Myth #1: Mindful Eating is a Fad Diet
Mindful eating is not a fad, at all. However, I’ve seen people misuse (and abuse) ‘mindful eating’ as a way to restrict food intake. This is turning mindful eating (a non-diet) into a diet [insert low growling noise here]. If used in this way, it will in fact be like any other trend or fad that comes and goes: you’ll try it, burn out, fall off the wagon, and be on to the next diet.
True Mindful Eating is timeless and sustainable. It’s neither new nor going anywhere. It’s not about restricting food (i.e. most diets) – it’s about being present in that moment, honoring your body and its needs, and listening and responding with care and kindness. How could something as liberating and easy as that ever go out of style?
Myth #2: Being Mindful Means Choosing the “Healthy” Option
Sure, being aware of what’s going into your body or what you’re feeding yourself or family is a component of being mindful, but that doesn’t automatically default to “healthy”. More importantly, being a mindful eater means inserting a pause into your eating process — and in that pause, we ask ourselves “what would satisfy me in this moment?”
The answer to that may in fact be the “healthy” option – but it may also very well not be. In that moment, we choose the food/foods that answer that question. We do so with confidence because we know and trust that if we give the body what satisfies it when it asks, it’ll return to asking for the “healthy stuff” soon. Plus, we know that when we give in to what our body asks for, we gain the ability to notice when we’ve had enough (which may or may not mean eating the whole thing/whole bag/etc.).
Myth #3: Being Mindful Request A Lot Time
A lot of my clients with big corporate jobs will claim that they’re “too busy to be mindful”. Nah, that’s not true! Being a mindful eater doesn’t require more time – in fact, once you understand what it is, you’ll actually gain valuable time back. All that planning, thinking, and worrying about food – that’s time (and energy!) you get back when you surrender to the moment and make choices that nourish your body and feed your soul.
Myth #4: It’s Not Possible to Be Mindful When Socializing
I can’t tell you how often I have heard “I’m mindful when I’m alone, but it’s impossible when I’m with others”. New clients who have dipped their toes into mindful eating will come in with this “problem.” This is maybe the biggest misconception – that mindful eating means eating with your full attention – and therefore can’t be done while dining out with friends.
A quick google search on “mindful eating” and you will get the old fashioned canned tips:
- Put your fork down between bites
- Eat distraction-free
- Chew slowly
- Use smaller plates
Surely, these aren’t the things that will contribute to a healthy social life, but rather an awkward and looooooong meal.
Food is a HUGE part of our culture – it’s how we gather and celebrate. In fact, being able to share food with those you love is at the root of our survival.
Therefore, it’s imperative to understand that mindful eating isn’t just about giving food your full attention – it’s about the entire experience of getting to know your body: its feedback signals for telling you its hungry, or its full, or even ‘hey, I don’t like that food! stop eating it!’ These signals are happening all the time. The more we learn to listen to our body, from perhaps the more mechanical aspects of mindful eating, the easier it gets to be reflexive about it. When it automatically begins to happen, you realize mindful eating is sustainable for life.
P.S. Tuning into physical fullness (a skill that needs to be cultivated) can be an amazing way to stay present for meals with others, enjoy the food, and know exactly when to stop.
Myth #5: When We’re Mindful, We stop Overeating and Emotional Eating
NOPE! Sorry… probably not what you wanted to hear. Learning to mindfully eat (and live) doesn’t mean you become a superhero. This isn’t a “fix” and you should be wary of anything or anyone that advertises an easy fix to such complex problems. The beauty of mindful eating is accepting imperfection (isn’t that a breath of fresh air?). Accepting that you’ll overdo it again because you’re human, and it will happen again. If you’ve got a history of turning to food when you’re emotional, that habit may creep back in, which you can be mindful of and work on if it happens.
The GOOD news is, mindful eating is how we respond to ourselves and the experience(s) that follow. We choose the cascade of events, rather than have the cascade of events happen to us. We recognize signs of guilt, and use positive self-talk to make them go away. We recognize food is food, and there’s no shame involved with eating – ever.
We learn to deeply trust ourselves around food again – understanding that our bodies are remarkable and much wiser than we could have ever imagined. Instead of forcing ourselves to eat less the next day or after an episode described above, we rely on our bodies to tell us if we need more or less food. That, right there, is FOOD FREEDOM.
Myth #6: Mindful Eating is for Weight Loss
There is a small body of research that shows mindful eating leads to weight loss. This is a growing area of interest as practitioners are eager to come up with a solution to obesity that is long lasting, sustainable, and isn’t a fad diet.
With that being said, the key priority for my clients must be to first repair the relationship to food and end the viscous diet cycle by learning how to listen to their body’s cues, not weight loss. Sometimes weight loss happens as a result of a mindful eating, sometimes people gain weight. Sometimes there are no weight changes.
Most of my clients accept early on that the scale isn’t a measure of success, and therefore weight changes become less of a focus as they learn to accept their bodies’ natural size that can be achieved without force, effort, and restriction.
Myth #7: Mindful Eating Means Eating Less
This myth stems from the idea that when you’re paying attention to fullness signals, you will notice them early on. But, the crux of how I use and teach mindful eating is that we take a nonjudgmental stance on how much food we need every single day.
We understand there are times when the body needs and asks for more food, including but not limited to hormonal changes or an increase in exercise. We all know what hunger feels like – right? It hurts. But fullness, that’s much harder to tap into (this is a result of evolutionary adaptations and previous history of starvation or long periods of time without food).
I was personally a member of the Clean Plate Club for a very long time. There wasn’t a meal I had that wasn’t licked clean. I always thought this was a bad thing, but Mindful Eating helps us understand that eating all of your food isn’t necessarily a bad or a good thing. That’s too general. With mindfulness inserted into the picture, we can decide how much food we need – sometimes that is more, sometimes it is less- there’s no predicting.
Here’s more:
The term “Mindful Eating” has become commonplace and many do not teach or practice mindful eating the way I have described above. Therefore, I want to point out that I use a modern spin on Mindful Eating. It encompasses a lot of intuitive eating principles (responding to hunger and fullness cues), but ultimately, it’s about being able to live your life without being fearful of food or eating too much. The goal is to learn to listen to your body (I know how hard that is), let go of food rules, and make space to step into your true power because I promise you’re capable of being around ‘foods you love’ without automatically “binging on them.
