taste Archives - Diet Free Radiant Me | Intuitive Eating | Emotional Eating

How to Get Pleasure in Your Meals

The room is dark, the noise is loud. There is a buffet of luscious food awaiting. I walk over to the buffet, pick up a plate and can’t help but wonder “what is in front of me?” It looks like quinoa salad, or is it couscous? That must be a lentil patty, or is it a tuna croquette?

I take food, sit down at the table, and begin eating. All my friends at the table are saying what I am thinking, “anyone know what this is that we are eating?” I take a few bites, put my fork down and decide I have had enough.

Have you ever stopped to think about how important your senses are to the pleasure and satisfaction you get from your meals?

If you’re a chronic dieter, you’ve probably been eating what you think you should be eating, and not what you truly want to eat. And I might suggest that more often than not, you finish a meal and don’t say “wow, that was amazing!”. And, if you do, you likely have tremendous guilt that you enjoyed what you ate, and food is not meant for enjoyment.

One of the most beautiful benefits of being an intuitive eater is recapturing the pleasure in eating. The ability to use all of your senses during a meal to truly appreciate the food that is in front of you is something that you have lost in all your years of dieting. But, you can reclaim it on your path towards being an intuitive eater.

Here are 3 ways to get the most pleasure in your meals:

Before you begin eating: take a moment to observe the food in front of you and appreciate it. Think about where it came from, send gratitude to the people involved in preparing the food for you and observe the various colors, textures and aroma of the different foods on your plate.

During the meal: Pay attention to all aspects of the food. Notice the taste on your tongue, the texture in your mouth, the sound as you chew and how the flavor changes as you eat the bite.

At the end of the meal: notice how your belly feels, satisfied and content? Full or overfull? Stuffed? Perhaps your having indigestion or acid reflux. Take note and decide if this is a food that feels good in your body, and if it’s something you will want to eat again.

Learning to slow down and be mindful when you eat is an important part of your intuitive eating journey. It takes practice and patience, but it is worth the lessons learned.

I was not able to see the food I was eating at the party I was at, and I did not enjoy it. So, I honored myself and stopped eating. It’s a good thing I honored my hunger before leaving my house for the party and had a snack.

Your turn to take action: Try these tips above and comment below how it enhanced the pleasure of your meals.

Is it Possible to Eat without Food Worry?

If I told you, a chronic dieter, that you can recapture the pleasure in your eating and look forward to your meals with excitement and not fear, dread or worry, what would you say?

“No way, impossible.”

“I wish!”

“I doubt it!”

I know that this might seem unachievable to you, having battled with your weight for years, being on and off diets without long-term success. All these diets have caused food to be your enemy, which is quite unfortunate because food is meant to nourish your body.

How many times have you accepted a lunch date with your girlfriends, or dinner date with your partner only to worry for hours beforehand what you will order and if you are going to overeat? The worry about how many points the salad dressing is, how many calories are in the creamed spinach and concerned that you will leave the restaurant feeling bloated, heavy and miserable.

All this fear and worry leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. You DO overeat, you DO feel guilty and ashamed and you DO leave the date feeling bloated, heavy and miserable.

In my work with my clients, I help them to understand that through the process of learning to be an intuitive eater, you actually lose this food fear and food worry and instead leave the restaurant or dinner table feeling utmost pleasure in what you have just eaten (and you were able to focus on your wonderful dinnertime companion instead of thinking about eating too much food).

The secret is in SAVORING YOUR FOOD! This means slowing down and taking the time to enjoy all the qualities of the food you are eating including taste, texture, temperature, aroma and appearance. This sounds a lot like mindful eating, doesn’t it? Yes, it is and it is exactly what I teach my clients as they move along their intuitive eating journey.

This month is National Nutrition Month. The theme is “Savor the Flavor of Eating Right”. This theme meshes wonderfully with the message of mindful eating. Take the time to enjoy food traditions and appreciate the pleasure, great flavors and social experience that food can bring to your life.

