Besides teaching students that one’s body is a temple and encouraging a lifestyle of healthy eating, what does yoga have to do with eating? What does it mean to practice the yoga of eating? How on earth can one practice eating?
Although it may seem slightly odd, practicing the yoga of eating is a natural extension of what one strives to do on the mat. It’s really about tuning into the experience.
A Bowl Full of Now: Being In the Present
In a nutshell, the yoga of eating is about awareness. It is about becoming more conscious of the act of eating. Prohibiting the mind from dictating what should and shouldn’t be eaten and what should and shouldn’t be enjoyed.
When eating hurriedly, or while absent-minded and distracted, one is removed from the present. Even though one is lifting a fork to the mouth, the mind is no longer engaged in the process of eating. By extension, if one is no longer engaged in eating, the joy of eating is absent.
The French Fry and the Apple: Becoming Aware of Both
Consumption of certain foods can bring about short term pleasure. Junk food is a great example. However, 20 minutes or even a few hours later, that junk food may leave one feeling poorly. A parched mouth, a heavy and possibly slightly queasy stomach and even a craving for more food can result. Sometimes these outcomes may not even be consciously linked to the meal that had just been consumed. Not to mention how one’s mind can cause us to berate ourselves for eating the junk food in the first place. One may not even realize that these negative reactions even resulted from eating. An awareness of the effects of eating certain foods leads one to eating with mindfulness.
Likewise, the process of eating “good” foods because one wants to eat in a healthy manner can also be distracting. Instead, of focusing on the consumption of a healthy food choice, focus on the food itself. For example, eat an apple and pay attention to the taste. Consider the apple’s crunch, juiciness and freshness. Take notice of what feelings are present immediately after eating the apple and then 15 minutes later.
The yoga of eating is about experiencing food in the moment, stripped of its “good” or “bad” labels.
Of Trust and Tortellini
The yoga of eating is a journey towards trust. It may be a slow path to full awareness or it may be a more sudden realization. Either way, after practicing for a while, one may find themselves more consistently drawn to certain foods. One might find they are enjoying foods that previously were banned. However, the daily food choices may soon become a choices to eat clean, healthy and whole foods.
Practicing the yoga of eating does not mean an immediate change or that one will always seek out healthy foods. However, over time, one’s body will naturally gravitate to what is good for it. By tasting and enjoying each morsel, one will listen to what is true pleasure and what is false. Trusting and receiving the messages that one’s body sends is a practice that can take time.
Yoga as a Menu of Experiences
Much like practicing asanas on the mat, one must listen to one’s body. By paying attention to each nuanced feeling, one goes beyond the idea of what one should look like or even feel like in a given yoga pose. Feeling a pose as it feels now, at this moment, rather than an expectation of what the pose should be, will lead to a more full, satisfying yoga practice. In much the same way, listening to one’s body without judgment when eating can lead to more filling and satisfactory food choices.
Over time, a consistent practice of the yoga of eating can lead to significant and lasting results. Independent of numbers, lists and a strict accounting of good and bad foods, the yoga of eating is instead a much more mindful way to sustain oneself.
The first step is trusting one’s body. The next step is listening. It sounds simple, but it is indeed as much a practice as that which is practiced on the mat- simultaneously as difficult as it is very simple.
