Mindful Munching: The Art of Intentional Eating

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Full Episode Transcript:

Mindful Munching: The Art of Intuitive Eating

Hi there, welcome to the Eating Habits for Life Podcast. So let’s talk about the integral part to healthy eating habits and weight loss that lasts, which is intentional eating.

First, I’m going to define intentional eating, so that you clearly understand what I mean by this. I’m also going to define what intentional eating is not.

Next, I’ll dive into the benefits of intentional eating and then the positive impacts of intentional eating on physical and emotional health, plus weight loss. Finally, I’ll give you some actionable steps you can easily start taking today to start eating intentionally.

Before I dive completely into these, I have some fun news. I just created a brand new free video class to help you lose weight simply. In this class, I reveal the skill that makes the biggest difference with weight loss, as far as eating habits goes.

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And finally, I give you a simple, yet effective three-step strategy to make it easy to stay consistent with practicing the skill until you master it and utilizing the tool to help with that most common obstacle to weight loss.

Essentially, that three-step strategy helps pull it all together, so you lose actually lose weight and create healthier eating habits in the process.

So the class is 3 short videos, they’re roughly 10 minutes in length. You can easily binge this.

And just think, binging this will be so much more useful than binging a Netflix show or YouTube videos. So you can definitely feel really good about binging these videos. And I jump right into the good stuff, so there’s no fluff in these.

Also, along with the three videos, you will receive some bonuses via e-mail, along with some mindset tips to help create the weight loss results you want, and actually keep those results.

OK, so let’s dive into the art of intentional eating.

What is intentional eating? So intentional eating is about being fully present and aware of what you’re consuming. This includes understanding and being aware of why you’re eating, how much you’re eating, and what you’re eating. And the actual process or action of eating itself.

Intentional eating means that you’re being very deliberate and conscious of your decisions around food. It’s not mindless. I’ll dive a little bit more into this when I talk about what intentional eating is not.

But essentially, intentional eating is kind of a blend of mindful eating and intuitive eating.

Mindful eating is when you are present and sort of slowing things down a little bit as you’re eating, being very aware of your body and the food and the process of eating the food. Intuitive eating is being very much aware of your hunger signals versus when you are full and honoring that whole hunger fullness cycle.

Meaning if you’re feeling hungry, you’re not ignoring that to the point that you’re getting overly hungry and feeling like you’re starving yourself. And on the flip side, it means awareness of when you’re starting to feel maybe a little bit of fullness and not going to the point of being overly full.

When you get into the cycle of eating when you’re hungry and stopping before you get to the point of feeling full, weight management is much easier. If you’re getting to the point where you’re overly full, that means generally you’re probably eating more food than you need, which then gets stored mainly as fat, which causes weight gain.

So that’s how intuitive eating helps with weight management period now i do realize, that intuitive eating is going to sound a little bit like intentional eating or eating intentionally, and they are very similar, so I’ll try not to confuse you.

Think of eating intentionally as kind of like the big umbrella, and mindful eating and intuitive eating are sort of under that umbrella.

What intentional eating is not is it’s not mindless eating where you’re not aware or paying attention of what or how much you’re eating. It’s not that habitual eating, where you’re eating out of habit, because you’re used to eating in that particular circumstance.

Examples of such would be if you are feeling sad and you eat in response to feeling sad, your brain can then form a link between the two and lead to habitual eating when you’re feeling sad. Another term for this is emotional eating.

Intentional eating is also not about sticking to a restrictive diet or food rules. It’s definitely not about perfection either. And intentional eating is pretty far away from eating impulsively for instant gratification. So think of it like the opposite of that.

Not to say, that you can’t have that spontaneous ice cream. That’s what i mean when i say that intentional eating is not about perfection. There can be those moments when it is spontaneous.

So hopefully at this point, you’re pretty clear on what intentional eating is and what it’s not.

To summarize it, intentional eating is being very conscious and aware of why you’re eating, how much you’re eating, and also to some degree what you’re eating. Or at least being deliberate about what you’re eating and thinking about how that might serve you or not serve you.

And then intentional eating is not mindless eating, restrictive diets, habitual eating, or perfection.

