Mindful Eating For Dummies E-Book

Laura Dawn

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 398

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Mindful Eating

Embrace mindful eating and be a whole new you

Are you struggling to lose weight? Wanting to end chronic overeating? Are you seeking a healthier relationship with food? Say goodbye to yo-yo dieting and find a long-term, sustainable solution to health and weight-loss with Mindful Eating For Dummies! This comprehensive guide will show you how to avoid negative thought patterns, reduce overeating and establish a healthy relationship with food through scientifically proven methods.

• Don’t be mindless — kick mindlessness to the curb by understanding bad habits and overeating triggers
• Embrace the journey — dive right in to the mindful eating journey by setting realistic expectations and keeping a journal
• Get mindful with meal prep — establish good habits in your kitchen to prepare meals mindfully
• Overcome obstacles — explore your strong cravings, navigate mindless mistakes and make mindfulness part of your busy schedule

Open the book and find:

• Tips to help reduce overeating
• How mindful eating can increase enjoyment of food
• Tricks to maintain a supportive mindful mindset
• How to identify your hunger and fullness levels
• The lowdown on implementing mindful eating for families
• Ways to maintain mindful eating in social situations

Leseprobe

Mindful Eating For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, www.wiley.com

This edition first published 2014

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Mindful Eating For Dummies

Table of Contents

Introduction

About this Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Getting Started with Mindful Eating

Chapter 1: Discovering Mindful Eating

Exploring the Different Slices of the Mindful Eating Pie

Who Can Benefit from Mindful Eating?

Indulging in the richness of mindful eating

Exploring the world around you

Welcoming the universe within

Serving up a broader definition of mindful eating

Looking at the pleasure – and pain – of eating

Taking a Holistic Approach

Discovering a healthy relationship with food

Reflecting a larger relationship

Building a Solid Foundation: Delving into Mindfulness

Dropping the speech balloon

Observing the observer

Training the puppy

Focusing on the gift of the present moment

Chapter 2: What You Can Expect to Gain (or Lose) from Mindful Eating

The Benefits of Mindfulness

The Rewards of Mindful Eating

Feeling good in your body

Feeling subpar?

Mindfully Moving towards Feeling Better about Your Body

Breaking free from dieting

Shedding the excess: losing weight

Time out: reducing stress

Managing chronic health conditions

Feeling Good in Your Life

Minding Happiness

Discovering true contentment

In pursuit of happiness

Freedom from the Struggle

Part II: Preparing the Ground for Mindful Eating

Chapter 3: Getting Mindless by the Mouthful

Mindfulness versus Mindlessness

Mind-less-ness: Less of what?

Mind-full-ness: Full of what?

Away with the fairies: Discovering the different forms of mindlessness

A busy mind, an active brain

Geared towards mindlessness

Advantages of mindlessness

Disadvantages of mindlessness

Mindless Eating and the Disappearing Food Act

Are you eating mindlessly?

Being aware of cues and triggers to eat

Identifying the mindless eater in you

Having a Full Belly but Wanting More

Chapter 4: Getting Ready for Your Mindful Eating Journey

Discovering Your Middle-Way Approach

The Goldilocks zone: Finding your ‘just right’ approach

Too loose versus too strict

Starting a Mindful Eating Journal

The Four A’s to Successful Change

Awareness

Acceptance

Alignment

Action

Achieving Your Goals with Mindful Eating

Setting realistic expectations

Identifying your health goals

It’s the path, not the destination: Focusing on the present

Chapter 5: Cultivating a Supportive Mindful Eating Mindset

Cultivating Your Garden of Mindful Attitudes

Indulging acceptance

Embracing non-judgment

Discovering how to let go

Cultivating curiosity and openness

Developing Self-compassion

Why self-compassion trumps self-criticism

How self-compassion can save you from yourself

Fostering an Attitude of Gratitude

Chapter 6: Choosing Healthy Foods Mindfully

One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Different Approaches to Healthy Eating

