El Mindfulness es el estado donde estamos alertas sobre algo. En otras palabras, cuando estamos poniendo la atención total a un objeto específico, digamos por ejemplo la respiración, estamos aplicando mindfulness (o atención) a la misma. Así el Mindfulnes de la Alimentación se da cuando ponemos toda nuestra atención a la experiencia de comer. Aplicar mindfulness mientras comemos es algo que todos podemos aprender a hacer y aplicar naturalmente. Esta nos brinda tantos beneficios en tantos niveles, que te sorprenderías de los cambios positivos que esta práctica puede brindarle a tu vida. Pero antes de hablar de estos beneficios quiero contarte porqué personalmente soy una fiel amante de esta práctica.

As many of you, as a young women I suffered from serious eating disorders for many years. For about 10 years I was a slave of the food every minute of the day, always worrying about portions, calories and nutrition facts of each type of food; also the where, when and how to eat was an everyday plan! I was always searching for ways to “control” what I was eating. During that time I suffered very much, causing unnecessary pain to my body and to my soul. I had to work a lot in me in order to understand where this obsession was coming from. And what I realized today is how disconnected I was to myself and how I needed to control food in order to feel “safe”. So, after lots of inner work (and actually studying Nutrition and Dietetics), I started applying the principals of mindful eating every time I was relating with food and this definitely have been being my allied in all of my healing process towards getting a healthy relationship with food, with my body and with myself. And in this blog post I want to show you some ways you start applying the practice of mindful eating. 

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Se que como algunxs de ustedes también, yo sufrí de trastornos de la alimentación. Por alrededor de una década fui una esclava total de la comida, cada minuto y cada hora del día, mi preocupación se centraba en encontrar qué comer, contando siempre cuantas porciones comer, cuantas calorías ingerir, los tipo de alimentos que iba a consumir, los lugares adonde iba a obtener los alimentos, y hasta las personas con quién me iba a sentar a comer. Me encontraba constantemente en un estado de control total de mi alimentación. Lo que esto me llevo a un sufrimiento constante, causándole dolor a mi cuerpo, mente, espíritu y hasta a las personas alrededor mío. Y la verdad es que tuve que realzar un gran trabajo interno para poder entender de dónde venía este comportamiento obsesivo y porque buscaba seguridad a través de este control. Y además de estudiar la Carrera de Nutrición y Dietética (que me ayudó muchísimo), una práctica aliada en mi proceso de la sanación de mi relación con la comida, fue el mindful de la alimentación. Ya que a través de esta practica logré volver a disfrutar de cada bocado y esto me liberó de mi tortura! Así que en este post te voy a enseñar formas en que puedes aplicar esta practica en tu día a día. 

Benefits of Mindful Eating

Some of the benefits I have personal experienced through this practice are:

• The taste of food is much more sensitive, even the simplest form of food can taste amazing if you put your whole focus on its flavor.
• I started enjoying the simple food more. I didn’t need much salt, oil or heaviness to really enjoy their flavor.
•  I starting being much more aware of myself, I started noticing which type of food didn’t gave me an enjoyable sensation.
• I started noticing my own body signals much clearly, like when I was full.
• My relationship with food overall got much healthier. I started noticing the relationship of the food I was eating and my mood.
• I started really enjoying to see different colors in my plate. This let me to put much more attention to how many colors I am bringing to my body.
• I began to be more creative in the kitchen, because now I was putting much more attention to each ingredient, every color and every texture you get out of food.

As you can see, all of these things that I started noticing conduct me into a much healthier pathway towards the relationship I had with food. And that made me make conscious food choices creating a healthier diet in an easy, natural and flowing form.

The 4 elements of mindful eating

1. Sight

Before you start eating, take a moment to see the plate that is in front of you, the food that you decided to eat, and connect with it by paying attention to what are you seeing: watch the colors, the combination of the textures, the forms and the way they combined with each other. Notice if the food you are about to eat have one, two, three or more colors, and if the colors are bright ones or pale.

2. Smell

Put your attention in how it smells, how each element smells and notice the sensations in your body: does it make you salivate more? Does it bring you satisfaction?

3. Taste

After connecting with the color, textures, forms and smell of the food, let’s take a bite of it and consciously and with awareness notice how it tastes, how your taste buds react to it. And leave the food for a moment in your mouth, take time to chew it, to connect with it and to enjoy it. Notice if it is salty, or sweet, sour, hot or pungent. Notice how your body react to the taste of each bite: does it feels relaxed or uncomfortable

4. Feeling

Now, it`s time to put the awareness into the feeling the food creates in you. What is the feeling that arises when you eat that specific food? Does it makes you feel good or does it makes you feel bad? Does it gives you pleasure or maybe it makes you feel guilty? What is the associated feeling food gives you?

By applying this four elements you become more conscious about how the food looks, smells and tastes like; and at the same time make you aware on how you are feeling while eating. Also, they give you the time you need to connect with the whole eating experience in much deeper level. All of these will make you more conscious about the type of food you decide to give to your body every single day.

In this video I talk about the 4 elements and benefits of the mindful eating, plus I give a big personal challenge! Which I know that it`s going to take your whole eating experience to the next level. For those who want to start the challenge please leave a comment below so I can support you, I am really interested in knowing which are your insights while or after doing this experience.

As always, I send you much love!

Pia

Watch the video here

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