Alright, now I want to tell you the benefits of intentional eating. Intentional eating really helps to provide a better relationship with food. Yesterday, I was interviewed as a guest for a podcast called “The PA is in” and we talked about our relationship with food. Meaning, how we view food, how we use food, how we feel about food.

Having a healthy relationship with food is necessary if you want to end the struggle with “bad” eating habits, or a weight loss struggle. And that’s why I help people improve their relationship with food when we work together through coaching. Because it’s so crucial in maintaining results for life.

Another benefit of intentional eating is that it actually increases the satisfaction that you get from food. Many of my clients came to me initially and said they kind of eat quickly. And I actually used to be like this as well.

My mom shared with me that when I was a baby she apparently fed me very quickly, because one of her friends had commented on it back when I was a baby. So it actually made a lot of sense to me why I always ate quickly up until I changed my eating habits.

But when we slow things down, we get to enjoy that same volume of food for longer. And we’re actually paying attention more to the flavors and the textures and even the smells from the food. And it really doesn’t add on that much more time.

So let’s say that it would normally take you about 7 minutes to eat your lunch if you ate relatively quickly. If you slowed that down a little bit and enjoyed it more, that might stretch it out to 10 minutes, 11 or 12 minutes tops.

Also, you’re actually giving your body a chance to release the hormone leptin. That’s the hormone that lets you know when you’ve had enough. This helps to prevent overeating, which of course is going to help with either maintaining your body weight or losing weight.

Another benefit of intentional eating is that because you’re slowing things down, getting more satisfaction, you will see this occur in other areas of your life, promoting a generalized feeling of wellness.

My client told me the other day that she is noticing how working together on being more mindful when eating, is helping her be more mindful in other areas of her life. Particularly with her small grandchildren, when she has conversations with her daughters, and when she is by herself walking in nature.

She feels more connected, like life has slowed down a little bit for her enjoyment. I noticed this as well when I started to slow things down also. And it doesn’t add that much time, like I said.

And then an important benefit of intentional eating is that you are overriding the part of the brain that wants to eat quickly and wants to eat out of habit or automatically or due to instant gratification come up by purposefully eating in a different way.

So that actually helps to break those “bad” eating habits.

OK, and now to get into some positive impacts on physical and emotional health plus weight loss.

So for physical health, intentional eating can definitely lead to better choices as far as what you’re eating, meaning adding in some foods that are nourishing. It definitely helps with how much you’re eating, because you will find that you’re just naturally eating less and feeling just as satisfied. So this also helps with weight loss.

For emotional health, as I mentioned just a little bit ago, because you are being more mindful and slowing things down a bit, you will feel this generalized feeling of Wellness. I’ve had clients describe it as a feeling of peace.

Also, when you eat intentionally, you are not feeling shame or guilt or disappointment in yourself. So decreasing those negative emotions plus increasing the positive emotions helps to boost that emotional health.

And then because you’re getting back into that more normal cycle of eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re either starting to feel a little bit full or stopping when you’re no longer feeling your hunger signals, weight is so much easier to manage.

So here’s how you can start with some intentional eating today. Make sure that you set aside time for when you’re eating to only eat and not work or read or look on your phone while you’re eating.

This allows you to pay better attention to the food, get more enjoyment from it, and pay better attention to when those hunger signals go away. Or when you’re starting to feel like you’ve had enough, without feeling overly full or bloated. We want to avoid that.

Now, you might think that this will be hard because you have kids at home that might distract you. But one of my clients uses these distractions and pauses as her opportunity to check in with herself, and her stomach to see if she’s had enough to eat yet.

And when you’re eating, try to enjoy those flavors and slow it down a little bit. Then if you’ve noticed some benefit to that, make sure you point that out to yourself, so that it encourages you to do the same for the next meal. Or the next snack that you might have.

To do a behavior again, our brain needs to know that there is something rewarding about it. So you acknowledging the benefits of eating intentionally, will help to encourage this new behavior.

Alright, so that was a lot of information, so I will leave you with that. And don’t forget to grab the new free class with the link down in the episode description. Or, if you’re listening to this episode on my website, you will see the link to the new free class on that episode page.

The skill that I teach in that, my clients have felt like has been a game changer for them. And I want for you to get in on this as well, because I would love for you to start losing weight simply, for life, and in a very healthy way.

Thanks for listening, take care and I’ll talk with you soon.