My Mindful

Eat mindfully.

Truthfully, I long believed this was total bullshit. "I've always been a fast eater, I always will be," was my mantra. I told myself that lie so many times I actually believed it. So, lately I have been trying to eat "mindfully" and it really does help me feel more satisfied with my meals, and to eat less overall.

Here is a true, science-based fact: it takes at least 15 minutes, sometimes as much as 30 minutes, for you to feel how full your stomach is from the last bite you eat.

Eating slower, and stopping eating for short periods during the meal help you to enjoy your food more and help you feel full from your meals. This is something I still have to consciously work on, but it does work if you work at it. Here's how I do it:

The very first rule I ever tried out was putting my fork down between bites. I have the rule that once I start to chew, the fork goes on the plate, completely out of my hand. I am still working on this goal. I am pretty good at it when I am at home, but I am still missing the mark at work. Oddly enough, I eat with other people at work, you'd think it would be the other way around, but it's not.

The second rule I tried on was having a sip of water between bites. I don't use it as a hard and fast rule right now, but I might make it one soon.

Once these things started producing results for me, I started listening to the ambient advice out there about "eating mindfully." One of the things I did believe all along was that you should make meals an important event. The idea behind eating mindfully is that you should focus on the meal and it's importance to you, and make meal time an event that has meaning -- not just sit in front of the TV and shovel down a bowl full of garbage.

I'm gonna put this right out there, and I don't give one fuck who thinks it's wrong, it is right for me: I watch TV while I eat dinner.

But, I do have some rules. First of all, I don't have broadcast TV, I have Hulu, Netflix, and Internet sources like YouTube and others, including Curiosity Stream which is an educational / documentary streaming service. I watch TV when I work out at home, too (I watch TV at the gym too...) but I have a rule for that as well: I only watch educational TV while I work out, no fiction or news. So my eating rule about TV is this: I only watch for-pleasure programming while I eat, so the opposite of the workout rule. BUT, no news. Part of My Mindful is that I create my own insular world where I am free and comfortable, which means no news, no perpetual outrage cycle creeping into my subconscious.

I also set up my environment for meal time. I light candles and put on incense and have a show queued up to start when I sit down to the meal. I make sure my chores for the day are done so that meal time is the runway into the rest of my evening. I also make sure to drink a big glass of water at least 15 minutes before I eat. And I normally smoke a nice fat bowl -- note, smoking weed does not give me the munchies, but it definitely enhances my enjoyment of food, and helps me relax and get into the "mindful mood."

I know to a person who does not have a fucked up relationship with food, it should go without saying that you also need to chew your food. But for me, chewing my food is important. Part of how I can be such a fast eater is that I only chew my food a couple times before I swallow it. That is also a function of binge eating -- the only way you can consume huge amounts of food is quickly. I've had a 10,000 calorie binge before. You don't cram that much food down your throat by chewing it too long. So part of My Mindful is that I focus on chewing, as well as tasting the food while I am chewing it.

So, set the scene. Make sure you're hydrated. Put the fork down between bites, chew the food completely before swallowing it, and drink water between bites. And watch something on TV that is for pleasure only.