2023 - 3:31 Group Mindful Eating Experience - Monk Meals & 5 Senses
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[00:00:00] I'm so excited. I forgot to hit record. Okay, so mindful eating. We've talked about the, the, the food matches, decide what you want, what your taste buds want, how your body responds, how you think it will respond from past experiences. And now we're talking about the experience of the eating it. Um, I've talked to you about the monk meal eating in silence so that you can really experience your five senses, which we now have nailed as our sight, our smell, our hearing, our taste, and our touch.
I got them all that time. And so now we're sitting down and this one, we're actually doing this as an exercise. So when you're going to do this, you're going to sit down in the, in the silence. And if no one's home, that's even better. If not, just tell the people in your house, I am doing this food experiment and I need it to be quiet in the house.
And then [00:01:00] once you made sure you had your food match, you've got your food in front of you. You're going to think about every one of those senses. As many of them beforehand, before you start actually eating. So, with this food, and actually I can take you guys off of mute now. Ask to unmute, ask to unmute. I think you guys both should have gotten a thing.
Okay, there, I can hear you both. Sometimes when I hear clicking, my ADHD, I get distracted. So sometimes it's like, I'll just mute you guys and then I can get through it faster. So the appearance of your food, right? How does your food look? And so, um, over the weekend, I had, uh, my 24th anniversary. My husband and I, we, we went, um, to an art museum, which he did not enjoy one bit of, but I loved it.
And then afterwards I got to pick where we ate and I picked Yats, which is a Cajun food place. I don't think Lana would [00:02:00] like it at all. Um, but Um, she doesn't like her stuff mixed together very often. Um, but, uh, It was a Cajun food and they're all like pots of stuff with rice and different meats and flavors and all that.
And I got this thing called maku chicken and it looks like a big glob of something a cafeteria lady threw on your plate. But it tastes amazing. So if I was a hundred percent like drawn to how my food looked, I probably would not be satisfied eating that. But I had more senses and I'd already had it before and I knew I was going to like the other senses.
But if you have none of these, or the ones that you're most drawn to are not being satisfied, you will not end up satisfied. Right? And it doesn't mean every meal has to have it, but just know, like, Which of your senses are you more drawn to? Um, have you eaten with people who smell is [00:03:00] their biggest sense?
And they've like practically got their nose in their plate and they're like, And that smells so good. And they just keep smelling every bit of it. You know, my son is big into smell. He used to smell my hair all the time. He'd walk in the house and he was very attuned to every smell. So back to my maku chicken, the appearance of it just looked like a big glob of food, but other foods, you know, you've seen colorful, like the colors of the rainbow, you've seen all the different.
Everything, right? So decide what does it look like? And whether it was my maku chicken that looked like a big glob on there, being aware of what it is it looks like, even if that's not your go to sense, will be really good. So decide right there. What's the appearance of the food? The next one, I kind of said already, the aroma.
What's the aroma of the food? Really smell it. [00:04:00] What these two things are going to do before you even put it in your mouth, it starts the experience. So have you ever been jonesing for like some kind of food and then you eat it so fast, you're like, well, crap, I need more of it because I haven't even truly got to experience it.
I ate it too fast. And then you need like the next batch of whatever it was so that you could experience it because now like you've got the nervous frenzy out of your system and now you can pay attention. So if you just get in the habit of paying attention before you'll get to start the experience.
and really get tuned into your body and what you're thinking. So the appearance and the aroma. Now we get to actually put something in our mouth, right? For different people, it'll be the texture, which is, um, like what your touch would represent. The texture. Or it might be the flavor. So either one of those things.
Taste [00:05:00] or touch are going to be the next thing for you. So does it feel slimy on your teeth? Does it feel solid? Does like tapioca pudding to me? I'm going to scroll off for a second. My brother told me when I was a child that those were fish eggs in there. And ever since then, I was afraid to eat tapioca pudding because I was told that fish are going to grow in your belly if you eat tapioca pudding and the fish eggs get in there.
So. Oh my God. I know. And I was an adult before I could start eating like shredded coconut because that texture was squeaky to me and I did not like how it touched in my teeth. And so, um, but like being aware of the texture, know what textures you do and do not care for. Some people won't eat pudding because there's no texture to it.
