amazing how many choices we have?

Now that you’ve taken a minute to connect with your food, it’s time to eat.

Slow Down:

Just for this one snack or meal, slow down intentionally.
Chew your food thoroughly, focusing all your attention on the process. Notice the looks, the colors, the taste, the texture, the smell, the temperature. How does it feel? Is it satisfying?

Mid-meal, stop eating for a minute or so. Notice the sensations in your belly. Are you still hungry? How hungry? Does the food feel good in your belly?

Slowing down and pausing intentionally allows you to connect with your internal cues: am I still hungry or am I just eating because the plate isn’t empty? Am I still enjoying the meal or am I just eating on autopilot?

Of course, you can then continue to eat if you’re still hungry.

Pausing for a moment simply allows you to bring your awareness to where you are, and allows you to choose what to do about it.

If you notice you aren’t hungry anymore, now you can consciously choose to stop eating, reminding yourself that the food will always be there, and next time you’re hungry, you can come back and eat more.

I sometimes do a similar exercise with my clients and students, called “Chocolate Meditation,” where they take a piece of chocolate and just for a few minutes, guided by me, they dive fully into experiencing the richness and the decadence of their little mouthful of chocolate.
Feeling the explosing of melting chocolate in their mouth, bringing all their awareness to the moment between them and their favorite chocolate often makes them realize – when you enjoy your chocolate mindfully, little can be enough and you can feel truly satisfied!
(But you’re allowed to take another piece too – restrictions will never serve you.)

After The Meal:

When you notice and honor your fullness and satisfaction, when you’re done eating, I’d like to invite you to take a few more deep breaths.

Reflect on the experience – how does it feel being fully present in the moment with the delicious sensations of food?

Was it difficult to notice your hunger and fullness cues?
Was it difficult to allow yourself time to just eat?
Did you slide into agressive, fast chewing and running through your to-do list in your mind half way through?

Remember, these reflections aren’t supposed to be judgemental and do not mean you “can’t eat mindfully!”

Mindful eating is a skill which you can get better and better at, the more you practice. Even having a few moments of mindfulness during your meals can make a big difference long time – every experience serves to bring your closer to yourself and rebuild trust with your body. Experiences don’t need to be perfect in any way, messy is good enough.

The key is to keep showing up!

Especially if you know you’ve been eating on autopilot for a while, it’s not so easy to switch and now enjoy long pleasurable meals where all your attention is on the food – that would be unrealistic expectation that would almost certainly lead to feelings of failure.

The goal is to consistently try to bring yourself back to the moment, even just for a few moments. The goal is to notice with compassion, take small steps – they will bring you where you want to go!

Conclusion

Mindful eating practice can bring significant positive changes to your life, especially when combined with intuitive eating.
When you’re constantly choosing to connect with your body and listen to your internal cues, you get to notice what foods feel good, and how you can better take care of your well-being.

Sometimes the best thing for your health with be a luxurious piece of creamy chocolate cake that you enjoy with all your senses, and sometimes the best thing will be a refreshing, crunchy salad with a zesty lemon dressing propelling you into a gorgeous sunny day. Both are lovely, and both belong in a happy, healthy life!

To end with, I’d love to invite you to choose one day next week and eat a snack mindfully. If you wish, I’d be delighted to hear from you – how did it feel to slow down and let the deliciousness explode in your mouth?

Also, if all of this feels way too overwhelming, perhaps professional guidance would be just the thing for you!
Developing a healthy, peaceful relationship with food isn’t always easy, you might experience lots of ups and downs – having someone trusting with rich experience who can light the way can make all the difference.
And you deserve to nurture your health, and you deserve to get help so you don’t have to struggle alone, and I’m here for you.