Tuning In: How Mindful Eating Can Transform Your Relationship With Food
Do you find yourself eating meals or snacks while watching TV, your phone or working on your computer? You're not alone, I’ve been there too. In today’s fast-paced world, we often lose sight of what should be our number one priority: our health.
One powerful way to reconnect with our well-being is through mindful eating, a practice rooted in mindfulness.
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations.
It has gained popularity over the past few decades, and today, many registered dietitians use it as a therapeutic tool to help patients improve their relationship with food, develop healthier eating behaviors, and find peace with their body.
““Mindfulness is the capacity to bring full attention and awareness to one’s experience, in the moment, without judgment. Mindful Eating brings mindfulness to food choice and the experience of eating.””
Mindful Eating vs. Intuitive Eating
You may have also heard of Intuitive Eating. While they are two different approaches, they share important similarities. In fact, I believe one complements the other beautifully.
Neither approach is about weight loss or strict dieting. Instead, they focus on being present, honoring hunger and fullness cues, and making food choices without guilt or restriction.
To eat mindfully and intuitively means reconnecting with your body’s natural signals, eating when you're truly hungry, stopping when you’re satisfied, and finding joy in food again.
Is Mindful Eating About Weight Loss?
This is a common question and an important one to address clearly.
Mindful eating is not a weight-loss strategy. Its primary goal is to help you develop a healthier, more balanced relationship with food, increase awareness of your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues, and reduce emotional or distracted eating. While some individuals may notice changes in weight due to more attuned eating habits, this is not the focus of mindful eating.
Rather than focusing on calorie counting, restriction, or rigid food rules, mindful eating teaches you to trust your body and respond to its signals with kindness, not control. This approach helps you tune in to your body’s needs and shifts the focus away from weight and body size, prioritizing overall health and well-being instead.
Research backs up the benefits of this approach. A large review of studies (Linardon et al., 2021) found that both mindful and intuitive eating were associated with:
Increased positive body image
Higher self-esteem
Reduced disordered eating patterns
Improved overall well-being
These practices promote lasting, positive changes in eating behaviors, focusing on self-care, not self-judgment. That’s the real difference.
Tips to Start Practicing Mindful Eating
Here are a few simple ways to bring mindfulness into your daily meals:
Eat slowly and chew each bite thoroughly. Put your fork down between bites. (This is a must if you suffer from bloating!)
Remove distractions like phones, TVs, or laptops during meals.
Check in with your hunger: Are you truly hungry, or are you feeling bored or stressed? What do you feel when you are hungry? Does your stomach growl?
Need a little extra help tuning into your body's signals?
Download my free Hunger & Fullness Check-In Guide to make it even easier to pause, reflect, and eat with awareness.Honor your fullness: It takes a few minutes for your brain to register satiety. (Evidence suggests it takes up to 20 minutes to realize we are truly satisfied!)
Enjoy your food without guilt: Choose nourishing foods, but also allow yourself to enjoy treats mindfully.
Practice is key with mindful eating, and remember we’re not aiming for perfection. Every practice counts, and doing your best is always enough.
Linardon J, Tylka TL, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz M. Intuitive eating and its psychological correlates: A meta-analysis. Int J Eat Disord. 2021;1–26. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.23509
Nelson JB. Mindful Eating: The Art of Presence While You Eat. Diabetes Spectr. 2017;30(3):171-174. doi:10.2337/ds17-0015