Would you like to participate in a free 7 day challenge where you can learn how to “Savor the Flavor of Eating Right”?

This challenge is happening in my private Facebook group. It’s called:

Savor the Flavor of Eating

7 Day Free Challenge

Discover:

– What’s behind the “HOW”, “WHEN”, “WHY” and “WHERE” you eat.

– Begin your journey towards a more mindful and pleasurable eating style.

Join us for Free by clicking here. There is no opt-in required to join our group. This takes you to my private Facebook group. All you have to do is request access to join and Walla! I’ll accept you and welcome you in.

The challenge starts on March 7. You can only participate if you are part of the private Facebook group, so click here now and request access to join.

Relax…and Enjoy Your Food

Given my profession, I spend a lot of time speaking and thinking about food and how it relates to the lives of my clients. However, what I have noticed when meeting with new clients who are coming to me from a place of chronic dieting, they too speak and think about food all the time, but they do it from a place of worry. “What did I eat yesterday, what am I eating today, what will I eat tomorrow”.

This is exhausting, don’t you think? Balancing life and responsibilities such as family, friends and work is often difficult and stressful in and of itself. Food should not add to that stress. Eating should be pleasurable.

As a reader of my iEat Mindfully™ blog, you are likely coming from a history of dieting. A past littered with carefully laid out menu plans with just the “right” amount of carbohydrates, protein and fat. A history that includes feelings of panic when you are in a restaurant or at a family gathering where the food served is not on your “plan”. The amount of grief you give yourself in these situations takes away from all the pleasure you could be getting from your food.

By employing all the techniques I have been writing about such as slowing down, listening to your hunger and fullness cues, and using all your senses to enjoy your food, you are hopefully seeing that there is a place for enjoyment in food, even foods that were previously deemed “bad” in your mind. And you know what? It is okay to get excited about a specific dish at your favorite restaurant that you will be having tonight for dinner because you now know how to go about enjoying it. You will enjoy to the max and achieve full satisfaction without feelings of guilt.

When it comes to repairing your relationship with food, this is such an important step to learn. Ask yourself what you really want to eat, use all your senses to enjoy and really taste it, and savor the moment. You don’t have time to waste on food worry. Focus on the positive aspects of the food, how it nourishes you and makes you feel, the memories from your childhood and recapture the pleasure of eating once again.

Your turn to take action: Did you enjoy your meals this week? What senses did you use to improve your satisfaction? Please let me know in the comments section below.

Focusing on your Food: Use Your Senses for Maximum Enjoyment

Food, especially food that is truly worth eating, can be enjoyed by so much more than just your taste buds. A beautiful presentation, a smell that just makes you melt or the manner in which you eat certain foods can truly elevate the experience. You can easily lose all this as you fly through a drive-thru or quickly warm up left overs, but by getting back in touch with your senses, it is easier to get back in touch with your food.

How do you accomplish this? Start by slowing down. It is important to put your food on a plate, sit at the table, and eat in a calm relaxed atmosphere. The less time you spend eating at the steering wheel or standing at the kitchen counter, the more time you can savor your food. If you start using your senses to truly enjoy your food, you will likely find that you will eat less.

Try to allocate at least 20 minutes for your meal. When you plow through a meal faster than that, you often don’t even remember that you ate. Theirs is minimal enjoyment in that. Then what happens? You end up going back for more because you don’t “remember” even tasting that first serving. But if you take the time to use your senses – sight, smell, touch and taste – of your meal, you are much more likely to feel satisfied after eating.

It may sound labor intensive, but if taking a couple of extra minutes to set the stage for a meal allows you to get in touch with your satiety, then it is worth it. Plus you will find yourself enjoying your meals so much more with all your senses involved!

Your turn to take action: Share your experience in the comments section below and tell me how your eating experience was when using all your senses.

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