by Boom Shikha
I realized recently that I have forever and always been a mindless eater - watching tv or reading a book while eating, for almost my entire life. Recently, I decided to change this. And my digestion has improved for the better.
Meet your Teacher
Toronto, ON, Canada
Transcript
Hey everyone! I hope that you're doing amazing wherever you are in the world. My name is Boomshakab and I welcome you to my channel. As always I'm so grateful that you're listening, Subscribing and commenting. I appreciate the support. In this one I wanted to speak to you about mindful eating. It's something that I've been struggling with for a long long long long time. When I first started yoga and I started doing my yoga teacher training. I've done my yoga teacher training and I did it maybe 10 years ago. Around 10, 8 to 10 years ago. I don't actually remember now. I think 2008. So 12 years ago. Wow! Anyway, So I did my yoga teacher training because I really wanted to learn more about yoga for myself. I never really thought that I would teach and I did teach for a little bit after because it was interesting to me but I never really kept up with it. So I don't really teach yoga right now but one of the main things that they bought up. They taught us a lot actually in the yoga teacher training and a lot of those things I wasn't ready for those lessons then. So I learned a lot but I only kind of kept a few things that I used and then little by little I've been kind of going back to it and kind of realizing oh this is something that they told me and I never used it or this is something that they told me and I never paid attention to it. So one of the things that they said about eating or mindful eating in general is that most people do not do it. Most of us have a tendency and I am terrible at this that I want to read my mangas while I'm eating my food and I've been doing this for the last entire life basically since I had my phone and before I had my internet on my phone I used to read books. So while I eat my food I would have a book open and I'd read the book while I was eating my food. So my almost my entire life maybe not when I was a child but when my almost my entire teen to adult life I have been distracted while eating food. Now that's actually a little bit of a crazy thing to say out loud and when I realized it I kind of I actually take a step back and really pay attention to this because that's a lot of distracted eating and no wonder I felt so disconnected to food for so long and I wasn't able to really eat food in a manner that sustained me. I'd always feel hungry. I've told you guys this before you know no matter if I just finished a meal I would still be hungry and no matter if I just had a huge meal a few seconds later maybe a few minutes later I'd be hungry again thinking about my next meal constantly thinking about food constantly talking about food constantly dreaming about my next meal obsessed basically with food whereas when I actually came down to sitting down and eating it you know I'd be thinking about food all day long but when it comes down to the actual meal I'd be distracted and so it's kind of very ironic where you know as I said I spent hours and hours on Instagram looking at different food pictures but when I'm actually sitting down to eat I'm reading my manga not even paying attention to what I'm putting in my mouth no wonder I have this really major disconnection to food and also to satiety satiety means that the feeling of feeling the feeling of being full and I would never feel full and unless I felt too full and that was because I ate too much because I wasn't paying attention to what I was eating so all of this has been kind of transformed in the last few days just a few days I've only been doing this practice for a few days now I would say maybe a couple of weeks and so all of this has been transformed just in a couple of weeks of mindful eating now I'm not even doing it perfectly really I just spend a I try to have at least one meal a day that's completely mindful eating so maybe if the other two meals I'm not really paying if I'm not really paying attention to I don't really I'm trying to transition slowly out of distracted eating or mindless eating but what I've been doing is that I've been really trying to I'm not making it a very strenuous or a difficult thing I'm just whenever I do sit down to eat the only thing I do not do is pick up my phone to read my mangas it's a very simple thing very difficult to do for me because I am so instinctually used to picking up my phone when I eat it literally is like the plate of food is there means I have to have a phone there with my mangas open and mangas if you guys don't know what it is they're Japanese comics and I'm obsessed with them but so the main thing I've been doing is not picking up my phone and putting it away not having it on the table not having my mangas or a book open and literally just sitting there and eating that's the only thing I'm doing while I'm eating is eating not having a conversation usually because usually I'm by myself and so I'm sitting there by myself eating and the person if I am in a conversation with a person then I try to be as much as possible in the food if I can but most of my meals are solitary which is really helpful because I'm literally just sitting there and eating oh my god guys like literally I don't know if you've ever done this before maybe you have maybe you haven't but it does bring up a lot of stuff not only does it bring up issues with food shame related stuff and things like that but also it makes me realize how tasty the food is that I'm eating it's delicious and how little condiments I have to add to it usually I'd be adding a bunch of chili sauce and hot chilies because I'm like I need I need some flavor but because I'm actually paying attention to the food I noticed that it's already very flavorful and I don't need to add anything else to it and so I'm noticing the taste of the food the flavor the crunchiness the texture of the food the stuff that the liquid that comes out of it I'm also noticing a lot more saliva production because I'm actually again paying attention to the food I'm also