The Principles of Mindful Eating

Principles of Mindfulness:

  • Mindfulness is deliberately paying attention, non-judgmentally.
  • Mindfulness encompasses both internal processes and external environments.
  • Mindfulness is being aware of what is present for you mentally, emotionally and physically in each moment.
  • With practice, mindfulness cultivates the possibility of freeing yourself of reactive, habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and acting.
  • Mindfulness promotes balance, choice, wisdom and acceptance of what is.

Mindful Eating is:

  • Allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food preparation and consumption by respecting your own inner wisdom.
  • Choosing to eat food that is both pleasing to you and nourishing to your body by using all your senses to explore, savor and taste.
  • Acknowledging responses to food (likes, neutral or dislikes) without judgment.
  • Learning to be aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decision to begin eating and to stop eating.

Someone Who Eats Mindfully:

  • Acknowledges that there is no right or wrong way to eat but varying degrees of awareness surrounding the experience of food.
  • Accepts that his/her eating experiences are unique.
  • Is an individual who by choice, directs his/her awareness to all aspects of food and eating on a moment-by-moment basis.
  • Is an individual who looks at the immediate choices and direct experiences associated with food and eating: not to the distant health outcome of that choice.
  • Is aware of and reflects on the effects caused by unmindful eating.
  • Experiences insight about how he/she can act to achieve specific health goals as he/she becomes more attuned to the direct experience of eating and feelings of health.
  • Becomes aware of the interconnection of earth, living beings, and cultural practices and the impact of his/her food choices has on those systems.

©The Center for Mindful Eating. Free to reproduce and distribution for educational purposes only