Our goal today is to differentiate between mindless eating and present eating.  

Here are a couple tips to get you out of mindless eating:

• Slow down while you are eating so your body can recognize when it is full.
• Using a smaller plate for dinner instead of a larger one can help you reduce your food intake.
• Never eat directly out of a bag or box. Always put your food on a plate or in a bowl to know exactly how much you are going to be eating.

How many times have you sat down to eat a meal and not really even noticed how the food tasted? Of course, you knew if you liked it or did not like it, but did you actually really taste it? What flavors could you recognize in your bites? What dishes went well together?

These are the types of questions that you can start asking yourself to try to get yourself into present eating. This is going to help pull your mind from wandering and bring your attention back to the task at hand – eating!

Doing one thing at a time instead of multitasking is hard. A lot of families will eat dinner while watching tv or checking their phones.  This mindless eating is hurting both our relationships with each other and our food, as well as our health. It can be very difficult to do but it's important to just do one thing during dinner – eat good food.

Put all your energy and focus into your food and see what types of reward you get back. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at what a difference this can really make.