What To Do If You're Not Enjoying Your Meal

You're hungry. You recognize your body needs food. You have taken all the best steps before your meal. You checked in with yourself. You asked your body what foods might feel most supportive to it. You made your meal or ordered it at a restaurant. You chose what you thought would feel satisfying to your body and then you start eating and something about the food is just not resonating with you. It happens.

Sometimes, even with all the eating tools you may have, your body will speak up and let you know as you actually start to eat what does or does not resonate with your system in that exact moment.

So what do you do? I know for many individuals I have worked with this feels like a difficult moment to navigate. Do you throw the food out? Do you mentally force yourself to keep eating anyway?

Let's explore some options of how you can meet that moment in a brand new way.

1. Acknowledge your emotions.

Eating is meant to be a pleasurable experience. And when we don't feel that pleasure from nourishing our body, all sorts of emotions can arise. As you're awareness starts to grow that you're meal is perhaps not feeling satisfying, give your emotions space to be heard. Welcome them to the table. Give yourself a moment to feel the grief, frustration, disappointment, or whatever else is present. Our emotions can feel less intense when we step out of doing battle with them. Allowing these sensations of disappointment, grief, and sadness to be a part of your eating can decrease the likelihood of compensatory food behaviors later.

2. Create a new mealtime intention.

Whether conscious or not, we go into every meal with some kind of intention. That might be to receive pleasure, to boost our energy, to feel differently than how we are currently feeling. When you realize you're not enjoying your meal, that can be a great opportunity to also pause and explore what intention you went into your meal with. Yes, the meal may not be resonating with your body and it may also be your experience of the meal is feeling in conflict with the intention you went into it. This is where you can create a new mealtime intention to align with your new bodily feedback and information. Perhaps a new mealtime intention can be to just not feel hungry anymore so the meal still feels like a successful one as you notice that eating is supporting you in satiating your physical hunger.

3. Focus on what is in your control.

You cannot control your body. As much as diet and fitness culture would like you to believe that, your body cannot be controlled. There are a million different reasons why a meal may not be resonating with your body. Maybe that temperature or the taste or the texture is not resonating with it in that moment. Maybe it is looking for something to support it in regulating itself and that meal isn't doing it. Maybe that meal is feeding a certain bacteria in your gut that does not need anymore food and so your body says no.

Continuing to focus on your body and trying to control it during a meal that is not feeling satisfying can often lead to more tension, disconnection, and friction. The only thing that is within your control in that moment is your reaction and your response. As you give yourself permission to feel your emotions and bodily sensations, you can also explore how you want to respond to your food. You can stop eating and choose to save what you have for later and eat something else. You can explore if anything could be added to your meal. Perhaps it needs more salt or oil or a certain spice that would make it more physically and emotionally satiating. Maybe it is identifying that no food would satisfy you in that moment because there is an emotional hunger needing your attention that will never be satiated by food. You get to put the power back in you and less in your food so you can leave that eating experience feeling attuned to and connected.

Every eating experience can be an opportunity to slow down and connect with you. Not enjoying a meal is providing an opportunity to get to know your body on a deeper level. You can practice over and over again showing up for yourself when these kind of eating experiences occur. As you practice being with all the emotions and sensations that can arise when in relationship with food, this can translate to supporting you in navigating life's ups and downs with more ease as well.