Last week, I completed the 5-day Mindful Meal Challenge from Darya Rose over at Summer Tomato. Mindful eating was something I always thought about in the context of weight loss. But I was intrigued because portion-control is such an important factor in managing pre-diabetes and diabetes… it’s so easy to overdo it on carbs! A serving of pasta somehow goes down much more quickly and easily than a big salad… I’m never in danger of overeating salmon (which I’m still learning to like), but bread? Another story entirely.
Also, I tend to eat fast. It started with trying to keep up with my children (or more accurately, get in a meal before the next crisis), and now it’s a habit. Eating fast almost always means eating more.
I plan to repeat the challenge, because I barely made it through the 5 days – clearly, as Darya explains, it takes time to develop the practice of mindfulness. Here are my takeaways, though, from the first round:
- Quiet places to eat with no distractions are hard to find. I usually eat lunch at my desk (I can hear Michael Pollan – “Eat at a table. A desk is not a table.”). During the challenge, I was able to overcome the temptation to check the news or otherwise “do work,” but the mindfulness practice made me want to find a different place to eat lunch… suddenly I was noticing how unappealing eating lunch at my desk really is. One day I waited until the cafeteria at work had mostly cleared, and I found a quiet spot. The news-radio coming over the loud speakers was somewhat distracting, but it was manageable. If your office, unlike mine, has a nice outdoor eating space, try that!
- Salads are fantastic for mindful eating! Lots of colors, textures, and flavors to notice, and they take a very long time to eat when you are chewing every bite thoroughly. A few times I didn’t even finish my salad, simply because I was tired of chewing and listening to myself crunch away.
- True hunger is a rare sensation. I try to be fairly regimented with my meals and snacks to maintain steady blood sugars throughout the day. It’s easy to get locked into a pattern, though, where I feel compelled to eat at certain times, hungry or not. Mindfulness helped me realize that my reasons for eating most often centered around, “I’m ready for a break,” or “It’s lunch time,” or “I should really eat something before this meeting / before I exercise.” It was a baby step, but a few days I ate half my lunch at “lunchtime” and saved the rest for later in the afternoon. We often need less food than we think at any one time.
- Things to try: Fasting and French-style meals. A colleague of mine is trying the 5:2 Fast Diet and I admit, I’m curious. Like many people, she’s doing it to lose weight, but some studies show that intermittent fasting lowers blood glucose levels. I’ve been working up the courage to try it, and I think the mindfulness practice may help me through the “fast days” (defined in this diet as eating 500 calories for women, 600 for men).
- The Mindful Meal Challenge also conjured up memories of meals with my French host family back in college. They were highly ritualized, with small portions served in courses, the food almost a footnote to the conversation around the table. My goal this week is to serve one “French-style” meal to my family, to promote conversation, eating at a slower pace, and staying at the table longer. Who knows, maybe serving salad or vegetables as the first course–unaccompanied–might actually spur the kids to eat them.
I suspect I’m no different from many people in that I spend very few moments of the day mindfully. Even in the car, I’m constantly switching between radio stations or audio books. Eating mindfully for a single meal for 5 days was surprisingly difficult – and that tells me that it’s worth further exploration and practice.