Here’s Our Top Mindful Eating Tips From Integrative Nutrition Coach Isabel Serrano, PhD, RYT:

Eat for Progress Not Perfection

There is no such thing as perfection so we have to start letting this go. There is no ideal scenario or perfect so we will never feel satisfied. Perfection is a deception, a trick from the ego mind that makes us feel terrible about ourselves and sabotages us and keeps us from succeeding. Some of us can pursue healthy eating obsessively and create rules and expectations for ourselves that set us up for disappointment or burnout. Perfection is unattainable so we will always be chasing our tail. If what we truly want is to feel our best then we must first let go of our perfectionism around food. It is not what we do but how we do it that truly matters. What am I looking for? How am I approaching this? How am I feeling as I am going through this process? Tend to your inner world first then everything else will fall into place.

Make the Healthy Choice the Easy Choice

This is an important to address in the day of instagram and tik tok and youtube where we see all these people eating amazing looking, healthy dishes all the time and it makes us think that is the only way wellness can look and it sets us up for unrealistic expectations. To make the healthy choice the easier choice you can:

Find simple foods and food combinations that don’t require excessive time and resources,
Keep healthy food options well-stocked and keep them accessible and easily reachable.
Create time for weekly mealplanning and bring your list with you to the store or market.

Create Connection at Your Table

Number three is creating connection at your table and being present with your food and others at mealtime. I feel this is really important because for those of us who feel we are struggling or have struggled with weight - it disconnects you from your body and disconnects you from food and you start to see food as something that can hurt you or make you gain weight. You can become detached from it and you are at war with it. Even if you're not struggling with weight, there's so much information out there about healthy foods and foods that are good for you or that aren't that can cause us to fear food and that doesn't help us either. This is the opposite of wellbeing. Food was made to keep us alive and to allow our bodies to function optimally - that’s it. So what we have to do is choose all foods, anything that the earth is providing for us. There are so many bountiful options for us to be nourished.

We can try to recreate and reestablish connection with food at the table as well as in the kitchen or the supermarket or the farmer's market. Creating a connection and having gratitude with food can help your body digest and help you metabolize food better. Your body will absorb the nutrients that it needs to absorb better in a thankful state. Regardless of what food is at your table, whether it's a hamburger or a salad, just be thankful for it.

You can thank your body for knowing exactly what to do with the food you’re about to eat and have gratitude for everyone that's been involved in getting that food to my table. When we are living in a 1st world country, sometimes we don't realize that it is a privilege to have a dish full of food or even enough food at the table for everyone. It's a blessing and so if we start to feel it that way, I think the choices also change because you begin to appreciate your food more. You create a good relationship with it and this is key.This is key for us to feel safe, safe in our body, safe in this world, safe with the choices we make.