We have all been there. You walk into the break room at work or get to an event and there it is, a table full of free (and not-so-healthy) treats that are yours for the taking.

For Kristen these moments trigger her into what she calls “opportunistic eating,” mindlessly eating food that would normally not appeal to her just because it is there.

Kristen knows that this behavior is preventing her from dropping the last few pounds she would like to lose. She’s also missing out on enjoying better quality treats in the rest of her life because she has “blown her calories” on eating free junk food at work.

She feels she is undermining her personal values of both good health and enjoying delicious food because of this habit.

Together Kristen and I we come up with strategies that can help her bring awareness to her behavior and get in touch with her core values so that she can make better choices when tempted.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Mindful Meal Challenge

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

Weighty Matters

The Diet Fix: Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work by Yoni Freedhoff M.D.

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Jason is an old friend of my husband’s who also happens to be the editor of this podcast. Since he’s started listening to the show he’s become more and more health conscious, and when I launched the Mindful Meal Challenge he decided to give mindful eating a try.

Jason is a perfect test subject for mindful eating, because as he was already trying to get his healthstyle in a better place he already has a set menu for breakfast and lunch. This means that what he was eating didn’t change, so any change in his eating habits can be directly attributed to mindfulness.

He found that his morning three egg omelet was in fact larger than he needed to be satisfied, so he has now cut back to two. He also found that even though he found himself consuming less for breakfast, he wasn’t as hungry when lunch and dinner came around.

Simply by eating one Mindful Meal per day in the morning, Jason lost 4 lbs in the first week of the challenge.

Although he is still trying to figure out the best healthstyle for himself moving forward (which I help him troubleshoot in this episode as well), mindful eating is now a major part of his weight control strategy.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Relate links:

Mindful Meal Challenge

Foodist Kitchen

Simple Gourmet: Roasted Beets With Fresh Mint and Chèvre

Aeropress coffee maker

Hamilton Beach toaster oven

Blue Bottle Coffee

“The reason you’re suffering is you’re focused on yourself.” -Tony Robbins from Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferriss

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of mindful eating. Research has repeatedly shown that mindful eating helps people make better food choices, stop bingeing, enjoy meals more and naturally eat less.

It can help you break unhealthy eating patterns and replace them with healthier ones.

And it is often the last piece of the puzzle for healthy eaters who still struggling to lose those last few stubborn pounds.

But mindful eating is hard to do. Your brain naturally rejects mindful awareness and desperately seeks to follow your impulses to think and/or judge your current situation rather than simply observe it.

These impulses are STRONG. And fighting them to bring your attention back to the present moment can feel exhausting, especially in the early days of your practice.

This is usually when people start to question if mindfulness is even worth it. Enjoying your food more and eating less sounds great and all, but at what price?

How can you enjoy your meal when you’re in a tug of war with your own mind?

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The Mindful Meal Challenge has a new website. Join us at mindfulmealchallenge.com

UPDATE: The Mindful Meal Challenge was such a success we’re going to run it again every week. Sign up now to start on Monday!

Mindful eating is the most underrated health habit everyone is talking about. Self-proclaimed wellness websites love to tout the benefits of slowing down and savoring your food, yet it almost never comes up in conversation with someone who is serious about losing weight or improving their health.

This is probably because mindful eating is a deceptively simple idea that is incredibly hard to implement.

Most people aren’t even sure what mindful eating actually is, and so they say things like “I try to eat mindfully” then just keep eating the way they always do and hope that one day they’ll magically stop going back for seconds. Fat chance.

But mindful eating really is an amazing thing if you can turn it into a habit. Focusing on the experience of eating has a bigger impact on how satisfying a meal is than the number of calories it contains (1). As a result you enjoy your food more, while naturally eating less.

Eating mindfully can also make you less vulnerable to eating triggers that can cause you to eat more quickly (2) and overeat (3).

For many healthy eaters, mindful eating is the last piece of the puzzle for finally losing those last few stubborn pounds.

Personally, mindful eating has helped me feel back in control of my eating experience. When I was a dieter one of the terrible eating habits I developed was gobbling my food in a frantic rush whenever I sat down to a real meal.

My frenzied eating was trigged by a combination of extreme hunger (since I rarely let myself eat when I wanted) and the guilt I felt from giving into it, making me want to get the meal over with as quickly as possible. These were not my finest moments.

Mindful eating is what enabled me to snap out of my frantic mindless eating habit and actually appreciate the beautiful food I am so lucky to have access to.

But dang is it hard to do.

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