User:Rturtle/Mindful Eating

Mindful Eating is a set of techniques and philosophies that encourage eating food with one's full attention. Mindful Eating may be considered as an offshoot of the general techniques of Buddhist Mindfulness. The specific techniques of Mindful Eating relate to focused concentration on the sensations generated by the physiological and psychological effects of eating

Mindful Eating is increasingly being used as a weight loss method; to supplement, or as an alternative to, dieting.

Mindful Eating Practice
The goal of mindful eating is to become fully aware of all the tastes, textures, sites, smells, and emotions that are related to a particular morsel of food and the direct and indirect effects of that food on one's body and one's feelings. The techniques are generally methods to counter distractions and to restore focus. Many people in today's society multitask, and eat while doing something else such as: watching TV, working, driving, or browsing the internet. Eating is often done mindlessly.

The process of paying full attention to ones food involves evoking all the senses. A typical mindful eating exercise takes place with a very small morsel of food in a quiet relaxed setting. The morsel is eaten slowly with full awareness, while paying attention to all of the physiological and psychological effects that the morsel triggers. The goal of the building of awareness is to develop a better mind-body relationship.

Weight Loss
Mindful eaters typically eat less food at a time and less food overall. Mindful eaters learn to listen to their body and to recognize feelings of satiety. Mindful eating exercises focus on driving the maximum amount of pleasure from even the smallest morsels. This can result in smaller portions and less calorie intake.

Emotional Eating
Emotional eating is a way to comfort and soothe away stress but it can sabotage weight loss attempts. During times of stress the body releases hormones that prepare the body for flight or fight response. These chemicals create a rise in blood glucose to feed the brain and muscles. As the hormones modulate, the blood sugar levels drop, and this leads to a hunger response. Emotional eating may be a learned response to try to avoid this drop in blood sugar. It may also be a type of meditative practice that focuses the mind on the food rather than the stressor. Mindful eating practitioners try to recognize the hunger triggered by stress and to maximize the comfort provided by the meditative practice of eating.

Human Ecology
Many mindful eaters focus not only on the impact of food on one's body but the impact of food choices on the greater ecology. Issues such as: the sustainability of agricultural processes, humanely produced and processed animal products, fair trade, genetic engineering, and organic production practices are also calculated in food choices.