Mindful Eating Miniseries: Part 2 Be Your Own Guest at Dinner- Creating a Meaningful Mealtime Environment

Remember from our Mindful Eating Mini Series Introduction, mindfulness involves bringing one’s full and deliberate attention to what you are doing at the time you are doing it. Mindful, or mindfull, eating is a powerful strategy that can impact not only your calorie consumption but many other aspects of your life. Mindfulness embraces a moment by moment awareness of the thoughts, feelings, and surroundings of ourselves and others.  Mindfulness includes acceptance, an awareness of our thoughts and feelings without judging them.

Think of a celebrity whom you would love to meet. Imagine you were going to meet this celebrity. Imagine this celebrity was coming to your home for dinner! Imagine… What would you do? What food would you serve? What kind of environment would you create? How might you set the table?

Now, think about how you typically eat dinner…

Do you usually eat seated, standing, or perhaps in front of the television? Do you light candles? Set a nice place for yourself? Are you lucky if the food makes it out of the containers onto the plate?? The reality is that most of us would respond with little or no preparation or effort. Why? Ask yourself, why do I not make a big fuss over my own meal? You do not even know the celebrity yet we “roll out the red carpet” for them… but not our own self. It is important that you recognize and celebrate your own value. This, however, is easier said than done. The assignment this week is to invite yourself to dinner.

How do you invite yourself to dinner? Simply, treat yourself as you would a special dinner guest: turn the television off, light a candle, set a place at the table. Savor each bite. The food can be as simple as a frozen entrée, but take it out of the box and place it on a dinner plate.  The idea is to create an experience for you… so you not only enjoy the meal, but celebrate yourself. Try this for at least one meal this week.  We’ll discuss our experiences at our next meeting.

Ask yourself the following questions after putting this into practice:

1. How did you treat yourself as your own dinner guest? What did you do?
2. How did this compare to how you typically eat?
3. Did the food taste any different in this special environment?
4. Did you feel more in tune with your feelings of hunger and satiety?
5. What was your overall reaction to this exercise?
6. Would you do this on a regular basis?