Mindful eating: 5 tips for mindful meals

The bowl is to the left of the keyboard, a mail notification flashes on the right. After ten minutes the plate is empty – and the memory of the taste has got lost somewhere between two phone calls. Anyone who knows this needs no new diet, but a few usable mindful eating tips: small adjustments to pace, surroundings and attention that can be built into a full Swiss working day without going without anything.

Mindful eating is less a spiritual exercise than a craft. You practise noticing again what you are eating – and when it is enough.

Mindful eating tips: the short answer

Eating mindfully means: you take a meal in consciously instead of dealing with it on the side. The three most effective steps are screens away, chew more slowly and before the first bite, check briefly how hungry you really are. Nothing more is needed to start – no counting, no forbidden foods, no app.

The rest follows from repetition. If you eat two meals a day more consciously, portion size also shifts over time – without your having to control it. One observation many people make while trying it is interesting: it is not getting full that is the problem, but stopping. The spoon keeps going because the plate is not empty yet. This is exactly where mindfulness comes in.

Why pace and surroundings achieve more than strict rules

The national nutrition survey menuCH by the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office records not only what lands on the plate in Switzerland but explicitly also cooking, eating and exercise behaviour – which meals are eaten at all, for instance, or how often salt is added at the table. According to the FSVO, the analyses show that the population does not eat in a balanced way: sweet and salty foods are consumed considerably more often than recommended.

That is rarely a question of knowledge. Almost everyone knows that five portions of fruit and vegetables a day are recommended. It is a question of the situation: lunch standing up, a meeting at 2 p.m., an evening hunger that knows no shades of grey.

The Federal Office of Public Health also makes clear how weighty the subject is: according to the FOPH overview «Body weight and physical activity in Switzerland», being overweight and obesity caused health costs of around 3.7 billion francs in 2022. Such figures motivate nobody over a mid-morning snack – but they do show that eating habits are not a side issue.

Five steps to a more mindful meal

1. A five-second hunger check. On a scale of 1 to 10: where are you? Below 3 you often eat too fast; above 7 it is perhaps more habit, thirst or stress.
2. Switch off one screen. Not all of them – one. That is realistic and changes a surprising amount.
3. Taste the first three bites consciously: temperature, texture, salt. After that the conversation may start again.
4. Put your cutlery down once in the middle of the meal and take a sip of water. This short break is the moment when satiety becomes noticeable at all.
5. At the end, ask yourself: pleasantly full or stuffed? You do not note the answer anywhere, you simply remember it.

Anyone who keeps this up for one meal a day for a week has learned more than with three nutrition books. We collect further everyday ideas on an ongoing basis in the Herbalife blog.

Breakfast and the mid-morning snack: where mindfulness is easiest

In the morning the surroundings are still calm and the decision manageable. So it is worth practising here in particular. In the updated food pyramid (the new recommendations as of September 2024) the Swiss Society for Nutrition recommends, among other things, 1–2 litres of drinks, five portions of fruit and vegetables, three portions of cereal products or potatoes with a preference for wholegrain, and 2–3 portions of dairy products a day, unsweetened being best – as guidance for healthy adults between 18 and 65.

A shake can structure such a breakfast, because it has a fixed size and you can actually drink it sitting down. How the Herbalife Formula 1 shake can be combined with fruit and milk or a plant drink is shown in our ideas for a Herbalife breakfast.

For the afternoon the rule is: planning beats improvising. Anyone who has nothing with them at 4 p.m. decides at the kiosk – and quickly. The Herbalife Formula 1 Express Bar Dark Chocolate 7 x 56g fits in a laptop bag and can be eaten in portions instead of out of an open pack. That is exactly what makes the difference: a clear portion, deliberately chosen.

When your head eats along

Not every reach for food comes from the stomach. Boredom, tiredness and thirst often feel astonishingly similar to hunger. This small comparison helps sort them out:

Drinking is the underestimated part of this. If water is too boring for you, flavour brings more regularity with little effort: the instant herbal drink with tea extracts, mango and dragon fruit flavour can be stirred up in seconds and is used by many as a small afternoon ritual. You will find further versions for drinking through the day under Herbalife Hydration.

One note that belongs here: mindful eating is an everyday practice, not a treatment. If the subject of food is a lasting burden, professional support is the right way – the FOPH states that eating disorders affect 3.5 per cent of the resident population in Switzerland at some point in their lives.

Start this week – with one meal

Pick a single meal that you will eat without a screen from tomorrow. Nothing more. Most mindful eating tips fail not for lack of motivation, but because people want to change everything at once. If you would also like to structure your everyday life with suitable shakes, bars or drinks, you will find an overview under All Herbalife products – and if you have questions about the choice, simply get in touch with us in Kloten.

Suitable products