The Power of this week is Awareness, being awake at the plate, so to speak.
You know those times when you find yourself late in the day wondering, "What did I have for breakfast? Wait, did I even eat breakfast (or lunch)?" and you can't remember? That's the opposite of Awareness. We all do that at least sometimes. We're so preoccupied with kids, emails, TV, Facebook or something else on our phone, planning our day, or whatever that we're completely checked out when it comes to eating.
My guess is this is more of a problem than you probably realize. Here's why -
Cephalic Phase Digestive Response (CPDR)
You've likely heard the saying that we eat with our eyes before we eat with our mouths or had the experience of seeing, smelling, or thinking of food and having your mouth start to water. This has to do with what's called the cephalic phase digestive response. Cephalic means "of the head" - in this case, it's the role sight, smell, taste, and satisfaction play in digestion. Research estimates that CPDR is responsible for as much as 30-40% of the total digestive response to what we eat. So, setting aside any caloric or nutritive value a food may contain, simply noticing, really noticing what we eat accounts for up to 40% of how well it's digested. That's quite significant. Flip that around and it means that when we eat mindlessly we're likely to digest a food only 60-70% as effectively as we could. I don't know about you, but I want my digestion working as close to peak performance as possible.
Take those deep breaths we talked about in week one. Eat the best quality food you can afford, food you'll be happy slowing down to notice. Take time to pay real attention to what you're eating, and you'll give your metabolism a nice boost.
Another benefit of awareness while we eat is that it bumps up satisfaction. When we're checked out as we eat it doesn't give the brain what it needs - taste, pleasure, aroma, and satisfaction - to assess our food. When a meal doesn't have a chance to fully register with the brain, the brain will send out hunger signals when we've actually had enough to eat - a perfect set up for overeating. When we slow down and eat with awareness, we give our brain a chance to do it's job and send the "stop eating" signal sooner. This leads to eating less food. Often what we think of as an overeating or willpower problem is, in reality, an awareness problem.
Enteric Nervous System (ENS)
Did you know we actually have two brains? There's the one we all know about that's in our head, but there's another one, our enteric nervous system, or "gut brain." It's under the mucosal lining and between the muscular layers of our esophagus, stomach, and small and large intestines, and has more nerve cells than the spinal cord. Even more surprising is that research shows a much greater flow of neural traffic from the ENS to the head-brain than the other way around.
What does this have to do with awareness? We have a lot of "brain power" in our bellies and we're most likely not using it or listening to it. If we eat with awareness, listening to our bodies as we do, we can tap into our gut wisdom or body wisdom. If we do this, we take a huge step toward becoming truly intuitive eaters who work with our bodies rather than against them.
PRACTICES
1) First, simply notice when you check out with food. Every time you eat, take a split second to notice whether you're noticing your food and the eating experience.
2) Once you've realized how frequently you check out, ask yourself why you would choose to eat unaware and what influences you to do that. (Are you intentionally trying to numb yourself? Are you eating to deal with stress, pain, boredom, etc.?)
3) All week long, and hopefully long after that, before you put anything in your mouth, take 5-10 seconds to notice it - its appearance, its aroma, its ingredients, its history (where and how it came into being) - and appreciate it.
4) Start with eating at least one meal a day fully aware - no TV, no reading, no phone. When you're eating, just eat and take in the whole experience. Notice every one of your senses and their role in the process; be fully present with whomever you may share the meal; take note of the ambiance; be there 100%.
I hope you'll give these practices a try and notice how different your experience with food can be. This concept is one of the most powerful ways to be deeply nourished.