Mindful Eating is allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food selection and preparation by respecting your own inner wisdom. By using all your senses in choosing to eat food that is both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body, acknowledging your responses to food (likes, dislikes or neutral) without judgment, and becoming aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decisions to begin and end eating you can change your relationship to food.

Mindful Eating is allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food selection and preparation by respecting your own inner wisdom. By using all your senses in choosing to eat food that is both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body, acknowledging your responses to food (likes, dislikes or neutral) without judgment, and becoming aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decisions to begin and end eating you can change your relationship to food.

Our needs concerning food come from the fact that we need food to live. As a result, our bodies have developed a system to ensure that we get enough to support survival.

The natural physiological response to getting too hungry, which is what often happens with dieting, is that a person is attracted to richer foods and tends to eat more quickly. The result is that we often pass the point at which we feel as if we’ve had enough to eat before we realize it. If we have been on and off diets, the typical response is to also feel guilty that we’ve eaten richer foods – which typically aren’t allowed on a diet – and that we’ve eaten “too much.” This sets off a downward spiral of thinking that can lead to repeated dieting and overeating that causes a person to gain weight instead of lose it.

Mindful eating is not a set of strict rules. There is no list of “good” or “bad” foods directing what you can and cannot eat. It is not a “quick fix” or “fast solution.” Mindful eating involves learning to accept your body and appreciating it for what it is and the incredible things it can do. It is taking care of your body in a healthful way by listening to what it needs. It is a lifestyle change that can turn anxiety toward food back into pleasure, the way it is supposed to be. Mindful eating is granting yourself permission to eat what your body truly wants and needs.