Unlock Your Best Self: A Quick & Easy Mindful Eating Exercise

If you find that mealtimes often feel rushed, or maybe that it’s difficult for you to be fully present, you aren’t alone!

Life is busy, and most of us don’t have the time we’d like to allocate to preparing and eating meals. In today's blog post, I want to share my favourite tool to help you feel more connected to your food and gain more satisfaction out of your eating experience. 

The best part is that you can use this tool at home or on the go. It’s designed as a set of questions to reflect on before you start eating. Even if it’s a busy day this tool takes no more than a couple of minutes. 

Ready to dig in? 

What is mindful eating? 

Mindful eating quite literally means being aware of what we are putting into our bodies. 

Have you ever opened a bag of chips and before you realized, you had eaten half of the bag? I think most of us have been there before. Maybe you were scrolling on your phone, watching your favourite show, or maybe even working. These are great examples of mindless eating. We are distracted for various reasons and not paying attention to what we are eating.

In these types of situations we are less likely to experience enjoyment from our food. In fact, many of us tend to feel guilt and shame afterwards. By practicing being mindful at mealtimes we can build a healthier relationship with food and our bodies. 

My hope is that by working through the exercise in this blog post, you gain more enjoyment out of mealtimes and kick the guilt to the curb.

The Mindful Eating Exercise 

How It Works

To complete the mindful eating exercise all you need to do is set aside a few minutes to read through the questions below and reflect on your answers. You may find it helpful to compare your reflections in different situations. For example, how did your answers change at home vs. at work? On a busy day or less busy day? 

The Questions

1. How hungry do I currently feel? You may find it helpful to rank your hunger on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not hungry at all, and 10 being extremely hungry). 

2. Will this food provide me nourishment? What other purpose does this food have?

3. Do I truly want this food or did some other external factor influence me to choose it?

4. How will eating this food make me feel?

5. Am I able to be present to enjoy this food?

6. What are some ways that I could make eating this more enjoyable?

That’s it! Six questions that help you work through exactly what, why, and how you are eating. I know the exercise seems simple, but that’s the point. I want this to be a practical tool that you can use whenever and wherever you are. I keep it in the notes section on my phone for quick reference!

There are other tools out there such as the raisin method, or I’ve seen it practiced with a piece of chocolate too, but I find that these questions get to the exactly same point without you needing any special food on hand.

Why practice mindful eating?  

Mindful eating can be beneficial in so many ways. 

Being present and mindful at mealtimes means we are aware of what is going into our bodies. This helps us be more in tune with our hunger and fullness cues. In turn, we become much better at eating when we are hungry and stopping when we are pleasantly full vs. uncomfortable. 

This helps with maintaining a healthy body weight while also leaving plenty of space to enjoy treats (yes, ALL foods fit as part of a healthy diet). 

Practicing mindful eating can also help you identify potential triggers. These could be certain places or situations that disrupt our eating patterns and choices. Once we know our triggers we can work on building sustainable practices that help regulate us and say goodbye to guilt and shame. 

Will you give this a go? 

If you try out this exercise or have found other tools that really help you, please share your experience in the comments! I always love to hear from you.