They don't like the way that is or applesauce or something. And then, like I said, what the flavor is. And this one is one of my favorites, a flavor. So when I eat something, I [00:06:00] almost can like get so wrapped up in trying to guess what the seasonings were. And if you've not tried that before, take when you're cooking and just like get your finger wet, dab it into a seasoning, and just taste what a seasoning tastes like without putting it on your food.
So that you start kind of developing like a more defined palette to be able to distinguish these things. And then as you're going through this, you'll even find like it almost tastes nutty and there's no nuts in it, or it almost tastes sweet and there's no sweetener in it. And so you can start coming up with it.
Kind of reminds you of like when you go to, um, a whiskey tasting or a wine tasting and they're telling you there's notes of chocolate in it and there's no chocolate in that whiskey, but it has that kind of char in the barrel that it gives you the flavor of it. So really focusing in what's the texture and what's the [00:07:00] flavor.
And, um, Fully in that monk meal, coming up with exactly what you think, exactly what you feel. Do you like it? Do you not? You know, being really curious and interested in what you're having. And then the last, uh, the last sense that we haven't talked about yet is sound. So I said, like squeaky, like, I don't like it as a texture that some of the coconut flakes were squeaky.
My niece calls pork products squeaky because she had some pork chops that were that kind of texture that she didn't like. But sometimes people are really wanting a crunchy sound. And so if they're eating a lot of. And they don't get satisfied with what they were having. They're continually looking for something that's crunchy.
But being very aware, is my food having a sound to it? And that might be a quick one to answer, right? But with these, [00:08:00] uh, five senses, you can already see how much more you're experiencing your food, right? In the past, we've used food as entertainment. We've used it for emotional eating. So now use it on purpose for entertainment.
Like really start to dial in, like define your palate, figure it out. What do you like? What don't you like? Experience the entire bit of that food. You can see by how long it's taken me to explain this to you that even if it took you a quarter of the amount of time with that food in your mouth, that one bite in your mouth to kind of think through some of these things, how much slower you'd be eating, right?
It would slow you down as your brain is like mentally checking off senses. How am I, how am I thinking, feeling about each of these as I'm thinking about them, right? The slowing you down, [00:09:00] which, you know, my energy, I have a hard time slowing down. The slowing down, you're going to eat slower. Kind of like when I said I would get on a frenzy for Jones and for some food and I would eat through it so fast.
If I was slowing down, experiencing it, I wouldn't need a whole second batch of it to finally get to experience it. It's like, slow down first, not let the food slow you down. And so, you both work, and sometimes you only get to take a break when you have to pee or eat, right? And, so like, if you can let that experience really settle instead of rushing through it, and that, I mean, 15 minute break, and you still, like, I'm shutting the world out around me, and I'm gonna pay attention to what I'm having.
What do you think would happen at the end of that even 15 minute break of having this type of a [00:10:00] food experience when you have a lunch break? What do you think would happen?
I think I would be revived. You'd be ready to go back to work, revived, like? Yeah. It would feel like a real break. Like it, like, yeah, like, oh, okay, now I'm ready to go back and focus on work again. Right. Yeah. And Lana hides in the closet at work. That's my favorite. I go in to work out in the mornings that I can't find Lana and she's hiding in the closet eating her breakfast.
I don't do that anymore. I just eat at the desk. Do you? Yeah, I think part of that was because of the masks. Oh, okay. That's why it started. Yeah. I didn't think you were like hiding from people seeing your food. I just thought it was funny that like, Well, I was, I was told I couldn't eat at the [00:11:00] front desk.
So, where I was at, I could see people coming in in case they needed me. But. Yeah. But in your case, I just ignored you. You knew what she was doing. Yeah, I knew how to scan in and run to CrossFit because I'm always late. So, can you see how this might be beneficial for you guys? How it would be different for sure?
So what would be a food that you would be like, Oh my gosh, my experience level would be off the charts if I ate like my favorite food, like what would be your favorite food to try this out with? Well, for me, I really liked the Panera green goddess salad. Okay. So let's, let's think, can you remember the last time you ate it?
