So I’m eating my rice and beans the other day, in my usual way (which is bowl in left hand, fork in the other, and holding it right up close to my mouth for easy shovelling), and it occurs to me, boy you eat fast, CB. I justify it to myself with a yeah of course, I’m hungry, I want to take the feelings of hunger away, duh. But hunger isn’t something to run from screaming, as I’ve stated many times before. It’s a perfectly tolerable and important part of one’s day. It’s nature’s signal to eat.
And I notice that before I even start chewing my current mouthful, let alone swallowing, I’m already scooping up the next in preparation, and that just can’t be good. It’s like I’m trying to escape the present moment, through food. It’s like I’m not comfortable where I am, and want to be somewhere else. Which is crazy because there is nowhere else to be. I can’t speed up time.
And with that realisation, that there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nothing to achieve and nothing to win – there’s the present moment, AND THAT’S IT – something incredible happens. The rushing, the shovelling, the bits going down the wrong hole as I grapple with my meal as though it’s my last….stop. I slip effortlessly into the NOW, becoming fully conscious of the present moment.
It’s magical.
And I eat 30% less of course, because that’s what slow eating does for you, it prevents you going further than you need. So you end up buying less, spending less money, cooking less, using less gas, throwing away less packaging – less, less, less, less, less (and less is more when it comes to food). Plus the body of a slow eater tends to have fewer wobbly bits than one belonging to a sprint-eater. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point that out.
So how do you go from one to the other? From a sprinter to a slow-coach?
1 Recognise you can’t leave the NOW – even if you wanted to – no matter how fast you eat, you can’t escape it, so you may as well stop trying and just enjoy it (meaning become aware of it).
2 As you eat, take your awareness into the experience. Feel that inner body tingle. Feel the food in your mouth, notice it.
3 Put your knife and fork down between each mouthful – annoying, I know, but it serves to put the brakes on.
4 Chew slowly. VERY IMPORTANT. This is where most of the speed is taken from.
In other words, use meal times to roll around in the feeling of the NOW. Luxuriate in the present moment. Change the purpose of your meal times from a time to satisfy hunger into an opportunity to be fully present in the moment. If you do you’ll be amazed at how easy it becomes to eat slower and eat less.
You’ve nothing else to do in that moment anyway, it’s eating time, i’s not work time or thinking time. So there’s really nothing to lose here and a 30% smaller backside, to gain.
Photo by ÉMILE SÉGUIN 🇨🇦 on Unsplash