Six Mindful Eating Habits to Adopt This Holiday Season

Being mindful is all about thinking about what you are doing while you are doing it. Train your mind to focus on the minutia of what you’re doing so you can become more mindful.

For example, try to describe what you’re doing right now using all five of your senses. How does your bottom feel in that chair? How does your phone feel in your hand? How full is your stomach right now?

Here are five mindful habits to learn this holiday season to help avoid holiday weight gain and stay healthier:

• Don’t Shop Hungry – Shop only right after a meal or eat an apple or a small piece of cheese before you go shopping so that you aren’t too hungry to focus on what you’re doing. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed when you’re around a large quantity of food and end up with that candy bar and soda at checkout.

• Hydrate First – Drink a cup of water before you leave the house to ensure that you are hydrated. Most people need about ½ a cup of water every half hour while exercising. Shopping is moving, and that qualifies as exercise. So drink some water before you go and take water with you too.

• Get Physical Before and After Consumption – It’s good for your body to get moving before eating and to move again after eating. The first time it helps ensure your actual hunger, and the second, it helps with digestion. For example, if you are too full to take a stroll after dinner, you’re eating too much at one sitting.

• Focus and Engage Your Senses – Think about how everything affects all your senses. It can help you to ground yourself in whatever you’re doing if you focus on what is happening to your mind and body as you do it.

• Chew Slowly and More Often – As you eat, don’t eat fast. Take 20 to 30 minutes to eat whatever you’ve picked to eat. Focus on how it feels in your mouth. Then, focus on how it feels as you swallow it. Focus on how you feel so you can enjoy the entire eating process.

• Write It Down – One of the best ways to stay mindful about your consumption is to write down what you eat. Today, you have many options, from using your smartphone and an app to going old school. For example, one person likes to use their phone to email to themself the food they eat so they can take a few moments to add up the calories each day.

Mindfulness is one of the best things to train yourself regarding eating or almost anything. If you know how you feel about something through all of your senses, it’s going to be much easier to say yes or no based on your true needs than if you are avoiding the truth about your thoughts and feelings.