Alo Nutrition is offering meal support sessions now, and I am so excited to announce our Meal Support Mindfulness group! When thinking about how I wanted to write a blog post about it, it made the most sense to share a process I used in developing the group. I asked myself the following questions:

1. What is meal support?

2. What is mindfulness?

3. Is this mindful eating?

4. What will groups be like?

1. What is meal support?

meal of grilled chicken, avocado and asparagus on a bed of spinach

If you’ve ever experienced, or known someone who has experienced, eating disorder treatment, you might be familiar with meal support. Meal support is fundamentally about supporting someone who is struggling with eating in real time during meals and/or snacks.

2. What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness can be described in an almost infinite number of ways. I truly prefer a simple, straightforward definition (that doesn’t step on the toes of my other love, meditation):

Mindfulness is the act of bringing awareness to something.

But bring awareness to…what? Most people struggling with a disordered relationship with food want anything but their awareness brought to the act of eating during a meal support group. I landed on the idea of offering a mindfulness practice before and after eating. This way, mindfulness is invited in to impact the experience of eating without centering it as the main focus.

3. Is this mindful eating?

Three bean and corn burritos on a brown wooden plate

Nope! You might have experienced the slowly-unwrapping-a-Hershey’s-kiss-and-eating-it-with-eyes-shut practice before, but we won’t be delving into the nuances of what it means to eat during a mindfulness practice. Instead, this meal support group will be bookended with mindfulness in order some separation between the two things I see people struggle with so often: eating and being mindful.

4. What will groups be like?

Meal Support Mindfulness will be facilitated by me, Alyssa Moukheiber. You can read little more about me here!

We will start with a 5-10 minute guided mindful practice, including some seated stretching and breathing. After that, we will settle in and have our food! During the actual meal, I will have a set of questions, some more introspective and some more light-hearted, to mend up any awkward silences. Sometimes the questions go together well, sometimes they are random! You will always be given the opportunity to say “Eh, I don’t want to answer that one”, whether you don’t like the topic or it is a difficult one for you. The eating and community-building component of group will be about 40-45 minutes. We will end with a 5-10 minute guided mindful practice, including some seated stretching and breathing.

If you can’t tell yet, my goal here isn’t to “meditate” you into a better relationship with food. My goal is to help you ground and calm yourself before and after stressful events (eating).

My goal is to facilitate, possibly, developing a new and less stressful experience with food.

If that sounds interesting or cool, please take a leap of faith (with me!) and sign up for Meal Support Mindfulness with me. It will be happening every Tuesday at 12:30pm CST.