Mindful Eating with Certified Eating Psychologist Jenny Eden Berk
Jenny Eden Berk is a Certified Eating Psychology Coach, Body image mentor, International Speaker and Bestseller Author of the book, The Body Image Blueprint.
She is the founder of Jenny Eden Coaching, a practice devoted to helping women, men, and teens heal their relationship with food and their bodies. She specializes in unique binge eating cessation techniques and mindful eating practices. She resides in Boston with her husband, 3 young daughters and in addition to coaching and writing, she loves to cook, entertain, travel, as well as practice hot yoga and kettlebell training.
In today's episode, Jenny and I chat about what it means to eat mindfully, the importance of listening to your bodies wisdom, and she leads me through a mindful eating exercise that you can follow along with.
This episode is jam-packed with ways to empower your eating including:
How decision anxiety impacts our eating
How distractions hinder our ability to listen to our body
Mindful Eating 101: How to Truly Savor Your Food with Jenny Eden Berk
Guest: Jenny Eden Berk, Certified Eating Psychology Coach, Body Image Mentor, and Author of "The Body Image Blueprint"
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jenny Eden Berk, a certified eating psychology coach, body image mentor, and best-selling author. Jenny is passionate about helping people cultivate a balanced, joyful relationship with food and their bodies. Throughout our conversation, she shared her expert insights into mindful eating, the societal pressures around food, and practical ways to bring mindfulness into every meal.
Here’s a breakdown of our discussion and some actionable takeaways on how to start practicing mindful eating.
Who is Jenny Eden Berk?
Jenny Eden Berk is a Certified Eating Psychology, Coach, and Author, dedicated to helping people transform their relationship with food and their bodies. She focuses on empowering clients to approach eating with curiosity and self-compassion, teaching them to remove fear from food choices and incorporate more pleasure and balance into their meals. Jenny’s work is particularly powerful because it addresses both the emotional and psychological aspects of eating.
What is Mindful Eating?
According to Jenny, mindful eating isn’t about following strict dietary rules or eating in silence all the time. Instead, it’s about paying attention to the food on your plate, being present, and fully experiencing each bite. Our culture often encourages multitasking and efficiency, which can lead to eating while distracted—whether that’s eating in front of a screen, in a rush, or on the go. Mindful eating invites you to focus solely on your food, fostering a sense of gratitude and allowing your body to guide your hunger and fullness cues.
Key Highlights and Practical Takeaways
1. Appreciating the Food Journey
Jenny encourages us to start with a moment of gratitude. Take a look at the food on your plate and appreciate its journey—think about where the ingredients came from and all the steps it took to arrive at your table. This exercise helps build a deeper connection to the food you’re eating, enhancing enjoyment.
2. Grounding Yourself Before Eating
Before diving in, take a few deep breaths. This small act grounds you, calming your mind and body so you can fully experience the moment. Breathing also aids in digestion by activating your body’s natural relaxation response.
3. Engage All Your Senses
Jenny led me through a mindful eating exercise that involved smelling the food, noticing its texture, and tuning into the taste as I ate. Engaging multiple senses enhances the experience and makes each bite more satisfying. This approach also cues your body’s natural digestive responses, helping you feel full and satisfied sooner.
4. Embracing Awareness and Pleasure
The two main components of mindful eating, Jenny says, are awareness and pleasure. Awareness involves tuning into your body’s signals—understanding when you’re truly hungry and when you’re full. Pleasure means allowing yourself to fully enjoy the flavors and textures without judgment or guilt. Together, these elements create a balanced and fulfilling eating experience.
5. The Pitfalls of Distracted Eating
Jenny explains how distracted eating can disconnect us from our hunger and satiety cues, sometimes leading to overeating. By making eating the main activity instead of a side task, we become more attuned to our body’s signals, making it easier to know when to stop.
