Mindful Eating

My relationship with food has never been great. I honestly can’t even remember a time when my eating habits were truly healthy. Even as a young child, I would eat out of boredom all throughout the day, especially right before bed. Practically all of my memories of food involve eating alone, in front of a screen. I have always been accustomed to over eating. I never really learned how to tune in to the “hungry” or “full” signals my body was sending me. Whenever I would attempt to reign in my eating or go on a diet, it inevitably ended in an even worse result like over restricting, binging, or purging.

Even though food and eating was always a problem area in my life, it was a huge part of it nonetheless. Problems with food are especially tricky. Unlike other unhealthy addictions, food isn’t something that we can just “quit.” Imagine if an alcoholic needed alcohol throughout the day to live. I think it would be much harder to manage that than never touching liquor again. I really thought for most of my life that I was doomed to keep repeating the same unhealthy cycles with food, never truly finding a healthy balance.

A few years ago I stumbled upon a technique called mindful eating. I had heard it was effective for helping people to stop binge eating. I gave it a try in the past, but only managed to keep it up for couple meals. It is surprisingly hard to take away that mindless zoned out comfort of stuffing your face while watching your favorite shows. I told myself at the time that I just couldn’t handle giving that up. As sad as it may sound, it felt like my one joy, the favorite part of my day.

Fast forward to now, years of yoga and meditation later, and I am finally ready to try again. For the past three days I’ve been trying to live more mindfully in general, but especially when it comes to food and eating. It’s helped me to imagine how my meals would have been in the past when there was no technology to supplement them. I try to imagine generations upon generations of human beings who came before me having meals. I think, this is what a small piece of life must have felt like for my parents, my grandparents, etc. It helps me to feel connected even when I’m eating alone.

I sat down before my dinner last night and watched a couple short videos about how to eat mindfully. I actually began laughing at one point at the sheer absurdity of it all. What a strange world we humans have created for ourselves. A world where we are so disconnected from ourselves and our bodies that there are actually instructional videos on something as basic to our nature as eating. Even so, these videos reminded me of all the little pleasures of food that I have been so carelessly missing my whole life.

When was the last time you paused to smell your food before digging in? Have you ever touched the food to your lips before taking a bite? Do you let yourself eat with you hands when you can? Notice all of the many textures and shapes of this nourishing matter. Notice the colors and contours. Notice the way the mere presence of food illicits a reaction from the body. Our mouths starting to salivate in preparation for digestion. Take the time to eat as slowly, really exploring the way the food feels and tastes in your mouth.

It has been an amazing experience to get back in touch with my body and really start to savor and fully enjoy my food. It is fascinating to take the seat of the observer as I navigate my interactions with food. Mindful eating for me is definitely still something I need more practice with. It is surprisingly hard to sit in silence with my food. It is actually really challenging to eat slowly, to chew thoroughly. I can feel my body switching into autopilot as soon as my food is ready. As I am eating I constantly catch myself zoning out, entranced almost. It takes real effort to concentrate and eat with intention, utilizing all my senses.

I will say that even my far from ideal mindful eating practice has helped me tremendously. Not only with food, but in my life in general. I have been feeling much less anxious over these past few days. My body feels happy, healthy, and respected. I’ve been able to enjoy my food more and feel more satisfied after a meal. Although the urge to binge is still there, especially after dinner, I’ve managed to overcome that urge so far by making sure I am eating enough throughout the day.

For anyone struggling with an unhealthy relationship to food, I would highly recommend giving mindful eating a try. It has definitely been a challenge, but one that I am so excited to keep working at. If you’d like to read more about what mindful eating is and learn strategies for how best to practice it, I found a free pdf of the book Eating Mindfully by Susan Albers. One of the mindful eating videos I found recommended it and I am excited to check it out myself. I truly feel that a mindful eating practice is a beautiful way to get back to our roots as human beings and rediscover what it really means to be alive in these amazing bodies of ours.

