What Does Eating Mindfully Look Like During The Holidays?

Eating mindfully can be hard during the holidays when everyone else is eating themselves into a food coma. We all know that feeling after a holiday meal where you’re not sure if you can move without throwing up.

While this isn’t necessarily good for anyone’s body, some of our health journeys truly require us to be gentle with our bodies. Even on holidays. Keeping this mindset is not always easy on normal days, let alone days when people gorge themselves and call it tradition. So, how do we eat mindfully at this time a year?

Eating Mindfully Starts In The Brain

Before we get into it, lets look at what eating mindfully actually looks like. Eating mindfully looks like listening to your body, trusting your body, and making food decisions based on what your body is telling to you. That means paying attention to whether or not your actually hungry, eating when you are relaxed, taking the time to chew your food thoroughly, and choosing foods that give you consistent energy with no ill effects (like digestive issues).

Mindful eating is often portrayed as something you do for weight loss. It can absolutely help with weight loss because you are listening to your hunger cues instead of eating just to eat or just because food is in front of you. This can prevent overconsumption of calories. However, mindful eating is actually essential for proper digestive function.

Digestion starts in the brain. The brain is what triggers your vagal nerve to start producing saliva. Saliva contains enzymes that break down foods chemically in your mouth. That means that food is being broken down physically (by chewing) and chemically (enzymes in your saliva) inside your mouth!

When we eat mindfully, the food stays in our mouths longer as we chew it thoroughly. Chewing thoroughly makes the rest of your digestive system’s job easier. You won’t be relying exclusively on stomach acid to break down your food into pieces that your intestines can absorb. This is especially important for those of us who have issues with low stomach acid and/or leaky guts.

Listening To Your Body

With all of the modern distractions and the celebrated fast-paced lifestyle, listening to your body can be even harder than it used to be. Most people are just not paying attention. This is very unfortunate because there is such a strong link between the mind and body. The gut in particular is extremally effected by emotions, stress, and how present you are.

It comes as no surprise that stress would cause digestive issues. Stress is linked to several health conditions. Stress has been observed to cause and/or worsen cancer in mice and there have been suggestions that the same could be true for humans. It has also been suggested that stress contributes to multiple health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. You have likely felt the effects of stress on your digestive system in your own life. Acute stress will often cause a stomach ache or loss of appetite.

Your body will shut down non-essential processes when you are in a stressed state. One of these processes is the digestive process. This was originally designed to keep you safe. Years ago, you needed to focus on running and/or hiding from danger. Nowadays, that’s much less of an issue.

When you digestive system slows down, undigested/partially digested food sits in your gut for a longer period of time. This can cause symptoms like bloating, gas, nausea, stomach pain, acid reflux, inflammation, etc. Over eating can cause upper GI disorders, particularly in your stomach.

Even eating while experiencing emotions like sadness can have a negative impact on digestion. In The Mind-Gut Connection by Dr. Emerson Mayer (a fantastic read if you want to know more about this subject), he makes the observation that people who ate certain foods when they were sad during childhood often have a hard time tolerating those same foods as adults.

Pausing and taking stock of if your actually hungry or not is not just a technique for weight control. Over eating can cause upper GI disorders, particularly in your stomach. Low stomach acid production can be caused by over eating.

Trusting Your Body

Trust is earned. Some of us feel like our bodies have not earned the right to be trusted. I know I had a hard time with this when I was first diagnosed. It seemed like my body wouldn’t work correctly no matter what I ate. It was a long road to learning what my body could tolerate and an even longer road to figuring out how to eat in a way that was actually beneficial to my body. Trusting, loving, or even caring for your body at all can be hard.

If you are currently not super trusting of your body, you may benefit from working with a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP) who can help you learn all about what the signals your body is giving you mean and how you can live to help support your body. As an NTP, one of the most rewarding things I get to do is help you learn how to trust your body again so you don’t have to live in fear of food.

For those of you who do have a good relationship with your body, you will have a much easier time listening to it.

A quick side note here: One myth I will bust is that our cravings mean that we are deficient in certain vitamins or minerals. Many people believe that a chocolate craving, for instance, is a sign of magnesium deficiency. This can be the case sometimes, but in reality, there are many reasons you could be craving something. When you think about this critically, you realize there are several other foods that contain magnesium like pumpkin seeds, avocado, cashews, peanuts, chia seeds etc. If you were craving foods because you needed magnesium, why wouldn’t you be craving those foods in addition to chocolate?

Dehydration and/or being overly restrictive are both much more likely to be the cause of your cravings. So, if you stay hydrated and don’t restrict (as much as you can) your cravings will likely lesson on their own.

Choose Your Menu Mindfully

If you have any control over the menu, be sure to include foods that you know make you feel good after eating. Keeping a food and mood journal will help you figure out what foods make you feel sick after eating and what foods make you feel energized and satisfied.

You can do little things like switching out beef bullion cubes for real beef bone broth on recipes that call for it or a probiotic greek yogurt instead of whipped cream on top of your pie. For those of us who are looking to keep our processed sugar intake as low as possible, you could search for a ham that doesn’t have the brown sugar glaze (my favorite is Pederson’s ham) or make/bring a veggie side dish that doesn’t contain any sugar. Even desserts can be made in ways that are nutrient dense.

Nutrient dense foods reduce overeating. Highly processed, pre-packaged foods are often designed to make you want to eat more. Dishes made with whole foods have more fiber and more vitamins and minerals.

Summary

Eating mindfully can improve your digestion. Pausing and taking stock of your hunger signals, chewing thoroughly, and choosing foods that you know make your body feel good are all a part of mindful eating. It’s also an act of self care.

One of the most important things to remember as we try to eat mindfully throughout the holiday season is this: We will not be perfect and that’s okay. We are human and we don’t always make the best decision. When this happens, the best way to move forward is to forgive yourself. Being gentle with your body includes being gentle your mind. Mental health is just as important as physical health. I will be the first one to admit that I do not practice mindful eating at every meal.

I wish you all the happiest of holidays!