Mindful eating is often thought of as a way to change your eating habits and help you understand more about your food fears and anxiety, and help you to have a better relationship with food. But it can also heal your relationship with your body and actually help you identify many physical traits you weren’t even aware of.
How Do You Feel When You Are Full and Satisfied?
Instead of just focusing on how you THINK about being full, try to use your body’s sensations and cues to know when you FEEL full. Often times, we are motivated more by our thoughts, worries, and fears, as opposed to our actual feelings. Your body is smart and will tell you everything you need to know, if you know how to listen to it.
It tells you when you are hungry, what you are craving, and when to stop eating as you get closer to fullness. But if you wait for your mind to tell you, you might find sometimes you purposely eat less than your body needs to cut calories, or you eat well past fullness because you just aren’t paying enough attention.
Being mindful with your body and paying attention to how you feel while eating (and throughout the rest of your day), is so beneficial.
What Foods Don’t Feel the Best?
Another way mindful eating helps with your body’s mindfulness is by understanding how different foods makes you feel. This isn’t about restricting your food or trying to go on a diet, but simply being more aware of the way different foods affect you.
For example, you might find that while you absolutely love sweets, they tend to cause a pretty bad energy crash if you have them earlier in the day. By being mindful, you then know to save them until later in the day.
Use what you learn through mindful eating to decide what meals are most appropriate for different times of the day, while still eating all the foods you love that nourish your body properly.
Are You Learning Your Actual Hunger Signals?
As you practice mindfulness more, you can start noticing your hunger signals in addition to fullness cues. This might take a little more time if you are used to just eating at designated times during the day, or you have an issue with emotional eating. But the more you practice mindfulness, the easier this will be to pay attention to.
