Mindful Eating in the Summer: 7 Tips for eating intuitively

As the mercury rises amidst this sultry weather, one cannot stop from binge eating on tempting pani puris, canned soft drinks and delicious ice-cream sticks.

But here’s what you need to know. 

When we binge eat and don’t follow our intuitions, we end up eating more than our appetite causing obesity and other chronic diseases. To prevent it, let’s understand what is mindful eating & how it is important to it in our daily lives. 

What is Mindful eating?  

Remember eating pizza and relishing every bit of it. Have you ever tried to incorporate the same while eating your daily meals? The answer to the question is most of the time NO. That’s where mindful eating plays a key role. It involved using all the physical and emotional senses and paying complete attention to what you eat.

This makes the food more nourishing and easy to digest. 

Mindful eating includes the following:

• the source, preparation
• How the food looks, tastes, smells, and feels as we eat
• Expression of gratitude

Eating while driving/working or watching television/computer while having a meal should be strictly avoided as it will hinder the benefits of mindful eating.

What are the benefits?

• Reducing & managing emotional eating & binge eating.
• Helps in understanding emotional versus physical hunger cues.
• Higher diet quality, eg, choosing dry fruit over sweets or being cautious about the portion size.

Here are 7 tips for eating intuitively this summer:

1. Chewing of food:  It’s very important to chew and enjoy every morsel bit by bit. Then, gradually swallow it. It’s said to chew the food 32 times. This will cause the slow release of digestive juices to digest the food. Instead of gulping down the food and causing trouble in the oesophagus and putting a load on the system to digest, the former method is an appropriate way of chewing food. During the former method, one will experience utmost ease & satisfaction.
2. Sitting on the floor: Sitting in Sukhasana helps in the proper digestion of meals. It relaxes the mind and the body. For those with joint issues, you can sit with your one leg folded.
3. Timing of meals: It’s very essential to follow the right timings of meals as our bio-energies are active during that time the most. To keep the digestive fire working it’s important to eat at the correct time.
4. Appetite: In summer, the appetite tends to be less. It is therefore important to eat as per what your inner intuition says.
5. Portion control: Serve in modest portions. This can help avoid overeating and food waste. Use a dinner plate no larger than 9 inches across and fill it only once.
6. Restrict gadgets while eating: When one eats with T.V. on, eating and talking on mobile simultaneously, one does not have control over the intake of food. They either eat too slowly or just eat rapidly to finish the meal. For smooth digestion and assimilation of nutrients, it’s very important to concentrate only on one thing at a time which is your “meal”. 
7. Hydration: You might have seen health professionals talking about having 2-3 litres of water daily during summer. That’s true but along with that, it is also important to know how to drink the water. Gulping down litres of water will be of no help. Then what’s the correct way to drink water? It is sip by sip. Latter will allow the body to process the nutrients.

Research suggests that mindful eating can result in greater mental well-being and improved satiety. A combination of behavioural changes with nutrition will foster the habit of mindful eating esp among the youth. Also, it will help lower the risk of chronic diseases and improve the meal experience.