Food rules will help you eat healthier

Mindless Food Rules

Food rules reduce awareness and allow the brain to grow lazy. Sometimes individuals seek out food rules because it means not having to think very hard. If there is a guideline set, no decision has to be made.

Following food rules blindly is a problem because the rules often don't take into account the situation or the circumstance. For example, your food rule instructs you not to eat cake. But, it is your birthday and your boyfriend has made you a special chocolate cake from scratch. What are you to do?

Mindfulness of Food Rules

Being mindful of these rules means bringing the rules and assumptions to the very surface of our brain and challenging them. Why is chocolate a "bad" food? Is it really a "horrible" thing to eat after nine if I'm really hungry? Why don't I trust my body to tell me when to start and stop eating?

It's not a question of getting rid of the rules or throwing them out. But it is important to begin to ask yourself how the rules got there in the first place and what purpose they serve. Instead of food rules, mindful eaters depend on "being in the moment."

Being in the Moment

Mindful eaters try to "be in the moment." As trite and impossible as it sounds, being in the moment means not thinking about the past or the future but just being aware of what is going on in that very moment. This means, in the case of food, focusing only on what is being eaten at the moment it is being eaten. Most of us use hindsight to understand why we did something.

After eating a piece of cheesecake, you may say, "Why did I eat that entire piece? I wasn't even hungry?" Then, you may think back and explore the possible reasons for the mindless eating. Perhaps you overate because you hadn't had cheesecake in a while. But, it's too late to really be sure, because the event is over, the cheesecake has been eaten.

When you are in the moment, you evaluate your motivation and sensations as they are happening - such as asking why you are eating this particular food at this particular moment. What am I feeling as I eat this cheesecake? How does it taste? Do I really like it? Am I really hungry? When these questions are asked at this point in the proceedings, you can understand your motivation and still have the option of making a choice.

Then it is possible to decide whether you are really enjoying the food, eating it mindfully, and will keep eating it. Or, there's the option of noting that you aren't really hungry, that although the food was good, to continue eating it will lead to some regret for eating mindlessly. There is still a choice. It may or may not change the action, but it gives you the power and control to make a conscious decision.

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