Mindfulness is a term we are hearing a lot more about especially during stressful times such as during a pandemic. Being mindful is a good reminder to us all to be more self compassionate and to become more aware of our actions and thoughts. It is a good way to look after ourselves everyday and some people find different aspects of mindfulness helpful e.g. meditation.
Mindfulness can also useful to us when thinking about our meal planning and our nutrition so that we can start to focus more on what we should be eating rather than what we are eating. Comfort food another well known term, is often highly processed and therefore unhealthy but we crave it to make us feel better. What if we were more compassionate to ourselves and while being mindful we think about what healthy foods we do actually like? There is no point in wasting money on foods that we are never going to eat no matter how healthy they are.
This is where nutritional intake is really important so that we can fill up on highly nutritious foods (Nutrition Density) which will help us to eat less highly calorific foods with little or no nutrition. Of course it is not always about how many calories we consume but that is another narrative we will look at later.
Once we have become more mindful when we shop we then need to become more mindful when we prepare and eat food. Cooking can strip nutrients out of foods but it can also make them easier to digest so finding the best way to do the both is the ideal approach. For example many water soluble vitamins can leak out into water used for boiling vegetables and the longer you boil the more they leak.
Finally mindful eating helps our digestive system to work better at breaking down food and helping us to feel full for longer. It takes 20 minutes for your brain to register that you have eaten so think how much food you can get into your body in that time? Eating more slowly therefore cuts down on the calories too.
Cherpak (2019) found that when people practice mindful eating not only does it help with weight loss but can also improve the enteric nervous system or the gut-brain axis of communication, leading to healing of the gut and improved nutritional intake by the body. Self compassion when thinking about our eating and shopping practices therefore can improve our nutritional intake greatly just by spending a few minutes a day being mindful of it. The next time you rush out to the shops for something for tea, throw a ready meal in the microwave or eat a TV dinner quickly try to remember to be more mindful of how you body will react and if you are actually providing it with the compassionate nutrition it needs.