6. Practical Tips for Busy Lives
Mindful eating doesn’t mean every bite of every meal has to be savored in solitude. Start by adding mindfulness to one snack or meal per week. When dining out or eating with family, you can still practice mindful eating by taking a few grounding breaths, savoring your first few bites, and pausing to check in with yourself periodically.
7. Trusting Your Body’s Wisdom
Jenny emphasizes that we already have all the wisdom we need to nourish ourselves. Over time, as we practice mindful eating, we strengthen our ability to trust our hunger cues and tune out external pressures. This trust leads to a healthier and more enjoyable relationship with food.
Bonus: Jenny’s Free Seven-Day Mindful Eating Challenge
Jenny offers a free seven-day mindful eating challenge, which provides practical tips and exercises to help you incorporate mindful eating into your routine. This is a great way to get started, especially if you’re new to the concept or want a structured approach.
Final Thoughts
This conversation with Jenny was eye-opening and truly shifted my perspective on eating. Practicing mindful eating has made me realize that food isn’t just fuel; it’s an experience. By focusing on presence and pleasure, we can transform our relationship with food and, ultimately, with ourselves.
For more insights from Jenny, visit her website and explore her mindful eating resources, including her free seven-day challenge. You’ll find links to her coaching services and her book The Body Image Blueprint, which dives deeper into healing our relationship with food and our bodies.
Connect with Jenny: Website: JennyEdenBerk.com
Free Seven-Day Mindful Eating Challenge: Available on her website
-
You are listening to episode eight of the Mindful Productivity podcast. And you guys, I'm so excited to bring you this episode because I have my first guest on the podcast, and it's Jenny Eden Burke. She's an amazing woman. You're going to want to have a glass of wine in with her after you listen to our podcast, and we're going to be talking all about mindful eating and what that really looks like, how you can actually incorporate it into your daily life. Jenny leads me through a mindful eating exercise, and it was really a fantastic experience for me.
And I have a feeling you are going to enjoy it as well. Let's go ahead and jump into the podcast so you can learn more about Jenny and her role as an eating psychology coach. She's got so much wisdom to share.
I'm so excited. Let's go.
Welcome to the Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and this is the place to be to live a more mindful and productive life. If you're ready to turn daily chaos into calm and start your days with intention, then get ready to join me as we dive deep into mindful living and personal productivity. It's time to connect with your true self so you can live the life you want to live. And it all starts now.
Sarah Steckler
Jenny.
Jenny Eden Berk
Oh, my gosh.
Sarah Steckler
I am so pumped that you are my first guest on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Jenny Eden Berk
Oh, my gosh. I am so excited to be here and to be your first guest. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah.
Sarah Steckler
So why don't you go ahead and tell everyone just a little bit about yourself and what you do before we kind of jump into everything we're going to be talking about today.
Jenny Eden Berk
Yeah, sure. So I'm Jenny Edenburg, and I'm a certified eating psychology coach and body image mentor. I'm a speaker and also the author of the best selling books, The Body Image Blueprint. I just love working with women and men just to help them heal their relationship with food and with their bodies and to have a more balanced, joyful and healthy relationship with being in your own space, in your own body and to remove fear from food and from eating experiences and to insert more pleasure into that.
Sarah Steckler
Yes.
Jenny Eden Berk
Oh, my gosh.
Sarah Steckler
And I have to say, too. I read your book. You actually reached out to me before it went live, and I was so honored. You're like, Will you read the first edition of it?
Jenny Eden Berk
And I was like, yes. Oh, my gosh.
Sarah Steckler
And it's so impactful and so powerful. And I think I've told you this before, but I actually felt really emotional just even reading the intro because it spoke so much to me. I'm like, this is me. I totally have binge eaten, and I've done all these things, and it was just such a very refreshing way that you came to talk about eating and body image. And I'm just so glad that you put it out there and put it out into the world.
