Mindful Eating Practice

About this resource

Mindful eating brings present-moment, non-judgemental attention to the experience of eating: the look, smell, texture and taste of food, the sensations of hunger and fullness, and the thoughts and urges that arise. It is the foundation of Kristeller's mindfulness-based eating awareness training (MB-EAT) for binge eating disorder and appears in most mindfulness-based programs, where it is usually taught first with a single raisin. Its clinical value in eating difficulties is threefold: it interrupts the automatic, fast, dissociated quality of binge and stress eating; it retrains awareness of internal hunger and satiety cues that dieting and bingeing have blunted; and it creates a pause between urge and action in which choice becomes possible.

This exercise teaches the practice in two stages. The first is a slow, deliberate exploration of one small piece of food, which almost everyone finds surprising. The second applies a lighter version of the same attention to the first few minutes of an ordinary meal, which is where the skill needs to live. The practice is not a weight-control technique and is not about eating less; it is about being present for eating at all.

The professional version notes that mindful eating sits alongside, not instead of, regular eating in CBT for binge eating; that clients with restrictive eating may use 'eating slowly and mindfully' as a new way to restrict, which should be watched for; and that the exercise is best introduced in session with real food so the clinician can guide the pace and enquire afterwards.

How to use it

1. Bring a small item of food to the session (a raisin, a segment of mandarin, a single cracker). Ask about allergies first. Guide the first stage live, taking four to five minutes and leaving real silences.
2. Enquire afterwards: what did you notice that you usually miss, when did the urge to swallow arrive, what thoughts showed up. Reflect judgements ('this is silly', 'I was doing it wrong') as mental events to notice.
3. Prescribe the first stage daily for a week with one small item, then the second stage (first three mouthfuls of a meal) from the second week onward.
4. For binge eating, frame the practice as building awareness, not restraint, and keep it paired with regular planned eating. Watch for it being turned into a way of eating less.
5. Review the practice log at each session, and link what the client notices about hunger, fullness and urges to the rest of the formulation.

References

• Kristeller, J. L., & Wolever, R. Q. (2011). Mindfulness-based eating awareness training for treating binge eating disorder: The conceptual foundation. Eating Disorders, 19(1), 49-61.
• Kabat-Zinn, J. (2013). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (rev. ed.). Bantam.
• Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M. G., & Teasdale, J. D. (2013). Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.