Are you looking to manage your appetite and improve your relationship with food?
Watch this video and I’ll show you a simple mindful eating meditation to control your appetite.
Hello, it’s Ivana helping you get fit, healthy and strong at any age.
I’m an Online Nutrition Coach specializing in helping people change their relationship with food.
An Introduction To The Mindful Eating Meditation
If you’re drawn to mindful eating, it might be because you’re aware that sometimes you just don’t notice what you’re eating and it might be helpful to pay for their attention to it and for most people it’s actually true.
We do need to pay more attention to how much we’re eating to why we’re eating. All those things that encompass a mindful eating practice. I’ve been a coach for 20 years and mindful eating is one of those things that I work with my clients on to help build their relationship with food and make it a more positive one.
There are a lot of scripts out there for different mindfulness meditations. I find some of them a little bit too cheesy for my taste, so I’m going to keep this one really simple and basic to get you started.
I want you to choose a piece of fruit to keep things simple.
Either an apple. There’s a traditional raisin meditation as well that’s often done.
That can be quite interesting, but just choose a piece of fruit and we’ll do the mindfulness meditation with fruit.
The Mindful Eating Meditation
Let’s begin.
So let’s start by bringing awareness to the moment. Just thinking about how you’re feeling in this moment.
Are you hungry?
Maybe you’re tired?
Are certain muscles feeling a little bit tight?
How are you doing?
Just as you get ready to eat the food and now we’re going to bring your attention to the food. And first we’re just going to look what is the color? What kind of shape, what’s the texture?
Is it smooth? Or rough? Take a look at the food in front of you and just observe.
Touch
And now we’re going to move on to touch.
What does this food feel like? What does it feel like when you put your fingers on it?
Is it smooth? Rough? Slimy? Sticky?
Just observe how it feels to touch this particular food.
Smell
Then we’ll move on to smell. So bring the food close to you.
What does it smell like?
Remind you of anything? Does it bring back any particular memories? Is this a pleasant smell for you? Are you enjoying the smell of this particular food? Is this something that makes you feel positive or is it a negative smell for you?
Taste
And now we’re gonna move on to taste. I want you to bring the food to your mouth just without chewing it so far.
Just move it around with your tongue, kind of explore the flavors, the textures, how does that food feel of when it’s in your mouth, when you bring it into different corners of your mouth?
Chewing
And we’re going to move on to chewing. Take a bite.
Notice how this texture changes when you’re chewing. Then continue to chew. Maybe even count the number of times that you’re chewing and notice the flavour that you’re getting as you start to chew the food.
Swallow
And then we move on to swallow. So I want you to follow the path of this food down your throat. Ask yourself how it feels. Is this a positive or negative experience for you? Are is something getting stuck in there?
How does this food feel as it’s going down your throat?
Is it a bit too sour? Perhaps a bit too tart? Does it feel unpleasant in any way?
Also, are there sharp edges or does it feel pleasant?
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is just about observing things as they are, so you don’t need to change anything. You just need to observe how things feel, how they look, how they taste.
You’re just observing and paying attention to those things and that’s the essence of mindfulness and as you develop this practice, you’re going to get better at noticing these things.
Mindful Eating Meditation With Different Foods
You could try this particular exercise with different foods.
It doesn’t have to be fruit.
You can try it with different fruit, but then you can move on to larger objects. You can do this at any meal and just practice and see what kind of information you’re getting from the food. Learn to appreciate the food a little bit more by going through these practices on a regular basis. If you bring yourself back to mindfulness, you’re going to appreciate your food and slow things down a little bit.
Sometimes all it takes to control your appetite is just to have awareness.
Are you eating really, really quickly?
Just be aware of those things.
Are you chewing very quickly?
Are you taking the time to chew thoroughly?
How This Mindful Eating Meditation Can Help You Control Your Appetite
So managing your appetite is just having awareness.
Part of that is also noticing things that happened beforehand. So things like cravings.
Why are you experiencing this particular craving? Or is it because of an association?
Does a particular feeling bring on a craving for a particular food?
And being aware of that is all part of mindfulness. If you practice these type of mindfulness meditations (like the one I just showed you), then you can increase your awareness over time. And that will help manage your appetite.
Ivana Chapman