Jenny Eden Berk
Thank you. And you are so sweet. You read it. And you wrote me a beautiful review. And the first section. People are often surprised because I talk about near death experience. It's like, how does that relate to where are you going with this? And it's like, just near death experiences. It's the experience of people being removed from their physical bodies and sort of hovering over their bodies. And I've read so much about people sort of once they've had near death experiences, and they recognize that their bodies are just sort of like vessels that they have here on Earth.
And it made me just think about, like, wow, we've really got to be connecting more on a soul level. And we're just so obsessed and fascinated with all the spacesuits that we inhabit, these physical sort of houses that we live in. Yeah.
Sarah Steckler
And I feel that way, too. I don't know. The older I get, I'm like, wow, my body is so much more than what it looks like. And that sounds so obvious. But I'm really starting to feel that now it's so much more. I remember even just being in my early 20s, just being so obsessed with, like, oh, my gosh, how do I look? And I don't know. And I remember my mom at one point telling me I used to feel the same way until I realized, like, nobody's paying attention to you.
We're all just kind of paying attention to ourselves. We're all freaking out all day long about our bodies.
Jenny Eden Berk
It's true. We're all sort of just scrutinizing ourselves. We don't have time to scrutinize everybody else.
Sarah Steckler
Yeah, I know. And I don't know how well this is going to go over. I didn't really think this through was eating in front of a microphone, but I did bring I have.
Jenny Eden Berk
Like, a couple, like.
Sarah Steckler
Seed crackers and hummus. And maybe I'll mute myself while I'm chewing. I was wondering if maybe you could lead me through what it's like to mindfully eat because I have a little bit of idea about it. I try to practice mindful eating, but maybe for some of the listeners that have heard about mindful eating, and they're like, Well, what does that really mean? Do I need to be in a forest with complete? Maybe you could kind of break that down. So I'll mute myself while I'm chewing.
But if you want to just kind of let me know where to go.
Jenny Eden Berk
You absolutely need to be a Monk. And, like, living in Bhutan to eat. No, I'm just kidding. My pleading is something that anybody can do anywhere, anytime. And in my practice, I talk a lot about mindful eating and intuitive eating, and people have a lot of ideas about it. But truthfully, it's just about dropping into your body while you're eating. And a lot of people are very distracted when they eat due to the culture that we live in. We're constantly on the go. We're constantly multitasking. In fact, we get accolades for multitasking and output.
How much can you accomplish in a day? And so it lends itself to, like, not thinking of food as the activity. It's like the side activity while you're doing something else more important. So, like, a lot of what I do is just like, hey, can food and eating actually be what you're doing right now and nothing else when you can bring that level of attention and awareness to your eating experience? Like, all these magical things happen, at least for me. And I teach people how this can work for them, too.
And it's just amazing. It's the most basic thing in the whole world. And yet people have these revelations like, oh, now I get it. Now I know when to stop eating, when to start eating. How many bites like, it's all intrinsically there, but we just have to tap back into it. So I'd be happy to walk you through some of that.
Sarah Steckler
We can do a little brief before we get into that. I was just going to say, just even hearing you talk about that, I'm like, wow, we make time to do other things, like solely. We solely do those things. But for whatever reason, eating is kind of the secondary thing. I can think of thousands of times when I've been like, eating in my car on the go, and I've been proud of myself, like, I ate my sandwich on the way to work, and I'm multitasking. But there's so many other things we do every day where we're not taking a shower and then also trying to read a book at the same time we're present in the moment.
And obviously that's circumstantial. But I just think that's really a great point is that we don't, for whatever reason, we don't take time to just eat and just do that.
Jenny Eden Berk
And it causes all this havoc because we lose touch with our hunger cues. We lose touch with our satiety cues. We eat fast, and then we end up eating more than we expect. And then we only realize when our body is, like, screaming at us to stop, to actually stop. Right. And so a lot of my clients are like, Well, my body doesn't tell me when to stop. I just keep eating. And I'm like, Well, how fast are you eating? And are you eating distractedly? Because in fact, I had a client.
