Are You a Conscious Eater?

Have you ever been sitting in front of the T.V. watching your favorite show and hunger hits?  So you decide to grab a bag of chips because you’re only going to eat a few, right?  You take it back to the couch and start munching.  Before you know it, the show is over, you look down and the entire bag of chips is gone...

Or maybe you’ve been eating in the dining hall with your friends, and you’ve chosen a large amount of food to eat because your eyes were bigger than your stomach.  You get caught up in chit-chat and before you know it, you look down and your plate is so clean that you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that you had food on it in the first place.

These are cases of what I’d like to call “unconscious eating”.  It's important to try to be a "conscious eater": try to take the time to sit down and enjoy your food.  It’s a good idea to practice eating more slowly and trying to savor each and every bite.  Think about its smell, its texture, its taste.  Too many times we get caught up in what’s going on around us that we don’t stop to realize what we’re eating or how much.

I like to relate “unconscious eaters” to “unconscious drivers”.  You’re driving from point A to point B, in the end you get to your destination alright, but do you remember the drive?  Do you remember how you got there?  Sometimes it’s the same with eating.  We start eating and then before you know it, your plate is cleared and you don’t remember what or how much you put in your mouth.  This can lead to overeating at meal times.  The key is to eat slowly and stay conscious of where you are on the Hunger/Fullness Scale.  It may be best to portion your food out before you eat because a lot of the time if it’s there, it’s gone.

Do you pay attention to your food during meal times?  Do you find it hard to focus on your food when you’re multitasking (watching T.V., studying, talking, driving, etc.)?