Mindful Eating

Mindful Eating: The French Paradox

Jan Chozen Bays, M.D. — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:50:54 +0000

Butter, croissants, pate de foie gras and lots of cheese, it's not a diet that an American doctor would recommend! Why are the French able to eat

three times as much fat as Americans, and yet they are thinner and have a lower incidence of heart disease than we do? There are several interesting reasons for this paradox.

Eating less and enjoying it more

First, the French serve and eat smaller portions than Americans do. A cooperative study by researchers from both sides of the Atlantic showed that the mean American serving size in a variety of restaurants, including fast food restaurants and ice cream parlors, was 25% larger than in France. In Chinese restaurants the meal was 72% larger in the US! Single servings such as candy bars and yoghurt in supermarkets were also significantly larger in America than in France.

An American serving of Chinese restaurant food versus a French serving.

We Americans love to get a food bargain for our money. "All you can eat for $ 7.95." "This week only: two whopping huge burgers for the price of one." Mindful eating means carefully considering whether eating a lot of cheap food really is a bargain. It's not if eating it all causes us to gain unwanted weight!

Is this really a bargain? Only in America is this a one-person portion size.

How to work mindfully with large portion sizes in restaurants? First, choose how much your stomach and body actually want to eat. Eat slowly, checking in with the stomach frequently to see if you are 4/5 full yet. When you are, stop, drink some liquid. Ask for a box and take the rest home for an even bigger bargain - a "free" lunch or dinner tomorrow. Now that's a bargain!

My Japanese friends are overwhelmed by the huge portions of food in American restaurants. They cope by ordering one meal and an extra plate for two people. Once in a while my husband likes to eat breakfast at a pancake house-type place. He orders the full breakfast, a three egg and two cheeses omelette, bagel, and hash browns. I just order a large juice and maybe some fruit. Between us we have two good meals, not too much, not too little. And in lean economic times, the price is right, even if the restaurant asks you to pay a collar for the extra plate.

What he orders + what I order = Two appropriate size breakfasts

Americans are always enticing each other to "have a little bit more" but the French and Japanese don't often take second portions or snack between meals. We Americans have learned to nibble on food and drink almost continuously between meals. Our mouths have become used to having something to taste all day long. When I was a child, there were no between-meal snacks. We never thought of rummaging through the refrigerator or cupboards to get something to eat. We ate the three meals our mothers served, and that was it. Sometimes we'd get some apple slices or carrot sticks after school to hold us over until dinner.

It was during and after World War II, when mothers began working, that snack foods were invented. Little sealed packs of jello, pudding, cookies, candy, chips, even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, were convenient for tucking into lunch boxes, but also into purses, back packs, glove compartments in cars, and into the vending machines that sprouted up everywhere, eventually invading schools. Kids began feeding themselves when they wanted to, and food companies developed an array of processed foods with plenty of fat, sugar and salt to appeal to those kids.

Eating slowly and enjoying it more

European friends tell me that "eating lunch in France is a two hour affair." If you sat down, pointed to the first thing on the menu, told the waiter that you were in a hurry, and ate while talking on a cell phone, the waiter and chef would probably shoot you, and French courts might call it justifiable homicide.

It takes 20 minutes for food to reach the first part of the small intestine. When that happens, chemical signals are sent back to the brain and rest of the digestive organs to say, "Whoa! Stop eating! We've had enough to eat!" If we eat too fast, we can easily put too much food into our bodies before the satiety signals are received.

When we eat more slowly, we have time to savor each bite. Have you ever noticed how the first bite of a food we like brings a very enjoyable flavor burst, but by the third or fourth bite, the flavor sensations decrease? If we eat slowly, pausing until one bite is completely chewed, swallowed, and the taste is almost gone from our mouth, then the next bite we take is very enjoyable again. We end up getting a lot of pleasure out of ten bites instead of enjoying only the first two bites and eating twenty more in search of that original delicious flavor.

MINDFUL EATING EXERCISE:

Try taking smaller first portions of food than you usually would.
(Keep the serving bowls out of sight.)

Eat more slowly than you usually would, paying full attention to each bite, and pausing between bites, letting the flavors in the mouth dissipate before you put the next bite in. Eat each bite mindfully. If you need to talk, talk while you're pausing. Stop talking when you're eating. If you're reading, read a bit while you're pausing, not while you are eating.

When you've eaten the first portions, pause and ask the stomach, " How full are you? Do you need more? How much more? "

Adjust your second portions according to the information the stomach gives you.
Maybe you only need two more bites of a food to feel satisfied.

Mindful Eating

Jan Chozen Bays, M.D. — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:37:48 +0000

You've been working hard on a project on the computer, and it's time for at treat. You've been holding off, waiting for the delicious taste of - here, please fill in the blank. Coffee ice cream? a piece of dark chocolate? a donut? an onion bagel? some fresh strawberries?

For me, it would be a creamy, sweet-sour lemon tart.