Yes, yesterday. You want to do this? You want to do this with me for an example? Yes. Okay, tell me about the appearance of the salad before you ate it. So, [00:12:00] it had eggs, it has, um, oh, there are onions that have been, um, Pickled and it has chicken in it. It has all the different lettuces in it and some tomatoes, and it has a really good green goddess, um, dressing that they serve with it.
Some bacon bits. Okay. And so it looks very appealing. Okay. So your thought is this looks very appealing. And then when you think that this salad and you're envisioning it, you see it in front of you and you're like, this is very appealing, how do you feel? Feel good about what I'm eating. Yeah. Why do you feel good about what you're eating?
Because it has vegetables in it and everything that, that I like to eat. Okay. So you're probably thinking like, this is really healthy for me. I'm [00:13:00] giving myself something I really like. And so if I had to guess, you're probably feeling like. Excited, encouraged, and probably, like, knowing ahead of time that you are, um, going to be satisfied with this.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So much that I made a salad for dinner with not all the same things, but just, I cut up a lot of vegetables and did it again for dinner. Yeah. Um, that's pretty high praise when you decide to make it again on your, on your own. I know. Mm hmm. Um, think about, did it have a smell? And it may or may not have.
Did it have a smell? It does have a little bit of the smell. The pickled and red onions in there has a little bit of a smell. And the green goddess dressing has a real fresh smell to it. I think South fresh vegetables have that fresh smell to [00:14:00] them. And that to me, like reminds me of like clean and like healthy and like some of that, like even energy.
It just reminds me of energy for some reason. Um, some of the thoughts I have whenever I have some of those kind of things is, um, like, especially salads. I used to just put like lettuce out of the bag in there and put dressing on it. And then like when I would go to restaurants, I would be like, Oh my gosh, like I am really indulging or I am really, um, Oh, I don't know what the right word is.
Like, I'm really taking care of myself because. Look at all these things that are on my plate or look at all these things that are in my salad, you know, like I wouldn't have taken the time to pickled some onions. I mean, I don't even know if I would have chopped onions up to put in there, you know, back then I definitely wouldn't have.
And so like all the different things. It's just like, um, a party for my taste buds is what I would have been thinking. All right, so [00:15:00] I prefer like the field greens. For my salads or I get the, I don't get the pre mixed as much. I get the, the cabbages that are, it's a red type of, um, lettuce, I think it's called red lettuce and then green lettuce and I get them in bulk and then I cut them up and mix it together.
So the salad last night had radishes and carrots and. Peppers, the little snack peppers. I sliced those up and some green onions and a little bit of cheese. So tell me about your texture. So now you've put it in your mouth. Tell me what your texture's like. Okay. For the green goddess, when I forgot, it also has avocado, which I really like on salads.
I never realized I did until, um, we were talking about adding some avocado for the [00:16:00] oil in my skin. And so now it's like, I. Almost always want an avocado in my salad, but the texture of it was, um, I don't know, it, it felt good for my body to be eating this. I mean, it, my body liked what it was eating. It like, was it chewy?
So that was the taste. Was it chewy? Was it soft? So there, there was some bulk to it, some shape you had to chew it. Yep. Okay. You had to chew it. It had that type of texture and it was crunchy. So the sound, it had crunchy. And then the last one that we haven't covered yet is flavor. Tell me as descriptively as you can about your flavors.
Um, the flavors just melted together for me. The, um, the pickled, um, red onions [00:17:00] bring a little bit of, um, Sour? Different, different type of a flavor to the salad. And, you know, it mixes really good with the tomatoes and the lettuce. And so when you take a bite of it, you have lettuce, tomato, and a little bit of onion with the sauce and just tasted yummy.
Yeah. Um, And then at the end, did you overeat or did you eat it just enough? I ate just enough. Just enough. And then what was your brain saying anything about the just enough? No, it was, um, actually I had, um, a massage scheduled and I was only able to eat about half of the salad before my massage. And it was like, so after I finished, I'm like, are you finished with your salad?
Or do you want more? [00:18:00] And I wanted more of it. Cause after your massage. Yep. Uh huh. So it tasted so good. So you wanted more, were you, did you check in to see if your body was still hungry, physically still hungry? Yes. Okay. So, um, you ended up eating some more. And then at that one, did you stop it enough? Or do you think you ended up, um, overeating in any way?