It was so funny. She was like, I brought a brownie into work, and I was so excited to eat it. And I was multitasking and working, and I ate the brownie. And I didn't even remember eating the brownie. And then she was looking around for it. Like, Where's my brownie? And she already ate it. And she's like, What's the point of having this delicious brownie if I'm not even going to remember eating it, right. Oh, my gosh.
Sarah Steckler
That's hilarious.
Jenny Eden Berk
No, she's like, Where's my brownie? Oh, shit. I already ate it, right?
Sarah Steckler
That reminds me of I think it was the movie Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore, where she gets drunk and she drinks a bunch of wine. And then she eats this pie and she wakes up the next morning like, who ate my pie? She realizes it was her. She just doesn't remember.
Jenny Eden Berk
She's like, oh, yeah, it was me. Shit. Yeah.
Sarah Steckler
And we've all had those moments or, like, for me, too. It's been like, we'll make a cake or something and then creep into the kitchen and be like, it's this horrible black hole of I'm just going to take a fork and just have a bite of the cake and it's like, oh, no, it's uneven. Or before I know it this, like, Pacman shape has turned into, like, a half moon, and I'm like, oh, no. Maybe I should just Bake another cake, so nobody knows that's hilarious.
Jenny Eden Berk
Then you have to make a ghost to go with the Pacman, right? Yeah. That happens all the time. There's a lot of reasons why we do that. Number one is like, if we stand up and we eat it, this pie or this cake or this brownie, and we're not fully owning the decision to eat it, it's kind of mired with all this emotional immorality. Like, Should I have the cake? Should I not have the cake? I'm really not hungry, but I kind of really want. And we go through this whole dialogue and it takes away from our experience of pleasure and joy of actually eating something that is delicious, right?
Which we all deserve. There's no morality. There's nothing wrong with eating things like this. It's the stories that we tell ourselves and the fear of the consequences that we expect from eating that. And some of that is real. And some of it is imagined. Like, if you have a piece of pie, like, for instance, a lot of people have stories about this. Oh, my gosh. There's gluten in this. And, oh, my gosh, there's so many calories. And this is going to cause me to gain weight right away.
And I always have to sort of hold people back and be like, Is that true? Is that really true? Or is this just your Association with this food and it prevents you from actually enjoying it because you're inserting all of this dialogue and morality into it. And it really, I think, prevents people from truly enjoying it because there's so many conflicted feelings about it that makes so much sense.
Sarah Steckler
And for me, too, it kind of reminds me of sometimes I have so much decision fatigue around eating, like, what should I eat? What's the best thing to eat? And then before I know it, I'm like, starving. And then I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to have chips I don't care. And then I feel guilty the whole time. And I know, too, that I've read to how you feel about food. And I'm sure you could speak to this really affects, like, how you digest it and how it sits in your stomach.
And it just creates this whole other nuance of how we feel about it.
Jenny Eden Berk
Absolutely. Think about it. Like your thoughts become your perceptions, and you create meaning with those. Sorry. Your perceptions create thoughts and thoughts create meaning about that. And then that shows up in your behaviors.
Sarah Steckler
Right.
Jenny Eden Berk
And so we can literally talk ourselves into anything. And you're absolutely right about the decision stuff, because there's a term I have called decision anxiety where it's like, oh, what do I do? Should I do this? Should I not do this? I should I want. But then we make ourselves crazy. And oftentimes I'll have clients who, like, say, I don't get it. I'm good all day. Good. I put that in, quote, and then I lose it in the evening, and I just end up eating whatever I want.
And I feel out of control. And I'm often saying to them like, Well, of course, you've been making decisions all day long and you're exhausted and you don't want to have to make any more decisions. Right. And if you couple that with hunger, it's a total disaster because you have hunger and decision fatigue. You're not going to be like, I'm going to make a really nice green smoothie for myself right now. You're going to be like, okay, what's in front?
Sarah Steckler
Whatever is here.
