Intuitive Eating with the Bible, Discover the Satisfaction Factor
Learning to enjoy food again starts with recognizing food for the gift that it is and receiving it with gratitude.
When our perspective changes, we begin to eat the food we truly desire and pass up the foods we don’t. We get to rediscover the sensual qualities of food, connect with God over our meals, and create satisfying eating experiences.
After working through the following steps, food should no longer produce anxiety. You should finally start to enjoy eating again.
Enjoy Food Again: Step 1
Eat what you truly want to eat
Let go of all the nutrition information, food rules, and diet tricks that have been swarming around in your head. Instead, decide what to eat based on your preferences.
This step requires that you make peace with food; that involves making all foods morally equal and allowed on your plate. As you allow yourself to eat all foods, you’ll start experimenting with your senses.
Enjoy Food Again: Step 2
Rediscover your palate
Explore your five senses. Eat mindfully and take notice of the taste, texture, smell, temperature, appearance, and filling capacity of the food.
After you experiment with this for a while, you’ll know your taste preferences better. You can therefore choose to respect them.
Eating the foods you prefer leads to much more satisfaction than eating something you don’t like just because it’s “healthy.”
Enjoy Food Again: Step 3
Make mealtimes a time to connect with God
Food was designed to be pleasurable. It is a gift and should be received with gratitude (see 1 Timothy 4:3-5).
Taking time to reflect on the gift of the food and saying a prayer of gratitude leads to a new respect for our food. Through our thanksgiving, we find satisfaction that is much deeper than what the physical experience of eating alone can offer us.
“There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him?”
Ecclesiastes 2:24-25
Enjoy Food Again: Step 4
Take steps to make your eating experience more enjoyable
We often rush through our lives, hustling and bustling to the next big thing.
We eat in the car, rushing between meetings, or while working at our desks. This fast-paced eating experience doesn’t leave much room for pleasure.
Here are some specific ways to make your eating experience more enjoyable:
- Designating a specific time allowance for meals
- Sitting down at the table to eat
- Checking in with your body by taking some deep breaths before you eat
- Saying a prayer
- Paying attention to your food
- Eating slowly
Enjoy Food Again: Step 5
Don’t settle for less
If you don’t enjoy a food please don’t eat it. When we do that, we physically fill our body with energy, but we are left unsatisfied and searching for something else.
In contrast, when you really enjoy a food and you savor it, you derive satisfaction that takes food off your mind until you’re physically hungry again.
Be sure to remember that you are not obligated to finish eating a food just because you put it on your plate or took a bite of it. If the food isn’t hitting the spot, go ahead and pass it up.
Enjoy Food Again: Step 6
Check in with yourself during your meal
A great way to do this is to rate the pleasure you get from the first few bites on a scale of 1-10.
Remember that a meal doesn’t have to be perfect. Satisfaction is not black and white. If your meal is on the upper end of the satisfaction scale, that is a good meal. Every meal will not derive a mind-blowing explosion of pleasure, but most meals should lead to some level of satisfaction.
Use the infographic below to gauge your satisfaction with meals and rediscover the pleasure in eating. Be sure to grab my FREE Intuitive Eating BIble Study below!