again noticing satiety levels which means that I notice when I'm when I've become full because if you start paying attention to the act of eating not only do you start chewing more which means you take more with each bite more time with each bite but then you actually taking more time with the entire meal so normally I would gulp down my food in a matter of seconds literally I would say five minutes I'd be like done and ready to go but when I try to do mindful eating and I'm actually paying attention to each bite and you know really trying to chew as much as possible I noticed that it usually takes me 15 to 20 minutes to finish a meal and I haven't changed the quantity of the meal in fact I'm eating less but it takes me longer to eat it because obviously I'm paying more attention to it doing more with it and in that regard I noticed that I've become full and actually noticed the feeling of fullness because as I said previously I'd be too distracted to even notice if I was full or not and because I didn't feel full or I didn't have that satiety signal come in from my stomach even after I was finished my meal I'd still be hungry I'd still be like oh I want a snack I want I want some fruit or I want I want some chocolate or something like that but now I notice that my stomach is full it's distended I can actually sense the food inside my belly and sense that my stomach is full and sense that I don't need any more food which means that I'm actually full like actually really full for the first time in my entire life in my in a long time and that means of course you eat less but you eat it more mindfully and you're able to enjoy it more and you need less flavoring or you need less like salt or our chilies or all that stuff to add to your food because your food is already very flavorful and so all of these benefits all of these random benefits I did not realize would come up came up for me and as I said I've only been doing this for a few days and I'm actually really excited to keep it going so as much as possible I am trying to keep all of my meals mindful so as I said first I started off just doing one meal a day mindfully and now automatically I don't pick up my phone to be on my mongols while I'm reading because I'm like but I want to pay attention to my food and I want to see what's going on with it and I actually want to feel full because I really do not like the idea that I just finished a huge meal and two seconds later I'm already hungry and hankering for another food item like some snacks or some nuts or some fruit or some popcorn or something else and I like I just finished food why am I already hungry there's no way my body processed that food set that fast and so basically the essence of it is that I'm not letting my body feel satiety I'm not letting my body feel that sensation of hunger because either I'm eating too fast or I'm eating too distractedly I'm not paying attention to my food I'm not chewing my food enough and for all of those reasons I'm eating five six seven times a day because I just don't feel full and the same thing with snacking you know snacking is basically mindless eating where you have a bowl of popcorn and you're watching TV and you just finished the full bowl without even realizing that you actually had a single bite or a bag of chips or whatever your deal is with food so I am NOT saying that everyone should go out and start mindful eating right away because it's a difficult thing to do for me it was very difficult actually it took me a long time where I was like all right I'm gonna do it today and then I didn't and I'm gonna do it today and I didn't because it was so easy for me to pick up my phone and start reading my mangas so as I said I'm trying very much not even to take out my phone from my purse or from my bag I leave it in there because what's the point I'm not gonna look at it anyways and as I said as much as possible I'm trying to look at the food so really look at the food engage with it look at the sensations of it or the texture of it feel the sensation the texture of it in my mouth and really pay attention to the meal take a bite and then you know pay attention to what's going on in your mouth it's a random thing to do I know and you're probably like what is going on with this girl but it has a lot of benefits and as I said I've noticed that even so I'm sitting right now and I had my meal three two and a half three hours ago and I still feel full my stomach still feels full and I still feel this it's a tidy signal so that I'm not feeling hungry normally to even an hour and a half or two hours after I meal I'd be hungry already and I'd be like all right what am I gonna eat now what am I gonna eat now and so I do recommend as I said just maybe one meal a day the easiest meal could be the breakfast thing and just do it as mindfully as you can without any distractions right the only thing you need to do is put your phone away or your book away or TV away and just eat without any distractions and as I said it seems very simple but it's actually for me it was quite difficult and but also once you do it it's so beneficial that I just want to keep on going with it if you have any questions about this please do comment below and I shall do a follow-up video and our follow-up audio again thank you so much for listening for watching I really appreciate the support and I shall see you guys in the next one bye for now
4.3 (35)
Jean
March 14, 2021
This was great! It's so easy to eat while watching TV or looking at your phone but it is not a healthy way to eat. I will never forget attending Dr. Deepak Chopra's conference years ago. One exercise was eating a meal in quiet with no distractions and we did not speak to others at our table. It was an exercise in mindful eating.
Marissa
April 8, 2020
Such an excellent reminder of many things I’ve forgotten. I wrote an article about mindful eating several years ago for a local magazine and listening to your discussion showed me exactly how far I’ve strayed in the other direction (and I KNOW BETTER)... and more importantly, how I’ve allowed my children to do the same. Thanks for the eye-opener, I think today is the day for a change. 🙏❤️