Voting with Your Food Dollars

Vote for real food

Vote for plants

Vote for sustainability

Buyer Beware: Buying Food

Mindful grocery shopping

Exploring your alternatives to the supermarket

Chapter 7: Mindful Meal Preparation

Exploring Your Relationship with Your Kitchen

Getting a fresh perspective on your kitchen

Stepping into the kitchen: Mindful transitioning

Mindfulness in the kitchen

Minding your mood in the kitchen

Feng shui the kitchen

Mindful Meal Creation

A drop of inspiration: Recipe exploration

Mindful food preparation: Bring out your good china

Part III: Practicing Mindful Eating

Chapter 8: Tooling Up for Mindful Eating

Connecting with Your Inner Body

Performing a body scan

Exploring the Hunger-fullness Scale

Pressing the Mute Button: Tuning Out Pesky Distractions

Giving Thanks: A Speed Bump to Eating

The many ways to express gratitude

Getting creative: Different ways to give thanks

Putting on the Brakes: Discovering How to Slow Down

What eating too fast does to your waistline

What slowing down does for your life

Tips to mindfully slow down your meals

Chapter 9: The Many Ways to Practice Mindful Eating

Building Your Foundation: A Traditional Mindful Eating Practice

Fueling your life’s purpose

Total interconnection

Last bite of your life

Tasting Your Senses

Exploring sight: colors and delight

Exploring smell: What’s cooking?

Exploring sound: Music to your mouth

Exploring taste: A burst of juicy joy

Part IV: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life

Chapter 10: Mindful Eating for Families

Cultivating a Mindful Eating Environment at Home

Benefiting from shared meals

Creating an atmosphere for mindful eating

Mindful Eating with Kids

Resigning from the ‘clean your plate’ fan club

Being patient with picky eaters

Including children in meal selection and preparation

Setting a mindful example

Mindful eating exercises for children

Chapter 11: Mindful Eating in Social Situations

The Challenge of Eating Mindfully in Social Situations

Don’t Miss Out on the Fun: Eating at Social Events

Doing one thing at a time

Pausing before you eat

Noticing your triggers

Choosing Wisely: Eating in Restaurants

Proceed with Caution: Eating during the Holidays

Disrupting your typical routine

Working with cravings

Minimizing mindless eating episodes

On the Go: Eating Mindfully while Traveling

Planning ahead

Healthy travel tips

Chapter 12: Overcoming Obstacles to Mindful Eating

Working with Cravings

Becoming mindful of cravings

Getting Back on Track: Lapse and Relapse

Paying attention: Every moment is a new moment

Making mistakes: Blessings in disguise

Forgiving yourself and moving on

Practicing self-compassion

Mindful Eating for Busy Schedules

Chapter 13: Feeding Your Emotional Hunger

Are You Really Hungry?

Ten Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Eat

Why You Eat When You’re Not Hungry

Seeking the Power of Pleasurable Distraction

Eating Your Emotions

Noticing emotional triggers

Covering over the surface: distracting and avoiding

Stop running away: feeling what you feel

What Are You Really Hungry for?

Fulfilling your heart’s desire

Experiencing the simple pleasures in life

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 14: Ten (or so) Misconceptions about Mindfulness

I Can’t Stop Thinking! Am I Doing It Wrong?

The Purpose of Mindfulness Is to Go Blank and Not Think

I’m Not Any Good at It!

It’s a Cult/It’s a Religion/It’s Against Religion/It’s Spiritual

It’s So Simple, It Must Be Easy

It’s the Answer to All My Problems

Mindfulness Is about Running Away from Reality

Mindfulness Has No Credibility; It’s Just a Passing Fad

You Have to Sit Down to Be Mindful

I Don’t Have Time for Mindfulness

Mindfulness Equals Physical Discomfort

You Have to Meditate to Practice Mindfulness

Chapter 15: Top Ten Tips for Mindful Eating

Sit Down (but Not in the Car)

Pause Before You Eat (Breathe, Smell and Give Thanks!)

