Become mindful of taste. As babies we spit out what we don’t like. Babies have sensitive tastes. Do you taste your food or are you eating without thought to flavor, texture? We have become eaters and have lost our delicate, sensitive sense of taste. You will find that to be sensitive to taste, you have to eat slowly; and when you eat slowly, you not only enjoy the food more, but you eat less. Think of our body as an expensive Swiss watch constantly in movement even when we sleep. And because it’s expensive we take care of it.
Eating over the kitchen sink is not a good idea! Eating five or six smaller meals is, not allowing hunger to creep in. Set a place for yourself and enjoy your meal, chew slowly tasting its uniqueness. Take advantage of a patio or window view, play music or listen to the sounds of the neighborhood, saving the TV for later–a really bad habit encouraging you to stuff yourself adding pounds to your waistline. How and where you eat is just as important as what you eat.
We know that many times when we feel hungry, we are actually thirsty so reach for water. I’m not a water lover unless it’s carbonated water with a few drops of lemonade, so I make lemonade ahead and have it ready. You need to think of yourself as a kid and do what’s necessary to change your bad habit by having a substitute, made and ready-to-go in its place. You know what foods to eat and what foods to stay away from.
Rewarding yourself at the end of each week helps keep us motivated to stay with healthy foods. My treat of choice is a single scoop of gelato which is made from milk and not cream. A great gelato has a rich strong flavor of berries, coffee, chocolate, nuts or vanilla bean and not overly sweet.
