a Mindful Meal…connect with food and body in a new way

In previous posts, I’ve discussed the different types of hunger (drawn from the great book by Jan Chozen Bays) and also encouraged greater attention – with curiosity, withholding judgment – to the experiences of preparing and eating food. In February 2012, the Center for Mindful Eating is offering a free teleconference (open to the general public) focusing upon the experience of feeling full versus feeling satisfied.

Think about this way – how often have you had a craving for something (perhaps sweet or salty), and eaten handful after handful of that food item, only to feel unsatisfied and later turn to some other food, finding yourself repeating this same process over and over again? Or sat down to a meal, consumed a fair amount of food, only to continue eating to the point of feeling ill or overstuffed because you were chasing some sense of satisfaction or pleasure that proved to be elusive?

Whether it is a sense of (reassuring) fullness that we are seeking, a feeling of pleasure or soothing, or just really, really wanting to enjoy a food item that we no longer desire, an exploration of why we keep eating is just as useful as our investigation of what might lead us to eat in the first place. One exercise that might prove informative is to stop mid-meal or mid-snack, put down the food item and your utensils, and check in with yourself regarding your feeling of fullness in the stomach. You might also ask yourself, “If I want to continue eating right now, which hunger am I feeding? Mouth hunger? Stomach hunger? Heart hunger?”

In addition, a practice of mindful eating allows you to experience your food more fully, if you are attending to all of your senses as you smell, touch, view, and consume each bite. Like the instructions of the raisin exercise (in an earlier post), we risk missing out on the pleasure that is available from eating even a single piece of food if we are eating in auto-pilot or multi-tasking mode. And when we slow down and simplify the process of eating, we are also more able to attend to the sensations of hunger or fullness in our bodies.

As we near the end of 2011, this may present us all with yet another opportunity to examine our relationship with food and set goals for the future. To aid you in this process, which is really a continuous one rather than something that occurs only on December 31st, check out a thought-provoking article written by Dr. Jean Kristeller, the developer of the Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT) program. She writes about new year resolutions, mindful weight loss, and how to learn from our “inner” and “outer” wisdom.