Episode 2: Mindful Eating with Katie Sheen
Healthily | 07/29/20
In this episode of Healthily, Nicola is joined by mindfulness teacher Katie Sheen to explore how mindfulness can transform our relationship with food — not through rules or restriction, but through awareness, compassion and self-kindness.
Katie’s journey spans nutritional therapy training at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition, teaching at the University of Worcester, corporate wellbeing work, and a deeply personal experience of both family loss and her own cancer diagnosis. Through these life-changing moments, mindfulness became not just a tool — but a way of living.
TAKEAWAYs
✔️ Mindfulness Is More Than “Calm”
Mindfulness is often marketed as a stress-reduction tool. But as Katie explains, that’s only the “tip of the iceberg.”
At its heart, mindfulness is:
Noticing what you’re thinking
Becoming aware of how thoughts affect your body and emotions
Creating space between stimulus and reaction
Learning to respond with kindness rather than criticism
It’s a lifelong practice — not perfection.
✔️ The Power of Self-Kindness
One of the most powerful practices Katie shares is deceptively simple: smiling to your body.
By gently bringing awareness to different parts of the body and consciously directing appreciation toward them, we begin to soften long-held tension, resentment or criticism.
For example:
Smiling to your eyes and appreciating what they allow you to see
Smiling to an area of pain with compassion instead of frustration
Imagining wrapping vulnerable parts of the body in care and protection
This practice can:
Reduce secondary suffering (the mental story layered on top of physical discomfort)
Calm the nervous system
Rebuild trust and connection with the body
For anyone struggling with body image, chronic symptoms, or food anxiety, this shift from criticism to compassion can be transformative.
✔️ Thoughts Drive Food Behaviours
If we struggle with emotional eating or food anxiety, the issue is rarely “lack of willpower.”
Often:
Stress → drives comfort eating
Self-criticism → fuels shame cycles
Anxiety → disrupts digestion
Disconnection → leads to unconscious eating
Mindfulness allows us to:
Notice emotional triggers
Pause before reacting
Understand whether hunger is physical, emotional, or stress-driven
Choose from awareness rather than autopilot
When our relationship with ourselves softens, our relationship with food often follows.
✔️ Mindful Eating as Nervous System Support
Katie beautifully reframes mindful eating through the lens of physiology.
If we eat:
While watching distressing news
In a rush
In a stress response
We activate fight-or-flight.
But digestion requires rest-and-digest.
Simple shifts can make a huge difference:
A short meditation before meals
Turning off news or screens
Taking a breath before the first bite
Truly tasting, smelling and seeing food
Nicola shares how, in clinical practice, even brief pre-meal meditations have significantly improved symptoms like IBS — not through dietary restriction, but through nervous system regulation.
✔️ Cooking as Meditation
Preparing food can become a mindfulness practice:
Feeling the weight of the knife
Noticing textures of vegetables
Hearing water run over lettuce
Reflecting on where food came from — seed, soil, sun, rain
This presence transforms cooking from “another task” into nourishment for both body and nervous system.
✔️ Compassion Extends Beyond Ourselves
Through her Zen practice in the Plum Village tradition, founded by Thích Nhất Hạnh, Katie explains how mindfulness gradually expands outward.
As we become aware of our own suffering, we realise:
We are not alone in difficult emotions
Every human experiences fear, regret, anxiety and pain
Kindness toward ourselves makes kindness toward others more natural
Core Message of the Episode
Your relationship with food mirrors your relationship with yourself.
If you cultivate:
Awareness
Kindness
Compassion
Presence
Your food choices often begin to change naturally — without force.
Mindfulness is not about controlling food.
It’s about reconnecting with your body.
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