Jenny Eden Berk
I'm going to eat like, I don't care what it is, right? People sort of like, it's almost like imagine people clenching their fists all day long trying to be good, right. And to do everything right. And then you get home and you're exhausted and you've made all these decisions and you just want to relax and not have to worry about it. And this is what oftentimes leads to a lot of decisions that people regret later.
Sarah Steckler
Oh, like you've kind of described when I have those stressful days. Yeah. It's like, I want to reward. I want to come home. I just want to, like, whatever. I don't want to think about it. Okay. So I have this cracker and I have some hummus. And so why don't we try having you kind of lead me through what it's like to mindfully eat, and I'll mute myself. So I'm not, like, crunching and everybody figures.
Jenny Eden Berk
No, I want to hear you crunch on your crunch.
Sarah Steckler
Right.
Jenny Eden Berk
Okay. What I want you to do is really just drop into your body for a minute. And this is something that we often fail to do, especially if you're hungry. You kind of just want to eat right away. You don't want to create any sort of barrier or ritual around eating because you're in survival mode and you just want to eat right so oftentimes. What I'll ask people to do is to take a glass of water. If they're feeling really ravenous, just take a glass of water and drink it so that you can get the edge off a little bit.
Okay. Now, assuming you're not particularly starving and you just want to have a nice snap of crackers and hummus, it's great. You still want to drop into your body. And what I would do is have you take a couple of just really deep grounding breaths. You can do this right now. So in through your nose, out through your mouth and just take a minute to notice how your body is feeling. So you may notice that you're hanging on to some stress from the day from the morning.
You may feel that you're in a bit of an excited state. Some things will start to become clear to you whether it's some physical distress or discomfort or some emotional stress. But just take it all in and observe it and notice where you're at with respect to your body. And as you're breathing in and out, just allow yourself and give yourself permission to breathe out any stress or discomfort that may be coming from an emotional or psychological place. And just give yourself permission to be fully aware and grounded in this moment.
And what I would do is ask you to look at this food and to bring some appreciation and gratitude for it, because oftentimes we dive into things without realizing that I am so lucky to be able to have the choice to make this choice, to eat this balanced, nourishing food right now or whatever it is, even if it's pie. I'm so lucky to delicious pie right now. Literally say it to yourself like I own this decision.
Sarah Steckler
I'm looking so lovingly at this cracker. I'm like, I love you cracker. We could have an engagement shoot right now.
Jenny Eden Berk
Give it a ring and you can just look at it and be sort of Marvel. And the fact that you get to eat this amazing food and maybe even take a minute to think about what the journey was for this food to get to your plate. Like, who was involved? Where was the wheat grown? The chickpeas? How did that turn into this delicious like creamy hummus? Just take some gratitude and some mindfulness about where the food came from. And then what I would do is bring up the cracker.
Like assuming you have maybe dipped it in some of the hummus. And what I would do is just bring it up to your nose and just smell it for a minute. And sometimes just the act of smelling the aroma of food can activate the digestive process, which sometimes we override. When we're eating really fast, we don't even get a chance to there's something called the syphilic phase of digestion, which is where all of your other senses are involved that gives your body a chance to prepare itself for digestion, and that can include aroma and sight.
That's why I have you look at it. It can include chewing very mindfully and making sure that you're masticating the food really well and allowing the specific enzymes in your style very glands to play a role and to help break down that food and bring it down to its journey in your large intestine and small test. And as you said, bringing this awareness can bring a whole other level of being able to digest your food and assimilate the nutrients of that food.
Sarah Steckler
Oh, my gosh. Can I just say something real quick? I'm drooling like I can feel my mouth. It's crazy because I hardly ever just smell hummus. I love the way it smells, but I hardly ever do that before I eat something and I'm sitting here looking at this cracker like this is going to be the most amazing experience. That's really interesting.
