We are now solidly in the holiday season, where festive gatherings display tables of food, the alcohol seems to flow freely, and many consider shopping to be their preferred form of exercise. What if I told you that there was a way to enjoy the foods and drinks that you love, without feeling stuffed, hung over, or otherwise not your best?
“Conscious eating” is the practice of consuming foods in a deliberate and meaningful way, paying attention to the sights, smells, textures, and tastes to create a rich experience. In order to eat in a conscious way, you naturally slow down your ingestion and take time to note if you are satisfied with your level of fullness. Most people eat in a distracted, hurried manner, chewing only a small number of times before swallowing and taking the next bite. When you eat in this way, you not only tend to consume more food and drink, you also make it more challenging for your stomach and digestive system to process your food, which can lead to indigestion, gas, bloating, and other bothersome symptoms.
Practice conscious eating with the following exercise:
- Take a small piece of food, such as a raisin or nut, and place it in your hand. First, look at the food; for the sake of this article, we will call it a raisin. See the ridges, the indentations, the color, if it has a stem attached or not. Turn it over to examine it from all angles.
- Next, touch the raisin with your fingers, seeing how it feels. Is it rough, smooth, squishy, or any other texture?
- Lift the raisin to your nose and smell it. Can you smell anything?
- Now, place the raisin in your mouth but do not bite it. First, feel it with your tongue, noting how it feels on your tongue versus how it felt with your fingers. Can you taste anything without biting the raisin?
- Next, bite the raisin gently once. How does it taste? Continue to slowly chew the raisin, noting the taste. Chew it until it completely dissolves. Fight your urge to swallow it; keep chewing it until you can’t chew any more. Finally, swallow it.
- Close your eyes and see if you can still taste the remnants of the raisin in your mouth. Note to yourself how the experience was, and how it compares to how you normally would eat a raisin. Think about and journal on how you felt about this experience and how you think you may be able to incorporate in more conscious eating in your daily life.
Now in reality, do I expect you to spend 5 minutes with every bite of your food? Of course not. However, if you take time to visually appreciate your food, to smell it, say a quick “thank you” or blessing, and chew your food more thoroughly, then you will be adding a level of consciousness to the experience. When you add more consciousness, and take time to pause between bites, it provides space to check in with yourself and see if you want to take that next bite, or if you feel satisfied and want to stop eating. This naturally will lead to you eating less or drinking less than normal, and can help you reach or maintain a healthy weight for your body type and lifestyle.
While what you eat does matter, how you eat matters as well. Conscious eating addresses how you eat, without restricting what you eat. Therefore, it can be an excellent starting place if you are looking to make a shift in your health without wanting to deprive yourself of holiday treats, traditional family recipes, or your sister’s famous gingerbread martini. Wishing you happy holidays and a happy, healthy New Year!
Note: This article was originally published in a local magazine for their December 2021 issue. For citation references, please contact Dr. Yocum at https://jenyocum.com/contact/
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