HEALTH: MINDFUL EATING leads to better health, physical, mental and emotional.

Mindful Eating: A Simple Guide
Mindful eating is a technique that helps you pay closer attention to your food and how it makes you feel. It can help you manage your weight, reduce emotional eating, and improve your relationship with food.

What Is Mindful Eating?
Mindful eating is based on mindfulness—a form of meditation that helps you recognize and cope with your emotions and physical sensations. It’s used to treat eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and various food-related behaviors.

Core principles of mindful eating:

• Eat slowly without distractions
• Listen to physical hunger cues and stop when full
• Distinguish between true hunger and emotional triggers
• Engage your senses (notice colors, smells, sounds, textures, and flavors)
• Let go of guilt and anxiety about food
• Notice how food affects your feelings and body
• Appreciate your food

Why Try Mindful Eating?

Modern life is full of distractions—TVs, computers, and smartphones often steal our attention during meals. This makes eating a mindless, rushed activity.

The problem: Your brain needs time to register fullness. If you eat too fast, you may overeat before realizing you’re full.

Benefits of mindful eating:

• Helps distinguish emotional hunger from physical hunger
• Increases awareness of eating triggers
• Gives you time to choose how to respond to cravings
• Reduces stress around eating

Mindful Eating and Weight Loss

Research shows mindful eating can support weight loss by changing eating behaviors and reducing stress. Studies have found:

• A 12-week mindful eating program resulted in an average weight loss of 4 pounds
• Mindful eating may be as effective for weight loss as conventional diet programs
• People who regain weight often struggle with binge eating, emotional eating, and food cravings—all areas where mindful eating helps

Mindful Eating for Binge Eating and Emotional Eating

Mindful eating can effectively treat:

1. Binge eating disorder (BED) – Eating large amounts of food quickly and without control
2. Emotional eating – Eating in response to emotions rather than hunger
3. External eating – Eating triggered by the sight or smell of food

Research shows mindfulness-based therapy improves eating behaviors and helps people regain control over food intake.

How to Practice Mindful Eating

Simple strategies to get started:

1. Eat more slowly—don’t rush your meals
2. Chew thoroughly
3. Turn off the TV and put down your phone
4. Eat in silence occasionally
5. Focus on how the food makes you feel
6. Stop eating when you’re full
7. Ask yourself: Am I truly hungry? Is this food nutritious?
8. Plate your food instead of eating from the package
9. Eat at a table, not at your desk or in front of the TV

Tip: Start by focusing on one meal per day. Once you’re comfortable, expand to more meals.

Good Foods for Practicing Mindful Eating

While you can practice with any food, these require more attention and are great for beginners:

• Pomegranates (require careful sectioning)
• Edamame (slide beans out of pods)
• Cherries (remove pits)
• Peanuts or pistachios in the shell

The Bottom Line

Mindful eating is a powerful tool for managing your eating habits. It helps you develop awareness of your experiences, physical cues, and feelings about food—supporting better health, weight management, and your overall relationship with eating.