Genuine Benefits of Eating Slow
Honor every meal! Eating slowly is going to require a bit of retraining of the brain around food. Your relationship with food goes hand in hand with eating more slowly. Taking the time to enjoy multiple meals in the day will take practice. Because, it requires you to slow down and reset. Please stop treating meal time as a chore. It’s one of those daily practices that create peace.
Food is such a wonderful experience. There’s a representation of celebration and life! Honoring food during meal time is also providing lots of little moments to look forward to on a more regular basis. One of the fastest things that come and go in society lately is meal time. The way you stop avoiding rushing through meal time comes from acknowledging first and foremost. That it is not something that can be stripped away from you. Regardless of the time you have to dedicate to it.
Savoring the Moment (literally)
When you slow down at the dining table, the food will start to taste better. Getting better enjoyment of the meal includes the focus on texture, flavors and overall umami! Bring that aha restaurant moment to every meal! Slowing down to savor each bite makes meal time more of an occasion than an occurrence. You’ll end up feeling like you had more of the meal overall. And if you need to hear this, take the picture! It can bring you joy and get you in the right mindset for meal time.
Experimenting with Food
Experiment with this for your favorite foods. It’ll help point out what qualities make it your favorites. Then, you could even try new cuisines that champion those qualities from there. When you savor each bite, the meal becomes a more relaxing experience overall. Your meal, naturally, also lasts longer. Which can make it way more satisfying to eat. Any food tastes different when taking notice of the balance of seasonings. Take every chance to make food more fun.
The Details in Food You Missed
You’ll notice different flavors and the intensities of them. Helping develop your palate. A developed palate enjoys food more fully. That way, eating can be more of an emotional balancing experience than what it is currently. This is the start of a solid plan to get to know the relationship you have to food. Meal time is special for its emotional relevance and its physical necessity.
Meal times are Mental Breaks
Take meal time seriously. Give your mind a break from all the things you have to focus on to get through the day. Be mindful of the pace that you’re chewing.Or simply making sure that you’re not holding in air while eating. Meal time is a built in pause, really take that time to reset and restart. Making it worthwhile to take those 3 well deserved breaks in the day. The task at hand is your meal. Please don't cut it short. Only to continue pouring from an empty cup.
The Benefits of More Than One Meal a Day
Meal times break up the day into sections. Serving as a pause to reconnect with yourself and get in touch with the inner landscape. Claiming this time to spend time alone or with loved ones adds to the sense of self worth. During meal time you’re dedicating time to putting aside outside responsibilities. In doing this, your mind starts to cement that mealtimes are beneficial. Creating the routine of having more than one meal a day. And graduating to the recommended 3. Once you have a foundation, you can experiment with the sizes and frequency of meals according to personal body cues.
How to Embrace Meal Times
Having the day broken up around meal time helps enforce boundaries of separation. While sitting alone for your meal feels boring at first. Embrace it! Because in that boredom, you’ll face emotions, and quietly problem solve. At first there’s no distinguishing solution from the daily ramble. But, as you start to block outside influences during this time. It’ll become magical. Start with switching from Youtube or Netflix with your meals to music. This is going to reduce stimulation on the brain and help you focus on the meal in front of you!
Introduce Better Digestion
When you eat more slowly, the body can keep up. Distracted eating usually leads to eating too fast or having food become boring to the brain. Taking note of chewing food thoroughly feels really awkward at first. But, in time, it’s the best tool to help know the cues of the body. Whether you’re hungry or full. It’s going to be an active process that's gonna ask you to be patient. At first the hunger cues the body gives are going to be all over the place. It's okay to give in and fall off. Potentially eating too fast or too much is something you need to give yourself grace for.
Properly Chewing Your Food
There’s no direct need to count your chews. Simply get in the habit of making the bite complete mush before taking in another. A really underrated tool for slowing down eating is putting down the utensil in between bites. As opposed to having it linger in the hand. That lingering makes it easier to absentmindedly add more food before you’re ready. There’s also something really beautiful about noticing things like how you hold a utensil. Or actually knowing why you prefer one type of spoon over the other.
Steps to Eating More Slowly
Combine taking a few deep breaths during your meal, with slow chewing, and putting down the utensil. That is where you start to reap all the benefits of digestion. Both mental and physical. The world spins very fast and everything is being automated and done as quickly as possible. Letting meal time become something you do as a crutch or simply to survive. Is like giving up time with yourself to create fondness and delicateness.
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