The first habit

The first habit, which I will be working on over the next 8 weeks, is eating slowly and mindfully. According to Babauta's technique, this first habit needs to be broken down into 8 steps. The idea is that you work on one step each week. He also specifically says that the first step should be something very easy.

I've been thinking about how to break down the habit of eating slowly and more mindfully, and I've decided on these eight steps:

1) Always sit down when I eat. I mean this literally, I'm just going to focus on not eating while I'm walking, standing, lying down etc.

2) At breakfast, don't do anything else while I eat (except talk to people I might be eating with), i.e. no watching TV, reading the newspaper or checking my e-mail during breakfast.

3) Extend the doing nothing else-rule to lunch.

4) Extend the doing nothing else-rule to snacking.

5) Extend the doing nothing else-rule to dinner.

6) Put down the utensils (or the sandwich or whatever if I'm eating something without utensils) between each bite.

7) Sip water, or just pause and take a moment between each bite.

8) After each bite, be conscious to notice the flavors and textures and describe them to myself (in my head, I guess, haha).

So that's it, and my mission until next Sunday is to always eat sitting down. I'll be updating to report how I'm doing :) (So far today, breakfast and lunch were both eaten sitting down).