“YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT”: - 30 Day Photo Challenge

rosebarnalice

As an exercise in mindfulness and intentional eating, between September 22 and October 22, I gave myself the challenge of taking a picture of everything I ate for 30 days. I’d say my biggest takeaways from the experience was (a) I became acutely aware of how often I can be a big fat ingrate instead of being grateful at the fortune of birth that makes me an American and a Westerner where my greatest problems with food are not scarcity but of abundance; and (b) that taking pictures of alcoholic beverages was uncomfortable and made me feel naughty even though I’ve had no problem logging my alcohol consumption honestly on MFP forever.

My summary report of my experience is on my blog at www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/rosebarnalice/view/reflections-on-the-30-day-you-are-what-you-eat-photo-challenge-774167 and you can also check out the previous 30 blog posts where all of the pictures and calorie/ macro summaries of every day are posted.

I hope others take the challenge and share their experiences!

soapsandropes

This is a really interesting project. I could see where it would be educational. I think that even if I tried to game it at the beginning by making better choices the truth would come out eventually.

khearron26

Intentional eating is about being aware of everything you eat and the amount you take in. For example, taking some chips out of a bag, measuring it out by either a scale, or just by sight, then eating it would be more "intentional eating" as opposed to say just eating straight out of the chip bag until suddenly you look down and you've eaten half the bag.

To clarify... there is nothing wrong with eating chips out of the bag lol. And if you want half the chip bag, have half the chip bag. Intentional eating is more about knowing how much you're going to eat before you start chowing down. And if you decide you want more after, you can have more. But it's because you decided to, not because your hands just kept going.


Also... that's a really cool experient! I love that idea.

nikhbee

Great Idea. I've done the same for a week or two, and I learnt a lot of things about my dietary habits. The main takeaway was that I really needed to track late night snacking.

Also I became aware of emotional eating. I would grab a snack and when I stopped to take a photo, I'd realize that I was not actually hungry.

rosebarnalice

To me, "intentional eating" is eating with purpose-- and knowing what that purpose is. It's about choosing what to eat and how much to eat because it fulfills the purpose. It's also about taking the time to focus on the act of eating so that I enjoy and appreciate it, and that it fulfills its purpose as completely as possible.

The purpose might be physical-- to satisfy feelings of hunger or to nourish my body. But the purpose might also be social -- to share in the act of breaking bread or toasting good fortune with and for a friend. And yes, the purpose might even be personal and emotional--taking a moment to savor a small chocolate as a mid-afternoon pick-me-up.

But if I am going to eat that chocolate, I want to stop whatever else I'm doing for a moment and focus on the act of eating that chocolate. I want to observe what the wrapper sounds like as it peels back; notice the color and shape of the chocolate, observe how close or far away it is from my nose before I smell it; know how it feels on my fingers and on my tongue; observe where in my mouth I taste it and all the nuances of its flavor. If I am sharing a glass of wine in celebration with a friend, I want to sip and savor the wine so that it lasts and lingers on my palette; I want to focus on being in that moment so that the smell and taste of the wine is entwined with the memory-making with that friend so that the smell of that same wine some day in the future can call to mind the pleasant memory of that friendship and the moment that we were shared.

It is the opposite of mindless eating--where entire bags of chips disappear beside me on the couch because I wasn't paying attention; or where countless beers or bottles of wine leave few traces except of the size of the bar tab; or letting automatic feet steer the car into the Wendy's drive-thru lane on the way to a meeting because. . . well. . . it's what I've always done.