In the last emails, you learned about the different types of hunger and that you should only eat with 2. Today, I am going to simplify mindful eating into a single rule.
Of course, it’s more nuanced and you can dive deeper with our mindful eating book but I love simplifications. And frankly, if you only get this one thing right most of the time, you’ll get to the healthy you, you imagine.
What’s the rule?
Only eat when you are hungry with stomach or cellular hunger.
It sounds simple but it is not necessarily. You need self-awareness and patience to detect, which hunger is at work.
Being aware of something is always the first step. If you get that right, you have now the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to decide how you want to act on it.
Let’s make that more actionable.
Before you put anything in your mouth and chew on it or slurp it, ask yourself 2 questions:
1. How hungry am I on a scale from 0 to 10 with 0 = I am full to 10 = I am starving.
2. Which hunger type is it right now?
And then decide for yourself, if you are going to eat that cookie or drink that huge frappuccino, which btw is desert not coffee.
As a bonus, you can track it for a while with the checklist from the book or our free app to see your own progress and uncover your own bad eating habits.
You might find:
- that your afternoon snack at work is caused by boredom
- that you eat because you are in a social situation like invited to a diner, brunch
- that you can’t refuse food when someone offers it to you
- that your afternoon snack is actually a need for a break and some social interactions
and so much more.
Afternoon snacks are a great example of that. At my last job, there was always a box of Haribo gummy bears and such things at the team meeting table. Of course, I always had to pass there when leaving my chair.
And yeah, of course, I grabbed into the box way too often, especially in the afternoon. But I wasn’t hungry, nor did I need any energy. I just needed a break.
But I didn’t know about mindfulness or mindful eating at that time, so I chose the unhealthy things way too often.
Now I do better than my past self and you can do too.
I’ll promise you if you do that for 2 weeks, you’ll be astonished about your bad eating habits and get a chance to change your life.