I did not feel like I was overeating in any way. Okay. And so after you finished, sometimes, you know, we know that like it takes 15 to 20 minutes sometimes for our stomach to actually listen to. She's still on there. Sorry. No, you're good. I didn't want to ask you a question and then you'd not be there. So I had to check real quick to make sure you're still there.
So sometimes like 15, 20 minutes later, we're like, Oh, Oh, now it finally all landed in my stomach. It took that long to get there. Right. Did you have [00:19:00] any of that? Nope. I did not have any of that. Okay. So it sounds like you would be like, that was a good food match. It was of a grapefruit food match and it sounds like you did do some of the experiencing and then this was like a re experiencing.
So like that, that creates some entertainment without it being. All of your entertainment. So we talk all the time about getting enjoyment from life and it not needing to be here, like all from your food, but there's nothing wrong with enjoying your food. And if you eat foods that you love, like Really to experience them, you're going to slow down and you're going to savor them so much more and then you can be like ready to enjoy the next thing.
So there has to be a balance. I never want you to eat cardboard nasty diet food that you think you're [00:20:00] supposed to have. I want you to always have exactly what you really enjoy and we'll just learn how to eat it so that you can also have your weight loss. Do you think that you would make any changes if you were really focusing on your weight loss with that salad?
Um,
I didn't check the calories or anything like that as to what it was because I figured, you know, it's all full of good healthy vegetables, so it should be pretty healthy. So I might, I might, um, investigate that a little more to see how I could, um, Make better, a better choice if it wasn't within my, yeah.
So with you, yeah, with you specifically being diabetic, I, I don't care about your calories, even with your diabetes, I don't care about your [00:21:00] calories, but with you specifically, like what the carb count is, the sugars for you, that would be important to look at, but you can still overeat broccoli. It would be harder to do, but you can still overeat and salads because there's so much bulk to them.
You can still overeat a salad. Um, salads are also a little bit sneaky because there is more. Um, richness or probably calories to, um, some of the fats and the bacon and the eggs. And, you know, if they put croutons, like all these things that could be on there, nuts and seeds and stuff, those are all very healthy, but we also always want to keep track of our hunger because you can still overeat salads.
Mm hmm. I mean, you guys are, you've done calorie counting for years before this. So, you know, like [00:22:00] the, there's hidden, hidden stuff in there, but paying attention to your hunger will, will be very mindful for you to. To be able to lose weight with, right. Alrighty. So we talked about how to come up with what you're going to eat, how to make sure before you eat, it's a food match, how to experience it fully, and then how to check in afterwards.
And then if you had said, Oh, I probably shouldn't have had the other half. I did feel kind of full and full and blah later in, you know, 20 minutes later. Well, maybe you only need a bite or two, or maybe. Maybe you're, you were fine, you know, um, that kind of thing. If you had gotten sent to the bathroom, you'd make a different choice.
If it gave you heartburn, you'd make a different choice. If you were still like looking for the food after not even that food, but just like you were still kind of, like I said, Jones and for something, well, then that probably really wasn't a [00:23:00] food match or it wasn't like, um, You needed to change something within it.
Sometimes people will do the salads, but they'll really make it a hundred percent vegetable. And then like half hour later, they're hungry again. And it's like, I ate a whole salad. Like, how am I hungry again? Well, it might be that it wasn't as good of a food match in that moment. And now next time kind of market in your memory that maybe you need to add some fat, or maybe you need to add some protein or something like that.
So that it's, um, gonna. Satiate you longer, kind of a thing. Lana, you want to talk about your steak night, steakhouse and what you ate? We won't go into quite as much detail, but I was super impressed. Or you want me to just tell about it? Either or, I don't care. Okay, I'll start and then you finish off with whatever you want to add.
So she told me about a restaurant to go to, [00:24:00] which we had a completely different experience. They brought me, uh, we tried to split a ribeye and they brought it out to us instead of cooked medium, it was purple. And so that is about as raw as you can get. And so, uh, yeah, they, I texted her, I was like, we are here.
