I like experiments. I like reading about experiments. The words “double-blind, peer reviewed, placebo-controlled” attract me like magnets. Don’t get me wrong, I am not particularly scientifically inclined. I am, however, a very proof oriented kinda gal. When I read an article about some new way of eating, sleeping, exercising, whatever, that promises to produce miracles, my first reaction is usually “Show me the study!”. Then, even if the proper studies have been done, there is no guarantee that whatever it is will work for me. We’re all different right? Which brings me to my very favorite thing: the self-experiment. There have been many. There was the time I read about the benefits of high-intensity interval training and tried doing wind sprints for a week. Hated it! I bike up a hill, I bike down a hill. That’s enough interval training for me. And then there was the time I tried vegetarian keto. Nope. No bread, no thanks. Plus, it nearly destroyed my love for all things avocado. My last experiment, which I wrote about here last week, was focused on fiber, specifically eating at least 50 grams per day. I loved it! I’m still doing it and plan to keep doing it for the foreseeable future. Which brings me to my latest venture.

I like mindfulness. I find it both useful and beneficial. From the writings of Jon Kabat-Zinn to the teachings of the Buddha to Waylon’s “Walk The Talk” shows, I have incorporated as much of it as I can into my daily life. The ability to create spaciousness within your own mind, as well as improved focus on whatever task is at hand, has proved invaluable. One area in which I am a complete fail, however, is with eating. Not cooking, I’m a very mindful cook and quite focused on creating healthy and tasty meals for myself as well as family and friends. Actually eating, by myself, is a different matter entirely. I typically eat my lunch, which I plan, sincerely, to be my biggest meal of the day, while watching cooking shows. I love cooking shows! I also love eating, which means that despite my best intentions and the fact that I’m a pretty slow eater, I find myself eating for the duration of the entire show. I’ve finished whatever I intended to eat but there’s still 20 minutes left in the show! Maybe just another piece of toast, perhaps with jam, and the other half of that avocado is really just sitting there. Then dinner. I fully believe, every single day, that I am going to have a light dinner. Which I will eat while watching my latest Netflix obsession. Which will often involve pasta. Sigh.

So on to my latest experiment. I’m going to eat outside for a week. My intention is to reset my focus from eating as an adjunct to entertainment to being the entertainment itself. No Netflix, no phone, just outside. Eating. My thinking is that first of all, I will have to be a little more mindful when it comes to planning my meals because everything is going to have to be packed into containers to take outside, and secondly, I will eat only what I intended to eat because that’s all I’ve got. To be clear, I’m not doing this to lose weight, my weight is fine. I just find myself regularly stuffing myself with random stomach fillers which leave no room for the really good things and eating without savoring the honest effort I put into feeding myself well, which is a huge part of self-care for me.

In some ways this is going to be easy. For one thing, I’ve picked a great time of year. Late spring/early summer is my favorite season. For another, I live within blocks of a huge park, the ocean – beach and inner harbor, and have a lovely little yard with lots of flowers and comfy chairs. The hard part, as always, will be breaking an established habit in order to replace it with a better one. It’s an experiment though, I have no idea how it’s going to turn out or if it will produce good results or if they will be results I want to stick with. I’m definitely not going to be eating outside for the rest of my life but I’m hoping for a shift, even a little one, to a focus on eating with more intention. Wish me luck! I’ll keep you posted.