Jenny Eden Berk
Yeah. And I'll play more at the end, too about that. But yeah, and then what I want you to do and then you commute yourself. Now is just take a bite of this cracker with homeless. Okay, don't chew it yet, but just take a bite and notice how it feels in your mouth. Like, notice where you tend to place your food. Some people put it right in the middle of their tongue. Some people immediately go to one to the left or the right side. Notice where you place food on your palate.
And when you're ready, you can just slowly start to chew this food and be aware of any emotions that you have about eating this. It could be excitement. It could be concern or worry. It could be boredom, like restlessness like this is taking so long, or people sometimes feel that while they're eating mindfully, it's like, wow, this is taking so long because we're not used to it. Right? So once you've done that, I would just slowly start to chew it and notice the textures. Notice the flavor notes.
Maybe it feels and tastes a little bit different on one side of your mouth. Maybe it tastes and feels a little bit different on the other side. And I also want you to be aware, Sarah, of when you feel like that urge to swallow the food, because oftentimes we'll notice this desire to swallow before we've even really fully chewed the food up so that it can be digested carefully and that they're broken up into smaller pieces. So just notice that urge to swallow the food. And once you've chewed it like a good 1020 times, notice how your body is feeling.
Notice what emotions you're experiencing, and then go ahead and swallow that first bite. And as you're swallowing that first bite, I want you to just think for a minute of the amazing fact that you've just taken in the food energy of just a tiny morsel of food. How amazing is that you have this ability to not only bring incredible awareness to this tiny bite of food energy, but also that you get to fully enjoy that experience.
Sarah Steckler
Oh, my gosh. So in my mind right now, I'm singing, I don't know if you ever heard that Spice Girls song, it's like, when to become one. I'm really having a moment here with this hummus.
Jenny Eden Berk
Tell me about this love affair with this hummus.
Sarah Steckler
Yeah. So one thing I noticed was that because I think I built up this anticipation for the food. So I really tasted the flavor a lot more. And I noticed, too. I definitely had that impulse to swallow it right away and take another bite. But letting it sit on my tongue a little bit longer, that was really good. And then also to moving it around and really, like, letting all my different taste buds kind of hit it.
Jenny Eden Berk
I was like, oh, wow.
Sarah Steckler
This has a lot more nuances to it than I realized. And I also realized, like, the cracker has, like, three bites to it, because normally I'm just like, chomp chomp one at a time. And so that was good. And then I also really just felt like a lot of joy and nourishment and obviously the food itself. But on an energetic level, I just felt like, oh, wow. This is really amazing. Like, I was thinking about the journey of the food and how it came to be and how I have this.
I'm like, I feel really grateful that I have this opportunity to eat this, and it was so enjoyable. A question I have is like, this is amazing, right? But we're not able to do this with every single bite of food that we take. So how do we go about incorporating this mindful eating into kind of everyday life or when we're out at a restaurant or anything like that?
Jenny Eden Berk
Yeah. Such a good question. And people ask me this all the time. And the main thing I want to say is you do not have to eat mindfully every meal, every bite. It isn't feasible or sustainable because of the culture we live in and the way that we lead our lives. So take that extreme measure off the table, because oftentimes we're so ruled and regulated in terms of especially with food that it's like, wow, Jenny says to me, Mindfully, and I'm not doing it. So I'm going to feel bad about myself.
And it's like, put all that aside. Maybe you just start by having one mindful snack a week and that's it. Then maybe you start to have, like, a silent and mindful dinner once a week. Maybe the whole family does it. Maybe just you and then you're slowly starting to make this a practice, like, in the same way that you would make anything of practice, you don't just jump in under percent. You slowly start to see when it makes sense how you can incorporate this as often as you can, without any judgment or morality.
You're just doing it whenever you can. And I think that most people end up finding so much pleasure in it. And also they find that they eat less because their body is giving them a lot more signals. And I do this exercise with chocolate a lot in workshops and things, and people are amazed at how they get a sense of fullness and satiety from, like, one tiny bite of chocolate when they would typically take handfuls of it. Right, and just eat it and can eat the whole thing.
