The Everyday Kitchen

A blog about food, healthy eating, seasonal ingredients and how to eat well in a busy life.

Food advice for a busy life

Posts with Tag:mindful eating

25 March 2013 ,06:28 Some tips for being more mindful when you eat

If you’re not really conscious of what you’re eating, it’s easy to end up eating more; more than you need and more than is good for the waistline.

Research has shown that people who practice mind-ful eating – being aware of what they’ve eaten and registering when they’re full – are less likely to be obese than mind-less eaters.

Mindful eating is difficult at first. If you’ve ever tried to meditate then you'll know how easy it is for the mind to wander and this also happens when you eat. It’s like learning anything new, you’re going to blow it now and then, get distracted or sometimes just flop on the couch feeling too tired to even try. And that's okay, because you don't have to be perfect at this. Instead the more you practice mindfulness, the better you’ll get at it and over the long term it will become a habit.

There are two basic ways of approaching eating with awareness. The first part is to eat more mindfully and be more aware of your food. While the second, is to accept that some mindless eating is always going to occur in our less than perfect lives, but to limit the damage from it. Here are some ideas for ways you can incorporate both approaches into your daily life.

Before you start to eat something, pause, look at the food in front of you and take one breath. This momentary pause can bring your awareness into the present and focus you on the meal you're about to eat.
For one meal a week switch off the TV before you sit down to eat. Take your time, remove the distractions and eat consciously.
Make a commitment to pause and ask yourself “Am I hungry?” each time you have a food craving. Even if you go on to eat the food you’re craving, that moment of reflection will set you up be more mindful while doing so.
For one meal of the day savour the first bite. It may be only one mouthful, but think about the food, notice how it tastes and smells, try to assess... Read More...

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	29 January 2013 ,12:59 Healthy eating By Kathryn Elliott
Love and completely agree with this, from Food Tank.

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28 May 2012 ,07:22 1 way to eat more vegetables and cut your kilojoule intake

By Kathryn Elliott

One sure-fire strategy to increase the amount of vegetables you're eating and reduce the total kilojoules you eat, is to fill half your dinner plate with vegetables.

By having half a plate of vegies in the evening you'll get at least three of your daily five serves of vegetable in one meal, possibly more.

Moreoever, by half-filling your plate with vegetables you're leaving less room for meat, chicken, fish, pasta, rice, potatoes - the other foods which contribute most to the kilojoules in your meal.

There's nothing wrong with eating regular portions of these carbohydrate and protein rich foods. However many people eat too many of them and too much leads to weight gain.

So fill your plate with vegies and you'll be improving your health in at least two different ways.

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23 May 2012 ,08:42 Changing the way you eat

By Kathryn Elliott

Changing the way you eat can be hard. Good intentions can spur you to revolutionise your diet for a couple of weeks. Then work gets busy, your social life picks up and you're back eating take-away, having half a bottle of wine every night and craving chocolate. All your good intentions undone.

Changing your diet means you have to:

research what foods are healthy
work out which of those you like
find ways to use them
buy them when you go shopping
prepare and cook them
eat them, like them
and then repeat

And when life is busy it probably seems a whole lot easier to carry on just the way you are. But if you do that your health is never going to change.

Most people I come into contact with want to eat well. They know having a healthy diet is going to benefit them. It’s the right thing to do. They just find it too hard and overwhelming to make the change.

I’m going to propose a new approach. Rather than going for total change or trying to revolutionise your diet, why not try changing it one week at a time? Pick one thing you could do this week. Commit to it and try to do this every day, for seven days, longer if necessary. Then once you’ve got this under your belt, pick something else. Make another change.

It’s nowhere near as dramatic as changing everything at once. But it’s much more do-able, much more sustainable and you're more likely to succeed. And six months from now your diet and your health would be very different.

What’s the one change you're going to make over the next seven days?

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Recent Blog Posts

May 13, 2013, 8:10 am
3 recipes for the timid fish eater
In my latest Reader's Digest column I've written a piece called Tips for the Timid Fish Eater. There are many, many reasons to include more fish in your weekly meals, however I find a lot of people are uncertain about how to cook fish or find the flavour and smell too strong.Read More...

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April 22, 2013, 10:17 am
Does it matter if you eat the same breakfast every day?
If you're rushing to get ready in the morning, it can be tempting to stick with the same, no-fuss breakfast every day. However you may be doing your health a disservice.Read More...

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April 18, 2013, 1:33 pm
Which is better for you - red meat or chicken?
While chicken is known as the low fat meat, I'm not sure that title is still relevant. Red meat can be higher in saturated fat, however Read More...

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