Mindfulness...

My thoughts are kind of rambling and unfocused today, so this post is likely to be the same, so bear with me!

On 3 Fat Chicks, there has been a discussion on mindfulness.  This applies to a sort of life philosophy and can be applied to eating.  Apparently is has proven to be useful for some binge eaters - to encourage them to be more in touch with why they are eating something as well as the process of eating.

I have mentioned here before that I come from an extended family of people who INHALE their food.  Even the ones that are thin and fit seems to eat like we're in a contest to cram foods into our stomachs as fast as humanly possible.  

Part of my journey has been a concentration in teaching myself to eat slowly.  I thought of this primarily as a functional issue - it takes approximately 20 minutes for food to sit in your stomach before the brain realizes that it is there.  So if you eat slowly, you give the brain a chance to realize - "Hey I've eaten!  I'm full!"  Less likely to want seconds.  

This is a constant challenge for me for multiple reasons.  It's just not in my nature to do ANYTHING slowly.  Plus I've been in the habit for years of just chowing down in front of the tv without giving much thought to what I was eating.  The other practical "problem" is that I like my food BURNING hot, so taking a long time to eat cools off the food which I hate.  Good thing I eat a lot of salads now, huh?

But, I've been pretty successful at learning to eat slowly.  So now in the mindfulness discussion they are talking about slowing down to just feel the food in your mouth - chewing slowly and methodically - enjoy the texture and taste and process of eating your food.  I've been concentrating on that, and it is a different experience for me.  I imagine that in places where they don't get enough to eat, they do this automatically.  But us fat Americans with our instant gratification and fast food life styles - I can't imagine I'm alone in this.  

I have to admit, there have been times in my life when I've felt like a spectator to what was happening rather then being in touch and in the moment.  So this mindfulness discussion - not only in regards to food - but as to LIFE ITSELF has been extremely fascinating to me. 

I had a lot of time to think on this during my long run today, as I got to be outside - cold and somewhat windy - but sunny.  I'll write more on this tomorrow....