You take the first bite. Very yummy! You take the second bite. Still yummy, maybe a little less yummy than the first bite, but never mind. You glance at the computer and something catches your eye. A Hollywood scandal, a political gaff, a weird and wacky video. You click on it, watch, and continue eating.

Disappearing food!

Suddenly you look down. Where did that treat go? Your fingers are sticky and there's still a trace of flavor on your tongue, so it must have disappeared down the hatch while you weren't looking . . . or smelling, or tasting, or enjoying. Disappointment and dissatisfaction set in. "That one just vanished! I'd better have another one." Next the internal critic voice pipes up "What are you thinking? One treat is enough. You know you're trying to lose weight/eat better/stop grazing/etc."

Thus begins the struggle over the simple, biologically natural, pleasurable act of eating. When I tell people that I've written a book on Mindful Eating*, and describe what it is, almost everyone will relate some difficulty they have with food, from an embarrassed confession of an addiction to chocolate to the palpable misery of binging and purging.

How is it that food and eating have become such a common source of unhappiness? And why has it occurred in a country with an abundance of food? The fundamental reason for our imbalance with food and eating is that we've forgotten how to be present as we eat. We eat mindlessly.

Food, fat cells and the stomach are not the problem

We decided that the problem was in the food, so we've used chemical technology to take the calories out, the fat out, and to substitute chemical sweeteners and artificial fats. Food is food. It is neither good nor bad. Then we decided the problem was our fat cells, so we liposuctioned them out. Fat cells are just trying to do their job, which is to store energy for lean times ahead or for famine. For most of our evolutionary history, starvation was one snowstorm or drought away. Our fat cells are there to help us survive! When I lived in Africa I discovered that skinny women there have trouble finding spouses. They aren't considered good marriage material ---- they'll get sick and die on you!

Then we decided that the digestive system was the problem, so we staple the stomach or surgically by-pass the small intestine. The digestive system is just trying to do its job, breaking down food, absorbing nutrients and excreting what's not needed. (There's no question that bariatric surgery can be an emergency life-saving measure for some people. It works by forcing people to eat mindfully, causing pain and vomiting if they don't. It is very expensive, has lots of side effects, and is not a long-term solution for the majority of people or for children with out-of-balance eating.)

The problem is not in the food, the fat cells or the stomach and intestines. The problem lies in the mind. It lies in our lack of awareness of the messages coming in from our body, from our very cells and from our heart. Mindful eating helps us learn to hear what our body is telling us about hunger and satisfaction. It helps us become aware of who in the body/heart/mind complex is hungry, and how and what is best to nourish it. Mindful eating is natural, interesting, fun, and cheap.

In this blog I'll explore many aspects of Mindful Eating and Mindless Eating.** I'll include interesting research on eating, cross cultural observations, and personal stories from our Mindful Eating workshops.

I'll also include Mindful Eating "Homework" at the end of each blog. These are suggestions for how to weave mindful eating into your life. People who take our mindful eating workshops really enjoy doing the homework. Don't give yourself a grade. Of course you won't do it perfectly. Just give it a try.

What Is Mindfulness?

Let's start with what Mindfulness is. It is deliberately paying attention, being fully aware of what is happening both inside and outside yourself - in your body, heart and mind - and outside yourself, in your environment. Mindfulness is awareness without criticism or judgement.

The last sentence is very important. In mindful eating we are not comparing ourselves to anyone else. We are not judging ourselves or others. We are simply witnessing the many sensations and thoughts that come up as we eat. The recipe for mindful eating calls for the warming effect of kindness and the spice of curiosity.

What is Mindful Eating?

Mindful eating involves paying full attention to the experience of eating and drinking, both inside and outside the body. We pay attention to the colors, smells, textures, flavors, temperatures, and even the sounds (crunch!) of our food. We pay attention to the experience of the body. Where in the body do we feel hunger? Where do we feel satisfaction? What does half-full feel like, or three quarters full?

We also pay attention to the mind. While avoiding judgement or criticism, we watch when the mind gets distracted, pulling away from full attention to what we are eating or drinking. We watch the impulses that arise after we've taken a few sips or bites: to grab a book, to turn on the TV, to call someone on our cell phone, or to do web search on some interesting subject. We notice the impulse and return to just eating.

We notice how eating affects our mood and how our emotions like anxiety influence our eating. Gradually we regain the sense of ease and freedom with eating that we had in childhood. It is our natural birthright.

The old habits of eating and not paying attention are not easy to change. Don't try to make drastic changes. Lasting change takes time, and is built on many small changes. We start simply.

Pick your mindful eating homework

(1) Try taking the first four sips of a cup of hot tea or coffee with full attention?
(2) If you are reading and eating, try alternating these activities, not doing both at once? Read a page, then put the book down and eat a few bites, savoring the tastes, then read another page, and so on.
(3) At family meals, you might ask everyone to eat in silence for the first five minutes, thinking about the many people who brought the food to your plates.
(4) Try eating one meal a week mindfully, alone and in silence. Be creative. For example, could you eat lunch behind a closed office door, or even alone in our car?

Enjoy your meal!