Canada's food guide
Be mindful of your eating habits
Healthy eating is about more than just the foods you eat. It is being mindful of your eating habits, taking time to eat and noticing when you are hungry and when you are full.
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Benefits of being mindful of your eating habits
Being mindful of your eating habits means being aware of:
- how you eat
- why you eat
- what you eat
- when you eat
- where you eat
- how much you eat
Being mindful can help you:
- make healthier choices more often
- make positive changes to routine eating behaviours
- be more conscious of the food you eat and your eating habits
- create a sense of awareness around your every day eating decisions
- reconnect to the eating experience by creating an awareness of your:
- feelings
- thoughts
- emotions
- behaviours
How to be mindful of your eating habits
Use these ideas to help you be mindful of your eating habits.
Create a healthy eating environment
Your eating environment changes depending on where you live, learn, work and play. Focus your attention on eating and your eating environment.
Regardless of where you are, try to make changes to your surroundings so that the healthy choice is the easy choice.
Use your senses
Being mindful of the foods you eat encourages you to pay attention to the aromas, textures, flavours and taste of food. Pay attention to your likes and dislikes using these senses. This may help connect you to your eating experience and be more conscious of the food you are eating.
Consider your eating habits
Think about the last meal or snack that you had. Can you describe:
- how you ate?
- did you eat slowly?
- were you distracted?
- did you eat with others?
- why you ate?
- were you hungry?
- was it offered to you?
- what you ate?
- what did you have to eat and drink?
- when you ate?
- what time was it?
- how long had it been since the last time you ate?
- where you ate?
- were you in a space meant for eating?
- how much you ate?
- how much food and drink did you have?
Being able to recall and describe answers to these questions means you were likely being mindful of your eating habits.