VOLUME 30 LOSE IT! 27
SAVOUR THE FLAVOUR
Take a moment to think about
your feelings. Reflect on whether
you’re feeling stressed out, bored
or sad. Figure out what your wants
and needs are and make a very clear
distinction in your mind. Once you have
carefully thought about what you want
to eat and how you want to eat it, you
can make the decision.
Do not eat straight from the
bag or box! Step away from the
Biltong bulk pack. Put some pieces in
a bowl and store the rest. You need to
see how much you’re eating to fully
appreciate your food. This could also
prevent you from overeating.
Whether you want to believe it
or not, humans are not very good
at multi-tasking. Don’t eat on the go- take a seat and keep track of what
you’re eating.
Say grace before a meal or,
if you’re not religious, give
gratitude to the person who made
the meal – whether it’s you, your
partner, the farm labourers, chefs
or Mother Earth.
After every bite of food, try
putting your knife and fork down.
This allows you to enjoy the food in
your mouth before preparing the next
morsel on your utensils.
Try to get 30 chews out of each
bite of food. Enjoy the flavour
and textures in your mouth before you
swallow. This also allows your brain to
pick up on fullness cues.
Many of us were taught to finish
all the food on our plates before
getting up from the table. But stuffing
yourself isn’t worth it (sorry, Mom!).
Rather pack up the leftovers to enjoy
at a later stage.
necessarily weigh less than their less mindful peers,
they experience fewer weight fluctuations. ‘Mindfulness
helps to build self-awareness, and long-term, it increases
self-regulation while reducing self-judgement –
behaviours that are associated with better chances of
success on weight loss programs,’ says Louise Clamp a
dietician at Shelly Meltzer & Associates, in Cape Town.
So mindfulness also helps with resisting the pleasures
of the table?
‘It essentially supports more intuitive eating; a
tuning in to the present experience – not just of hunger
and satiety but also recognising thoughts, physical
sensations and emotional tones that may be present and
precipitating the eating behaviour,’ says Louise.
Next time you crave a large slice of cheesecake, think
about how it would taste in your mouth and what effect
it could have on your body – that could be enough to
slam on the brakes!
At this point you’re most likely thinking that
‘mindful eating’ is going to be a big lifestyle change. But
there are shortcuts available to ease you into it. Klasie
suggests eating with your non-dominant hand or eating
silently for a short period of time, to think about how
the food got from the farm to your table. Then the trick
is to ‘put the food in your mouth, taste it, listen to the
sound it makes in your mouth ... Just engage all of your
five senses – that is mindful eating 101. You’re going to
eat more responsibly; you’re going to be more controlled,’
PH he says. Q
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