Discover Your Best with GenoVive

by Kendra Gaffney, RD, LDN

We come across times in our lives when we must scarf down a meal in less than 5 minutes without feeling each flavor brush our individually designed taste buds.  Stomachs are overwhelmed by the mass consumption and our bodies struggle to get the proper breakdown.  Eating large meals in a short amount of time can inhibit our ability to understand our body’s signals of hunger and fullness.  We live in a society of now…Now…NOW!  This takes away the ability for us to enjoy and taste our foods.  It’s very important for us as humans to slow down our eating.  We must take a step back and analyze the situation. This will help us out, not only through eating, but in all other aspects of life.  For instance, taking a bite every 30 seconds vs. a bite every second will enhance your ability to taste, increase your sensation of fullness, create a longer more satisfying meal time, and help slim your waistline.

Here is a helpful exercise to slow down the eating and increase mindfulness of what is being placed in your precious body.  Our digestion begins with sight and smell.  The moment we see a deep red strawberry or smell the pot roast in the crockpot our mind triggers our saliva to drip and our stomachs to growl.  Try this easy 10 step exercise to enhance your ability to eat mindfully.

1. Take a cold grape.
2. Look at the grape and discuss with yourself or with others what it looks like. 
3. Venture on to reflect about where it came from; the grocery store, from a farm, a vine, a seed. 
4. Once you have observed all aspects of the grape, even smell, place it in your mouth, but do not bite.
5. Move the grape around and feel the textures and flavors. 
6. Bite the grape in half and move it around to all areas of the mouth; tongue, cheek, roof, and describe the textures and flavors. Check the difference between the front, sides, and back of the tongue.  There are 5 distinct flavor differences within the tongue; salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. 
7. Now chew the grape up completely and begin to swallow it.
8. Follow the grape from the mouth down the esophagus and into the stomach. 
9. Try to feel when the grape hits the stomach.
10. When finished, think about the difference between being mindful when eating and being oblivious to taste, texture and flavor.  Is it more satisfying?

Choosing to eat mindfully will decrease over consumption of foods, increase self-awareness of hunger signals, create a more pleasurable dining experience, and help us reach our weight loss/maintenance goals.  At your next meal I challenge you to try at least one bite using this mindful eating technique.  Enjoy!