Eat At A Table

Dear Dad,

What’s the last thing you ate while sitting on the couch? Or in the car? At the movie theatre? Ice cream? Fast food? Buttery Popcorn?

If you want to eat those foods for now, that’s fine they can be tasty. But, if you want to become healthier and maximize the joy of life; for now on, whenever you eat, walk over to a table, pull out a chair, and take a seat.

This simple discipline is the first of 5 ways to change what you eat without changing anything that you eat. Let’s recap.

1.     Eat at a table

2.     Don’t drink calories

3.     Set the tone

4.     Meal plan

5.     Make it yourself

By simply deciding to eat all your food while sitting at a table you will enhance the sensory experience of eating and reduce the amount of junk that you consume without even knowing it. Guaranteed.

Be intentional and mindful about food. When you’re not, your body reacts slowly to its signals, or misses stimuli all together, and you are exposed to making poor decisions. Understanding the detriment of distraction is the reason that wrestlers constantly tap their opponent’s forehead. Tap. Tap. Bam. Your opponent is behind you for a takedown before you even moved your feet. Or, remember that summer you went to get milk for our family of seven and then left all 8 half-gallon jugs in the car to spoil…two weeks in a row?! Likely, not because you intentionally decided not to refrigerate the one thing you went to the store to get; but instead because your mind was distracted by a new email, phone call, or any other detail involved in running a business and being a father. Similarly, when you eat distracted you are more apt to not realize how much food you have eaten eat and/or choose unhealthy food all together.

For the first time ever, people need to worry more about being over-“nourished” than mal-nourished. That’s wild. And sadly, the U.S. is ahead of this curve. Why and how is that? Well, think about it. When you travel abroad have you noticed the cultural differences in the time spent eating, the amount of food consumed, and the observable health differences in the population? Meals in foreign countries tend to last much longer, sometimes hours around a dinner table, but participants consume fewer calories than the American’s who eat in fifteen minutes on the go. How is that? In large part our fast paced culture minimizes the ritual of eating. Feeding to us is all about efficiently consuming calories to get on to the next activity. The problem is that we are way too efficient which causes us to cram in way too many calories. Even the language around food is different; foreigners eat until they’re not hungry; yet we to eat until we’re full?

Eating at a table will help you eliminate distractions, diminish the convenience of junk, and it is almost required in order to eat healthy meals. Delicious sautéed vegetables and artfully constructed salads need a surface to sit on to assist your fork. Meanwhile, a bag of chips disappears quickly on the couch. In fact, most snack foods are designed to be eaten in front of the TV because companies know that a distracted consumer eats more and buys more. Don’t be swindled and make it a ritual to mindfully consume your food at a table.

Finally, before you envision yourself eating at a table in a dark gloomy room all by yourself, look around. I’ve never seen a table with only one chair. When possible fill those chairs up. Food is meant to be eaten with people you love. But real people. Not people through a phone or on a screen. Certainly not alone in your car.

This week, try to eat all your food at a table. Pull out a chair and give it a try. There isn’t a daily action that can be more beneficial, or detrimental to your health, than the substances you put in your body. So be attentive to your food. Smell it; really taste it; and actually understand how much you need to not be hungry. You’ll be amazed at the difference in taste, feeling, and amount that you eat.

With Love,

JSR

p.s. don’t forget to wish your only daughter-in-law Happy Birthday <3 (Aug. 15)

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