Making Peace with your Food- Mindful Eating Vol. 1

I am eating for fuel as I make my way through training for my Half Marathon! [AH]!

How and why you ask? I am making peace with my food...

- Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you keep telling yourself you can’t have something and deprive yourself, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and binging. Remember to think “do I really need this?”, “how it will make me feel once I am done?” and if you have decided it is something you need, savor every bite and really enjoy the satisfaction factor, one of the most basic gifts of existence- pleasure and satisfaction that is found in the eating experiences.
- Reject the diet mentality. Learn to eat the things you want. Listen and honor your hunger. Keep your body biologically fed- look for your hunger cues from your body and act upon them.
- Respect your fullness. While eating ask yourself, how does the food taste? Pause in between bites and put your fork down, this will give your body more time to signal to the brain that you’re full. It takes about 20 minutes for this message to get to the brain.
- Eat and focus. Go back to the times when we ate as a family at the dinner table and not around the TV in the living room. Studies have shown that those who focus on their meal during a meal time and aren’t watching TV, driving or in a hurry and standing, have eaten less calories in one sitting.