I have people who are saying that they're literally full and they don't want a single bite more after four bites. And I say to people, if that's how you can live, you could know exactly when you're full and exactly when you've had enough and there's, like a full body satiety, especially with foods that have a lot of fat in it and so forth. But to answer your question about the restaurants, of course, it's a lot harder because potentially you're with somebody else. There's a lot of distractions.
And I've had this come up a few times with clients recently where they're like, I really want to enjoy my meal at a restaurant, but I find that I'm so distracted. I'm talking to people and blah, blah, blah. And I say, you know what? Excuse yourself after you order, go to the bathroom, just say you're going to the bathroom and literally just stand in a stall if you have to and do a few grounding breaths and give yourself permission to enjoy the meal. The two main things that I would tell your listeners is bring awareness and pleasure.
Those are the two main sort of ingredients for mindful eating, awareness and pleasure. If you have those two things, you're off to the races like, you are in a really good position to give your brain enough of what it needs to know to talk back to you.
Sarah Steckler
Just hearing this is very transformative for me. I'm sure it is for a lot of people listening that are like, new to mindful eating as well. And one thing that really stood out to me just listening to you is me and my husband, both we really love using food is kind of like this event, like, we're going to watch TV this weekend and we're going to have all this food, and sometimes it feels like it's almost like it's never enough, right? Like, oh, well, if we're going to get this, we better make sure we get an extra large bag of chips because we want to make sure that we have more than we could ever want or need.
And I'm sure other people can relate to this. And it's interesting because when you bring mindfulness to eating or even just doing this brief exercise with you now, it's no longer about having more and having a quantity of food. It's almost kind of like it creates this abundance in the small amount that you have in front of you kind of like what you're talking about with the chocolate. And that really is like, kind of changing everything for me as I think about it.
Jenny Eden Berk
Yes, I'm like shaking, because that's exactly it it's abundance. And people do get that feeling of like, I need more and more and more of this, especially the way that our food is created in our society, where the food manufacturers make food with a specific bliss point so that we feel compelled to have more and more and more. Right. And we can combat that by bringing pleasure and awareness, because that's what's going to tell your body. I am aware that I'm enjoying this. And so your body, in turn, is going to give you the cues to tell you when to stop, as opposed to just going on the reward centers in your brain.
The dopamine rush, which has operating more from our reptilian brain, where it's like, this is great more and more and more and more. Right. But we're not really aware we're not fully conscious when we're operating from our reptilian brain. We're not bringing our prefrontal cortex in as much, especially if you're eating fast. Your body thinks there's a crisis going on. Why are you eating so fast? There must be a bear coming out of your body when you're eating. If you could even just say there is no crisis, I'm not in a rush.
I give myself permission to enjoy this meal. I have to tell myself that sometimes, especially because I have three young kids and everybody's racing around the kitchen, like, last night, even we were having dinner, and I was literally trying to tune them out because they're like, no, whatever. And then they all leave the table, and I'm still there eating. And I used to get really caught up in the energy of the room like.
Sarah Steckler
Oh, they're eating fast.
Jenny Eden Berk
And now I'm like, you know what? Screw them. I'm going to take as much time as I want to eat this meal, and I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm going to advocate for myself.
Sarah Steckler
Yes, I love that. And it's cool because it just comes back to being able to trust in yourself and trust in your intuition and the knowledge and the wisdom of your body. And I talk a lot about that when it comes to making decisions, mindfully and just living an intentional life. And I always tell people that you have everything you need within you to do anything to make a decision. You have more wisdom and knowledge than you know. And it's like, I think sometimes we look for all these external things to tell us what we think we need to know.
Like, we go, we use these, like, food tracking apps and all this, which I think are fine. Sometimes that can help people. And that's great. But I think sometimes it gets taken to this extreme where it's like, if I don't have a Fitbit telling me how many steps I'm taking or I don't have this telling me how many calories I've had, then I'm clearly not going to be able to sustain my health. And I had a friend the other day that actually said I walked all the way to work and back, and I didn't wear my Fitbit like, as if it didn't count.
