Mindful Eating
Redefining "Enough": Shifting from Unpleasant Fullness of the Body to the Pleasant Expansion of the Mind
By Pavel Somov
www.eatingthemoment.com
Portion control, the good ol' divide (the portion) and conquer
(overeating) approach, is not without merit. But what if you redefine
the portion size from how many mouthfuls you can have to how many
mindfuls you need to feel full, if you shift your attention from a
mouthful to a mindful, from a serving to a savoring?
What's a mindful? A mindful, to coin a term, is a
unit of mental absorption in whatever it is that you are doing. For
example, as you look back at a typical day, perhaps most of it was spent
in a state of robotic, mindless monotony, with the exception of a couple
of moments when you were really present, thoughtful, and mindful of
something. Maybe you found yourself scratching your head over some
challenging problem. Maybe, at the end of your lunch break, you caught a
glimpse of a bird swaying on a tree branch. Maybe, when finally home,
sitting in your car in the driveway, you had a sense of perspective.
Whatever their content, these moments of being mindful are just that:
states of being attuned to the moment, absorbed in the here and now.
In application to eating, a Mindful is a moment of being conscious of
eating. Maybe it will last ten seconds, maybe half a minute. But however
long, it is a unit of awareness, a serving of mindfulness.
A Savoring, to coin another term, is a unit of mindful
appreciation, a moment of conscious enjoyment, a highlight. To have a
savoring, you first have to have a moment of eating consciousness (a
mindful). After all, how can you enjoy a moment if you are not aware of
it? So, whereas mouthfuls and servings are the units of fullness,
mindfuls and savorings are the units of mind-fullness.
To help you shift from fullness to mind-fullness, I suggest
that at the end of your meals, you look back at your experience and take
stock of how conscious you were of your eating and of the moments of
eating you enjoyed. How many mindfuls did you have? Which moments were
you actually fully conscious? Were you present when you tasted the food?
Were you present when you picked up the fork? Were you present when you
had a sip of water? How many savorings did you have? Which specific
moments of delight did you register? What did you enjoy? Did you
consciously enjoy biting into that apple? Did you consciously enjoy the
aroma of the bread? Was your mind full?
Set a goal: one mindful per serving, one savoring per meal. Challenge
yourself, set a more ambitious goal: one mindful per mouthful, one
savoring per serving.
Shift from the unpleasant fullness of the body to the pleasant expansion
of the mind!
Redefine "enough."
About
the Author:
Pavel Somov, Ph.D., is the author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful
Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger,
2008). For more information visit
www.eatingthemoment.com.
