+ Yay! It’s the last post of the month which means a new monthly habit and a recap of last month’s! These monthly experiments help me build healthy habits, break unhealthy ones or just learn more about myself so I can figure out what’s essential for my best life!

Hello! I’m packing to go on my first retreat this weekend… it’s a yoga/pilates/reset your nervous system thing and I’m super excited. Anyway, I’m going to try to keep this post short so I can hit the road.

Mindful Eating May has been pretty successful! I think it’s made more of an impact on Greg and he’s going to start adding lunch as well this month. I’ve decided to keep with the theme but shift it a little bit. So, for the month of June, I’m going to practice Mindful Drinking. The goal is to drink more water to help me feel better but also to better enjoy my non-water beverages. We sometimes chug other, presumably less healthy, beverages (coffee, alcohol, soda) and forget to slow down and enjoy what we love about them.

For Mindful Drinking June, I will be:
+ Drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day: 2 before each meal and 2 mid-afternoon.
+ Using mealtime as a trigger and setting an alarm on my phone for the 4pm break so I can remember to refill my bottle.
+ Keeping an 8-cup pitcher of cool, sometimes flavored water in the fridge so I can track my consumption.
+ Following the Mindful Eating rules for any non-water beverages: particularly to check in with my intentions, how desirous I am, and also to slow down and savor each sip.

I’m hoping to feel more hydrated and more grateful for the buzz of an evening cocktail or the first fizzy sip of a burgertime soda! Care to join?

Reflections on our May Habit: Mindful Eating:
As I mentioned earlier, Mindful Eating May was pretty successful. I’ve had a 75% completion rate and it has helped improve my relationship to the food I eat! To be fully honest, I did have a few mornings where I was super hungry or really upset and I could have cared less about the habit. I let it go and tried my best to start again the next day.

To recap, we practiced a few things at breakfast time:
+ Taking a moment before loading up our plates to think about how hungry we were and how desirous we were.
+ Pausing before starting to eat to be grateful for the people and animals responsible for our meal.
+ Savoring each bite through the scents and flavors of the food. Taking it slow with pauses and breathing in between.
+ Considering how full we were and trying to stop eating at 80%.

I think to feel more of a difference, I’d have to commit to mindfully eating every meal. This month was a little too full and stressful to take that on... so maybe later. Another thing to note, Mindful Eating really makes you think about your food, where it comes from and how it tastes. This does make it more difficult to eat and enjoy unethical food or food that doesn't taste great. It’s kind of a blessing and a curse. (I think Greg eats better food than me ;)

I did enjoy the slow start to the day and the renewed practice of a sort of grace before breakfast. Hooray gratitude! And man, we eat some delicious food!!

++ That first image is one of our favorite breakfast recipes: Raspberry Ripple Buckwheat Porridge! And yes, half of my photos of Greg are of him eating ;)