You know what I mean?
Jenny Eden Berk
Therefore, it didn't happen.
Sarah Steckler
But I think we're in this age where we have all these amazing technology. I think sometimes we forget to check in with our own bodies, with them.
Jenny Eden Berk
I love you so much, Sarah, because that's a good. I feel the same exact way we have everything we need inside of us. We've just lost touch with all the noise and muck and experts out there who make us. They make us feel like we're always doing something wrong. But the truth is, everybody is different, and you have enough internal wisdom to know. Believe me, every single person has enough wisdom to know how to nourish themselves. We just have given away our power to experts and rules and regulations, and thereby we end up judging our appetites. Jenny Eden Berk (28:07)
We end up judging who we are as eaters. We live in fear around food that we're always making the wrong choice, and we don't give ourselves enough kind of credit to be like, hey, maybe if I just listen a little more deeply, or maybe if I just slow down a little bit, I'm going to get everything that I need. And I found that for myself time and again. And when I help clients do it, it's such a beautiful revelation for them. And it's like, the most simple thing ever.You're ultimately saying is this can be really easy, like it can be very intuitive. You can really empower yourself. And I think, too, there's this trickle down effect for a lot of people that when you feel in touch with your eating and all of that, it just impacts the rest of your life. And I actually wanted to ask you a pretty broad question.
Sarah Steckler
I'm sorry, I'm just throwing this at you, but if you had to tell someone struggling with just eating and listening to their body, what's the one thing that you would share with them?
Jenny Eden Berk
No, it's hard to break it down to one thing, but I would say what we've been talking about is you're struggling, and there's a whole cascade of reasons why you struggle. And it has to do with a couple of things, like how your family eating structure was set up, how you were influenced by peers, what your biochemistry is like, all of those things play a role. But ultimately, if you listen and you listen deeply to your body and you bring trust, communication and respect, your body will give that back to you in space, like it will give you everything you need as long as you listen to it and you're gentle and kind to it.
Sarah Steckler
That's what I would say. Oh, my gosh, that's going to be a major quote in the show notes. I love that so much. That's so profound. And Jenny, I just wanted to thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. This has been amazing. I've gotten so much out of this. I'm sure that everyone listening is going to be like, wow, and it's going to take this. Where can people find you? What's the next step if they want to get to know more about what you do and the things that you offer?
Jenny Eden Berk
Yeah. Thank you. So the best way to reach me is my website, which is I'm sure the link is in the show notes, but it will be www. Jenny Eden E-D-E-N coaching. Com. And I would love to offer your audience. I have a free seven day mindful eating course. It really gives you sort of the what, why and how of mindful eating. And it's a really good jumpstart to giving you specific techniques if you want to start learning more about it.
Sarah Steckler
Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. I love it. And we'll definitely link that in the show notes and get all of your information there. And as always, you guys can always find those Mindful Productivity podcast and just look at this episode. Jenny, oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for being here and for giving us just so much information. I feel like people are going to have to listen to this again to take more notes and just you've given so much value and also validity to how I think a lot of us feel.
And I think I have about six more of these crackers and I'm going to mindfully the rest of them and really enjoy them. So thank you so much for being here. It means a lot. And thank you for everything that you shared today.
Jenny Eden Berk
Oh, thank you, Sarah, I love what you're doing. Mindful productivity is so important, and it's so unique and amazing. And I'm so glad that you created this podcast so happy to be here.
Sarah Steckler
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode all about Mindful Eating with Jenny Eden Berk
I had so much fun doing this podcast episode with her, and I really want to encourage you to check out her website.
She's got so many amazing blog posts and resources right there, and you can find it all at jennyedencoaching.com to get more information about everything else she's offering and everything she talked about during our podcast episode. As well as access to her free seven day mindful eating challenge. Mindful Mindful productivity Podcast View the Podcast notes until next week.
