Week 15: Practice conscious eating

admin
February 12, 2019
0 Comments
blog

Hello, guys! This week is Week 15 of our 21-weekchallenge to live our healthiest life ever. Last week, we evaluated our relationship with food (week 12) and explored some of our triggers for emotional eating (week 13). As a continuation of that, this week's task is on conscious eating, to rebuild a healthy relationship with food.

Quote: Unconscious eating is a norm in our society this week. We eat with zero awareness of our food. Because of that, we don’t know we are full until we have eaten way more than we should. This makes us numb to the sensations in our stomach, which then results in erratic eating habits thereafter because we confuse emotional eating triggers with hunger cues. (see #1).

Practicing conscious eating will help you to (a) be more in tune with your hunger cues, so you don’t overeat unconsciously (b) be more conscious of the role of eating/food in your life, which supports you in building a healthy relationship with food.

Do you normally eat consciously or unconsciously? Let us make an effort to eat consciously this week.

Don’t mix eating with other activities. Before you eat, put everything aside, be it your laptop or mobile phone. Concentrate on eating and eating only.
Know what you’re eating. Examine the ingredients. Look at the nutritional content. Educate yourself on what you’re feeding your body. Read Step #6: Educate Yourself on Food, Nutrition and Health.
Before you eat, feel the sensation (of hunger) in your stomach.
Examine the food you are about to eat. Look at the colors. Look at the composition of ingredients. Smell it if you desire.
As you eat, do so one bite at a time. With each bite, chew very slowly and deliberately. Relish the taste of food in your mouth. Feel the texture.
At the same time, be aware of how your stomach feels. Feel the sensation of hunger fade away slowly with each bite. Feel your stomach being filled up as you eat.
Then, stop when you feel halfway full or you have consumed enough calories for the meal.

Even if you’re eating with friend(s), you can still eat consciously. Don’t chew and talk at the same time. Every time you take a bite, focus your attention on your food, and concentrate on chewing, savoring the taste, and digesting the food. When you are done with the bite, put your attention back to your friend(s). Listen to what he/she has to say. Say what you want to say. Do that in turns and you’ll be fine.

Week 15 of Your 21-WEEKS-HEALTH CHALLENGE

You are almost there, keep going?

Please reward success, but not with food.