Mindful Eating

This is a great question! It seems intuitive that if we learn to enjoy eating more, we'll eat more.
Actually, the research show the opposite. When people are encouraged to slow down and enjoy what they are eating, they tend to eat less. People who are told to eat as quickly as possible, eat more!
Many people who attend Mindful Eating workshops have the same experience --- they are surprised to find that when they are really present as they eat, savoring the food, they are satisfied with less food.

What's wierd is that we tend to eat our favorite foods faster -- and so get less enjoyment out of them. Maybe it comes from old ("old" as in childhood and also primitive) worries that if we don't eat it fast, someone will steal it from us.

Jan Bays, MD

Dear Zentient,

Congratulations on stopping using drugs and alcohol. That is not an easy thing to do. I used to work a lot with addicted mothers and their infants, and I thought we should give all our resources to those few who made it through to sobriety.

Now you get to work on sobriety with food. It's harder, in a way, because you can't become abstinent with food. It's necessary to life. It's also harder because everyone around you is eating, and urging you to eat.

Remember the warnings about when you're likely to use drugs and alcohol: tired, hungry, lonely and sad? These also apply to times when we are likely to get into unbalanced eating.

Sobriety with food involves learning to check in with your body to see when it's hungry and for what kinds and amounts of food. Most importantly, it involves learning to check in with your heart, to learn when it's feeling tender and lonely.

The heart's emptiness can never be filled with food. When we learn to recognize that the heart is sad or disappointed or lonely, the we have the option of feeding it without using food. That's when you remind yourself to call up a friend, or ask for a back rub, or treat yourself to a nice hot bath or a good book. OR you could treat yourself to an ice cream cone, but just one, eaten ver-r-y slowly, enjoying every bite. THEN go call a friend.

Fat, sugar and salt have the power to change our mood. We need to know this, and to use them mindfully. Look at the section called "Sugar, Fat and Salt: the (Un)Holy Trio" on pages 84-91 in the book Mindful Eating, and then try exercise number 5 on "Food and Mood" on the CD in the back of the book.

You've been successful in substituting food for drugs and alcohol. That's a big and important step. Now you get to take the next step. Instead of overeating not-so-healthy food, you'll learn to substitute healthy food (frozen peaches) or smaller amounts of food (just one scoop of ice cream eaten slowly), or another kind of treat altogether (listen to your favorite up-beat music) for not-so-healthy food.

Please let me know what you discover.

Jan Chozen Bays

Dear Julie,

You have made a very important observation-- when you said, " Junk food only tastes good for 2-3 bites." Have you ever tried eating french fries an hour or two after they've cooled down? They taste like what they are: starch and cold grease.

Related to this -- have you ever noticed how quickly the delicious taste of ANY bite of food disappears? As the old saying goes, "A minute on the tongue and forever on the waist." I think one of the reasons we overeat is we keep trying to have the intense sensation of that "first bite."

It's also one of the reasons that processed food manufacturers keep upping the sugar, salt and spice content of food, so we'll keep having intense sensations. If you switch to simpler food (for example: sauteed carrots with a sprinkling of brown sugar or steamed greens with a little soy sauce) it takes a while, but eventually you enjoy the more subtle tastes of food again. Then the intensity of processed food becomes aversive.

Mindful eating helps keep the sensations in each bite of food vivid, so we are more satisfied with less -- less in intensity and less in amount.

Jan

Roger,

I think it's a great idea to commit to a month of mindful eating and share your experiences through a blog.
You are welcome to interview me. I'll interview you, too, about how it's going and what exercises you're finding useful.

As they say in Japan, "Gambate!" (= "Go for it!")

Jan

Dear Anna,

I love your story!

It seems to show that if we pay too much attention to something, and get too compulsive ("I'll be the perfect calorie counter!" "I'll be the perfect mindful eater!") we lose track of our own healthy intuition and natural enjoyment of food and eating.

We medical people give advice that is based upon large studies that include many kinds of people. It may not hold true for you -- a unique person.

For example, many people have asked me about conflicting advice medical people have given them about how often to eat. A nutritionist told them "Eat six to eight small meals a day!" while a doctor told them "Three meals a day and no snacking in between!"

It is my observation that some people are "hummingbirds." Often they are wiry lean types, always on the go, and they need to eat several times a day to fuel their high metabolism and busy life.

Other people, usually more solid body types, try this and they just gain unwanted weight.

Please take anything a medical person tells you with a grain of salt (not literally). Experts change their minds about medical "truth" and all the time. You are the expert on what works for you.

You did a great experiment. You tried the nutritionist's advice, and it didn't work for you. It just increased your desire for food and made you eat more. So you changed did back to a more intuitive way of eating, a more natural way for you, and it worked.

I'd call that mindful eating.

Jan

Dear Rachel,

Yes, we all have that needy, rebellious part that wants to slip out from under the discipline and be free with food. It's a necessary part of us -- if we didn't have that part we would be rigid, uncreative control freaks. We just need to honor the rebellious part in appropriate ways rather than letting her take over completely.

When the Japanese prepare their beautiful gardens for guests, they weed and rake everything perfectly and then shake a tree to bring a few leaves down. Beauty includes imperfection!

This is one the most important principles of Mindful Eating:

MINDFUL EATING INCLUDES MINDLESS EATING.

Or at least, a certain type of mindless eating.

Once in a while we have to let ourselves relax, reward ourselves, or have a little party. Otherwise we start fluctuating violently or yo-yo-ing -- switching from strict dieting to complete abandon, from control lady to rebellious teen.

For example, today I noticed that I'm a bit anxious about three lectures I have to give at a conference this week. I can feel the impulse to postpone the work and go get something to eat. When I check in with my stomach and body I'm actually not hungry. It's my mind saying, "Ugh! Today's our day off. I don't want to work! Let's do something else, something enjoyable!"

After disciplining myself to sit down and work on the lectures for at least an hour, I'll reward myself with a treat. Today that would be my current passion -- a cup of Japanese peanut crackers. I'll eat them slowly and really enjoy the treat.

Then get back to work. As I do the work I can feel my anxiety lessening and my interest in the work increasing. The work relieves the anxiety, the little treat keeps me working.

At the next work break I might have a special drink -- a hot cup of soy milk with a little honey and almond flavoring.

Small treats, well spaced in time and eaten slowly and attentively, go along way toward preventing out-of-control gobbling or binging.

OR, I might reward myself with something else enjoyable that is not food, like planting some seeds in the garden, or working on a piece of art. OR read part of the Sunday paper. OR call or e-mail someone I miss.

Although the Inner Perfectionist wants us to become perfect and hold that perfection forever, we can't. We are a dynamic being, a work in progress. Deep change happens little by little, in an environment of loving kindness toward our little self -- our funny imperfect being.

As for classes or workshops on mindful eating, yes, we offer those here in Oregon at the monastery. See www.greatvow.org. So many people have asked about starting classes or support groups that I'm working on a curriculum for classes/groups to be posted on the website www.mindfuleatingbook.com.

Thanks for your post.

Jan

This is a great find! Thank you.
Everyone who's reading this blog, take a look.
Do you have any more examples?

Jan Chozen Bays