What is the opposite of binge-eating?
Sarah had just gotten home from dinner with her family. She knew she wasn’t hungry, but she also knew she really wanted to eat. She went directly into the kitchen, grabbed things from her pantry and deposited herself onto her couch. The TV went on, Sarah tore in to the snacks in her hands, and the rest of the world faded away.
Sarah wasn’t aware of it at the time, but the overwhelming feelings that dinner with her difficult father and overly-accommodating mother stirred up in her activated the desire to numb out. If she was a different person, she might have numbed with alcohol or drugs or online shopping or something else. In the same way that there is nothing innately wrong with shopping online, there is nothing at all wrong with snacking and watching TV. Any behavior can be done mindlessly. There is potential for harm that going overboard on an activity done mindlessly can create (ever regret something you’ve done while drunk?). But more than that, numbing ourselves keeps us from participating in life. Every time Sarah numbed herself instead of staying present to identify and use her emotions, she lost an opportunity to get better at managing herself and her relationships.
Mindful eating is how we not only improve our relationship with food, but also our relationships with other people. If we have used food to manage our emotions, we’ve missed opportunities to address what is happening inside of ourselves and between other people in ways that actually solve problems.
What is the difference between mindful eating and intuitive eating?
Multitasking is expected for many people in the Western world. Things need to be done yesterday, so if you don’t do this while you are doing that, it won’t all get done. Expectations for doing a few things at one time mean that many of us have no idea what mindful eating even looks like.
When you have 15-20 minutes and a raisin (or a nut or a marshmallow), here are the steps to try eating mindfully, as an experiment.
The same way you are probably not binge eating every single time you eat, the goal is not necessarily to use mindfulness every single time that you eat. Sometimes lunch happens on the run, in the car (please- put most of your focus on driving!), while you are getting ready... Since we know all or nothing thinking usually isn’t helpful, expecting to take the time and brain power to mindfully eat every single time we eat something isn’t realistic, nor would it be preferable. Sometimes you need to also be tending to something besides your food. Sometimes you need to also be laughing at what your lunch mate is saying, or watching your niece open presents at her birthday party, or enjoying a novel on a rainy weekend with your coffee and doughnut. Since mindful eating allows us to fully and completely enjoy our food, it makes sense to know what it is and incorporate it in to our meals, even if just in small moments at first.
There are always reasons NOT to pay 100% attention to one thing at a time. In the continued journey towards a balanced, flexible life, learning to eat mindfully is not striving for all or nothing. It is a skill that makes intuitive eating possible. We can’t listen to our intuition if we don’t show up and listen when we interact with food.