What did you have? And. So that's how I found out what she had, but we ended up remaking a sirloin and it was delicious, amazing. And we split it. But, um, what she told me was that her husband had this big old sirloin steak with all the stuff and that she decided to have the, um, chicken, uh, the salad with the chicken on top.
And I'd seen a few of those come out and the ones I saw all had this like, um, breaded chicken kind of, you know, Southern home fried chicken thing. But she, what did you do? You, you up leveled. I was so excited to hear. What did you do? Yeah, I told him I wanted grilled chicken instead of the fried [00:25:00] chicken.
Did you have any thoughts about, good or bad, however it made you feel, what were you thinking when you did that, when you made that decision?
I, it's just really almost automatic because when I get a chicken salad, I always have it grilled. I've done that for at least the last year and a half and didn't, I don't do the breaded chicken. So why, why don't you do the breaded chicken? What, what started that decision? Uh, this
trying to save some, um, some pounds on the body. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was a way you were willing to level up your chicken. Or my salad. Yeah. Yeah. So when you're, um, when you had [00:26:00] that chicken on that salad, so, and you're seeing Ed sitting there with his big old steak, probably a potato or something, all this, all the fixings and trimmings, and you've made a decision to have grilled chicken instead of fried chicken.
Did you have any thoughts? One way or the other about that? No, because when I went there, I was going to get a small sirloin. I think they had a six, Ed got the 11 ounce, but I, I think they had a six ounce also, and on the way there, that's what I intended to get with vegetables and a side salad. And. I don't really know what happened.
I was looking at the menu and that chicken salad jumped out at me, except it was fried chicken. And so I just said to the waiter, can I have grilled chicken instead? And he said, yes, ma'am, you can. You can have anything you want. So. [00:27:00] And you didn't. When you left, did you, like, did you have any thoughts or feelings?
Did you feel, like, proud of your decision? I mean, I know you said this has become habit, but, like, were you proud of your decision and, like, you're working towards your goals? Was there any, like, I feel deprived because I didn't get something I would have wanted? No, I did not feel deprived because, like I said, I was going there with the intent of getting a surline and at the last minute I changed.
That was what looked better to me on the menu than the surline. So, and I don't think I really felt proud of myself because I didn't think of it in that context. I, that's what I wanted and that's what I ate. Yeah, that, that's, that's, and like, and it wouldn't have been a bad thing. Let me make that clear.
It wouldn't have been a bad thing for you to have had fried chicken either. You know, um. You can learn to eat anything that you enjoy in a [00:28:00] way that you'll be able to lose and maintain. And so that one just wasn't important to you. So that upleveling, that was not such a big deal to you at all, and you still were able to walk away satisfied mm-hmm
So that shows, um, how you're moving into that, um, healthy, natural relationship with food. You know what you like, so you're honoring your taste buds and yourself, and you're honoring your goal by, like, anything that's not important. Like, I, if I had to guess, is it, what is it, Thursday night, chicken night with the family, or is that Friday night?
It is Thursday, but it wasn't last night. Yeah, so typically she does KFC fried chicken with the family on, on Thursday nights, and I'm imagining you have not upleveled that to grilled chicken. No. So you can still have fried [00:29:00] chicken when you want it. Right. But when it's not important, especially any place that you can uplevel, that's not like, Oh, I really don't want to uplevel that no one's telling you.
That's the thing to pick, pick other things that are not so important, you know? And so like, if I don't care for cheese and croutons, well, then. If they stick them on there and I'm eating them just because they're on there. Well, that would have been an easy up level to just say no cheese, no croutons, you know?
But like, if I'm loving the eggs and the bacon and I'm like, Oh, no eggs and bacon. Well, I'm going to be not satisfied. I'm going to be still looking for something else. And I'm probably going to start feeling restricted. I'm not going to want to keep doing this. But especially all those areas that you can up level that don't make a big deal to you.
Do those first. Easy pickings for sure. All right. I think that cheese or that salad had blue cheese on it. And I said, hold that. I'm not a big cheese fan. [00:30:00] Yeah. So keep your blue cheese, please. All right. Um, that is all I have for you guys this week. Do you have any questions for me? No, ma'am. What is the likelihood that you guys are going to practice this, this week, this, uh, senses the monk meal eating?