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Mixed Emotions

I’ve mentioned that I have a lot of unhealthy behaviors that I’ve been struggling with this past year in quarantine. Even though I’ve begun to feel utterly fed up with performing these behaviors, they still seem to persist. It feels like, despite all of my best laid plans to change, I always fall short in the end. However, yesterday the idea of letting all of those things go, my rigid schedule, my smoking, my eating habits, seemed possible. If you happened to read my post from yesterday, you may understand why.

This is not a new phenomenon, and I’m sure other people have experienced this as well. That special motivation and excitement from the idea of changing for someone else. I know sometimes that can be a toxic thing. You shouldn’t aim to change important parts of yourself for another. But the thought of improving your image in the eyes of someone else by finally changing things you’ve already been wanting to change seems different.

While I’m grateful for this new sense of energy and motivation, I am also wary of it. Curious about it. Last night as I contemplated my complete disinterest in the idea of binging on junk foods like I would have normally done, I wondered why exactly this behavior had no appeal to me whatsoever. Thinking of the shame I would experience if anyone I knew were to find out always seemed to just exacerbate the problem. No, this was something different. It was positive emotion that was guiding me. I finally settled on the idea that this newfound inspiration to turn away from negative behaviors stemmed from an overwhelming sensation of tenderness and self-love.

It’s been so long since I’ve really fancied someone enough to remember this feeling. Somehow being approved of by someone I really like always seems to flood me with not only the happiness of mutual admiration, but of self-acceptance. Everything seems so much more concrete and crisp when reflected back to you through another. And while I am still extremely grateful and happy for this rediscovered feeling, I am also somewhat upset by it.

Why do I need the attention and approval of someone else to finally love myself? I am still the same person I always was. I have always been deserving of this love. I have been trying (and mostly failing) to love myself for years and years now. No matter what I do, no matter how many positive affirmations I recite or automatic negative thoughts that I try to reframe, at the end of the day, I am always left with the idea that I’m simply not good enough yet to be worthy of my own love.

Yet someone I’ve only met twice comes along and suddenly I am capable of loving myself? Why? I doubt I’ll ever fully be able to understand it. Perhaps I am thinking about it too much. It feels like once again I’ve found myself trying to focus on the negative. True, I should love myself despite what anyone else in the world thinks of me, but I am still grateful for being given a helping hand towards that goal for the time being. Despite the initial catalyst for these positive thoughts and emotions, they are still much appreciated.

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Eat Like You Love Yourself

My whole life I have struggled with disordered eating. I’ve never been thin enough. My stomach has never been and probably will never be flat, and I know it’s impossible for me to have a “thigh gap” without being dangerously underweight and malnourished. I’m almost ashamed to say it, but despite all of the incredibly important and meaningful reasons to go vegan, I went vegan so I could be skinny. Thanks to the plethora of vegan alternatives and high calorie plant foods that never happened, but I was lucky enough to finally get the message anyway and stay vegan for the animals.

Despite all of my perceived failures, I continue trying to lose weight. It’s hard for me to remember a time in my life when I wasn’t counting calories, restricting, binging, and endlessly associating food with comfort and shame in a viscous cycle. I know many other women suffer with these same issues. The negative self-talk and the constant comparisons can become all-consuming. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

As I have become more involved with practices such as yoga and meditation, I have begun to realize just how cruelly I have been treating myself all of these years. It’s hard to practice self-love when every meal triggers thoughts of “you’re not good enough.” How many precious moments of my life have I wasted full of negativity and self-judgement? I want to be kind to myself. I know that I won’t change years of bad habits overnight, but I think I’ve finally decided to start consciously trying.

For me, the easiest way to do this is to imagine my brain and my body as two separate entities. My brain is me and my body is a sweet, innocent animal that I care for. Just like the pets that I care for each day, I give them the healthiest food and as much as they desire. I want to also do that for myself. That’s why this week I am trying to make myself the healthiest, nutrient packed, whole-food, vegan meals I can. This way I can eat to my heart’s content, while avoiding all guilt. Because I know that I am giving my body so much love and energy.

I’m not going to lie. I still hope to lose a significant amount of weight this upcoming year, but I hope that in this way I will be able to do so with a positive mindset and with self-love. I have been doing well so far and hope to continue eating in this way.

Wish me luck! ♥