Eating with a Distraction?

It’s mind boggling when you think of how many Americans eat their dinner, lunch, snacks, breakfast and anything in between, when they are watching television. TV has become such a major distraction to us in our every day lives, and is such a “turn your mind off and relax” thing, that we look forward to doing it every night. Most of us at least, and by the way I’m not counting myself out of that circle because it is true for me as well.

You’ve probably heard before out of the thousands of little diet tips and how to be healthier and have a better relationship with your food, that eating with distractions of any kind, possibly even reading, is actually not good because it makes you lose your focus on how your food tastes, savoring your food and enjoying it for what it is, and also losing track of how much food you are actually stuffing down your gullet as you blindly watch that last episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

When I really think about how I eat when I watch television, it is sort of true that I don’t really enjoy my food as much as if I’m in a restaurant where there are no distractions, only good conversation, and how much more I focus on and enjoy my food, but also how much faster I’m tuned into the fact that I’m full and done eating, whereas when I’m watching TV, tend to want to eat more and more and more. You get the point. It gets to the point where you correlate watching TV with eating, and therefore you subconsciously want to eat the whole time you’re enjoying a movie or a TV show.

Sitting at the dinner table with your family, husband or partner, or just by yourself, actually may seem boring, and to some people it even sounds a bit scary. They’ve had the TV or some other distraction for years when they sit down to eat, and now that is being taken away and that does create some anxiety I suppose. However, when you realize how much less you might eat and how much quicker your appetite is satisfied, and how much more you become in touch with being full and actually savoring the textures, scents and flavors of your food, you just might always want to eat that way!