How Curiosity Helps You Eat More Mindfully

Have you ever regretted eating a certain food? Or have you gotten fixated on having a certain food for no apparent reason? Or maybe you often eat more than you need, and you’re trying to change the habit.

If any of these or similar scenarios sound familiar, then you might benefit from being curious about your eating.

Why be curious about food choices?

Curiosity sometimes gets a bad rap, like with the phrase, “curiosity killed the cat.” But it can be a very useful tool, especially if you want to be more mindful about your eating or even simply understand your food choices.

Being curious means that instead of being judgmental about what you’re eating, how much you’re eating, when you’re eating, or more, you try to understand it. You can be more open-minded when exploring what’s driving you.

For example, maybe you ate something and then regretted it, say several slices of pizza and then you got indigestion, or you simply felt uncomfortable because you overate. Instead of beating yourself up about it (which is what I used to do as a teenager), you could consider why this happened.

What were the circumstances? Perhaps you were with friends, and they all ate a lot of pizza, so you felt like you should, too, or at least that you wanted to eat as much as they did. Maybe you had the pizza by yourself, and when you got down to the last piece, you felt silly about keeping it for later, so you decided to simply finish it off. Maybe you spent a lot of time at the gym and decided to reward yourself by having some extra pizza. Or maybe you had a tough day and wanted to treat yourself.

These are just a few possibilities – your actual situation could be something quite different – but hopefully that gives you an idea of how to consider the situation.

Understanding what happened is important for a couple of reasons. One, it helps you move away from that judgmental approach that’s all too common when it comes to food. Two, once you understand the situation, you can consider if you’d make a different choice in the future. And if you do decide on a different choice, then you can make a plan for it.

Consider the situation where you were “keeping up” with friends by eating as much as they did. You may need to drill into that more to figure out why that idea was important to you, but whatever the reason, it’s not realistic to think that you need to or should eat the same amount as another person. Unless you’ve been around them all day, you have no idea what else they’ve eaten, how active they’ve been, if they just have a high metabolism, or any number of other factors that could mean they’ll probably eat more than you.

All you can know is your own situation, how hungry you are, and how much you need. If someone encourages you to eat more than that, you can politely decline and explain that you’re full, and possibly bring some home with you.

My own example

Here’s another example from my own life, a little over 25 years ago when I was figuring out my own eating.

It happened one day when I was on the bus ride home from work. The bus dropped me off at a little convenience store that also sold things like pizza, burgers, hot dogs, and more. It had been a long day, and even before getting on the bus, I’d been anticipating ordering some chicken tenders and French fries from the store.

But sitting on the bus gave me some time to consider if I really wanted to do that. I already had food at home, and I knew by then that eating too much fried food gave me an upset stomach.

I also considered why I wanted those foods. I knew I was thinking about them as a sort of reward for getting through a tough day, but it was more than that. In addition to stress at work, the holidays were coming up, and it would be my first Thanksgiving and Christmas since my mom died at the beginning of the year.

I realized then that I wanted the chicken tenders and fries because they were my comfort foods. And that must mean I was in need of comfort.

That insight allowed me to treat myself gently. Instead of having a negative internal monologue about lack of self-control and how I made bad food choices, I could have empathy for myself. And once I recognized why I wanted those foods, I realized I didn’t need to get them.

I went home without stopping at the convenience store, and while I didn’t miss the chicken tenders and fries, I still felt that desire for something comforting. That made me a little more curious as I thought about how to comfort myself without using food, which was a novel idea. I eventually decided to pat my cats and watch a favorite movie, Ghostbusters. Instead of comfort food, I had a comfort movie.

The power of insight

Being able to think about my food choices with this curious approach has been incredibly helpful. It takes some practice to get there, but it’s well worth it.

So, if you want to make some changes to your own eating habits, I hope you’ll consider being more curious. You might be surprised by what you learn.