One of my clients was having a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich every single morning. Before I could even think about it, he preemptively said, “Don’t touch it. I love it and I’m not giving it up.”
So I didn’t.
Instead, I gave him a mindful eating assignment. Since he loved it that much, I wanted him to really enjoy it.
For the next week, when he got his sandwich, instead of driving while eating, he was going to pull into a parking spot, turn off the news, and just be present for the experience of eating this food he loved so much.
He came back a little stunned.
“It was disgusting.” Those were his words. When he really tasted and experienced it, it turned out he didn’t like the taste as much as he thought.
ALSO — when he paid attention to how he felt in his body afterward, it wasn’t anywhere close to how he wanted to feel.
So, on his own, he started choosing a breakfast that DID make him feel how he wanted to feel: energized and fueled for the morning, focused, more stable. That ended up having a ripple effect on his entire day.
I didn’t take anything away from him. My personal and professional approach is NOT about deprivation or restriction. Had he decided that sandwich DID help him feel how he wanted to feel and he loved the taste, we would have worked with it.
But I just asked him to pay attention, and his body communicated the rest.
It’s About Information, Not Restriction
That’s the part most people miss about mindful eating or intuitive eating. It isn’t “just eat whatever you want,” and unlike dieting, it’s not about imposed restraint or restriction.
It’s about information. When you slow down enough to actually be with your food, it shows you your real preferences and reconnects you to the cues you’ve been disconnected from.
It goes both ways, too. I once led a mindful eating exercise in a live group using a raisin. We mindfully consumed it slowly, with attention and engaging all of our senses. Afterward a woman shared that when we first passed around the raisins she had been carrying a preconceived notion that she didn’t like them — and during the exercise she discovered that she did. It was a surprise, but she was also delighted. Another participant shared noticing a strong urge to scarf it down quickly, but by pausing first, they were able to let that impulse rise and fall like a wave.
It happened to me, too. When I was first training in mindfulness and working through my binge eating and emotional eating patterns (and disordered eating), I went on a 3-day mindfulness/mindful eating retreat. In one exercise, we ate three chocolate chips over the course of about ten minutes. Three. I got more satisfaction from those three tiny bits of chocolate by being fully present for them than I had been getting from half a bar. Or let’s be honest — at that time it was often the entire bar.
Previously it had been hard to stop eating the chocolate bar because “it tasted so good” (and also because I had been telling myself I shouldn’t have it, and that created something to rebel against. Conversely, when I learned to give myself permission, it was easier to make choices instead of always needing to exercise restraint. But that’s for another post).
I receive this reflection from clients, too. The story is that they keep eating past satiation or even past fullness because they love the taste — but then it turns out they’re not actually present FOR the taste at all. Even if they aren’t multitasking, their brain might be telling stories like “I shouldn’t be eating this,” which is taking them away from the experience.
Why Presence Changes Behavior and Appetite
This is why presence changes behavior and appetite. Not through willpower, and not through control. When you’re actually present for the experience, a few things happen at once:
- You find out what your preferences are — what you genuinely like, and what you don’t. Clients have come to find out they really like vegetables, for example.
- You can be attuned to what your BODY needs from the perspective of supporting how you want to feel and move through the day, and you catch the satiation cues that tell you when you’ve had enough before eating past them.
- If you ARE eating something for a sensory reason or for pleasure, you can actually register satisfaction.
- You end up eating the amount that’s right for you, and you enjoy it more.
Presence Is a Skill You Build
Mindful eating is a skill you develop muscle memory around by doing the repetitions. The first few times you try it, it can feel awkward and slow — or it might feel irritating and uncomfortable when your default is to eat fast and be distracted.
But presence builds with practice. The more you get the reps in, the more automatic it becomes, until one day you’re just “that way” with food without trying.
If you want to start building that skill, this is exactly what my mindful eating mini course walks you through, step by step (bite-by-bite, to be more accurate ;)). It’s a small, low-pressure place to begin, and most people are surprised by what they notice in even the first few exercises.
Try it out and let me know how it goes!
