To eat mindfully, connect all five senses to your food. The visual, aromas, tastes, textures, and yes, even the sounds of a meal. No distractions like sitting in front of a TV, at your desk, or in your car.
When the pandemic started, there were lockdowns for a few weeks. Food, movies, games, and other distractions helped us deal with uncertainty and stress. 9-months into the pandemic, its emotional and physical toll is affecting everyone.
Meals and snacks have lost all sense of time and rhythm. We eat almost anywhere and everywhere in the house – desk, couch, as we walk through the kitchen for the zenith time each day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner have blended into one long day of grazing.
Emotional eating to alleviate a myriad of feelings will satiate us for a few moments; the feelings that triggered it remains. Eating your feelings can lead to weight gain, lack of nutritional needs, and spiral some people into depression, creating more emotional eating, a difficult cycle to break.
Eating mindfully in a pandemic, we need to connect with more than the 5-senses. We need to connect with our emotions -bored, stressed, tired, sad, depressed, and lonely, to name a few.
What void are you looking to fill with food?
Are you even hungry?
Are you thirsty?
What else can you do right now other than eat to fill you emotionally?
Each time you reach for something, take a pause and check-in with how you are feeling. When you are curious and connect with your emotions, you will work through the feeling without overeating.
If you ate the whole pint of ice cream (like I did the other night), fill yourself with kindness, not judgment.