Become a Leftie, or a Rightie

Chew, Chew, Chew Your Food

Brake between Bites

Eat in Silence for at Least Two Minutes

Take the First Three Bites with Your Eyes Closed

Make It Special

Stage Habitual Reminders

Only Eat When You Eat

Chapter 16: (Almost) Ten Ways to Mindlessly Eat Less

Rethink Convenience

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

In Sight, after the Bite

Downsize Your Dishware

Tall and Skinny (versus Short and Wide)

Take Half to Go

Saving a Dime Is Bad for Your Waistline: Don’t Buy in Bulk

Downsize the Display (Minimize Variety)

Discover Your Mindless Margin

Chapter 17: Ten Paths to Expand Your Mindful Eating Experience

Become a Member of the Center for Mindful Eating

Start a Mindful Eating Group

Get One-on-One Coaching

Attend a Mindful Eating Retreat

Attend a Mindfulness Retreat

Take a Course on Mindfulness

Keep a Mindful Eating Journal

Grow Your Mindfulness Library

Stay Mindfully Connected with Websites and Social Media

Use Technology to Support Mindfulness

About the Author

Guide

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Introduction

I’ll never forget the moment, many years ago, that I reached down to the ground, snapped a nicely sized asparagus stalk at its base and bit the tip off. I was wrestling with the preconceived notion that I didn’t even like asparagus. That notion was completely shattered as a burst of juice flooded my mouth unlike anything that I ever expected. This was real food, fresh food – and the first major blessing and breakthrough in my life, as I was mostly raised on packaged foods, like so many of us were (and still are). And the second breakthrough was that I was present to experience it. In a sense, it was the total awe of this unexpected sensory experience that launched me into the present moment, and with that came my total love affair with real food and with the practice of discovering how to eat it more mindfully.

Even after I shifted my dietary habits and fell in love with whole, real, fresh foods and went from reaching for chips to reaching for a smoothie – a major step in the right direction – I kept noticing that although I was reaching for healthier foods, I still had a strong tendency to reach for them in an automatic way, without fully tuning in to the inner awareness of my body. Even though I was full, I still felt unsatisfied and wanted more – one of the many examples of the way mindlessness affected my life.

When I started implementing mindfulness practices and more specifically mindful eating, a radical shift occurred in my life. I saw that my relationship with food was the reflection of my relationship with life, and this inspired a huge shift in the way I experienced food, my body and my life in general. The act of eating a single cherry would make me so excited, so struck by awe and wonder, that I wanted to shout my excitement from the rooftops! I knew that as I embarked on the path to becoming a holistic nutritionist these mindfulness practices would be invaluable tools not only for myself, but also for my clients as well – and they’ve now proven themselves a million times over.

This book is the result of years of practice, study and teaching, and was the next step in introducing mindful eating to a wider audience and anyone interested in exploring their own relationship with food.

About this Book

The practice of mindful eating and all that it entails is a journey that provides you with an opportunity to discover a very special relationship with food; one that you have the pleasure and privilege to experience and claim as your own.

Mindful Eating For Dummies offers you many tips, tools, suggestions and exercises rooted in the practice of mindfulness to help you uncover and explore your relationship with food. This mindful exploration can be a catalyst for profound change; it can transform a challenging relationship with food into an enjoyable one that supports your health and fosters your happiness.

This book is laid out as a reference guide, with each chapter standing alone, so after you peruse the Table of Contents feel free to jump to the chapter that calls to you the most. The sidebars offer complementary and supporting content that you can skip over or delve into for extra information.

Foolish Assumptions

Every day that I sat down to write this book, I thought of you, yes, you, and who you are, what you’re like and what your primary concerns are. In order to reach you with the information that would benefit you the most, I had to make a few assumptions about you:

You feel like you struggle with your relationship with food and want to find a healthy balance, but you don’t know where to start.You’ve heard about some of the benefits of mindful eating, but you’re not exactly sure what it actually is.You’re interested in how mindful eating can help you lose weight, manage a chronic disease, end chronic overeating, find greater enjoyment from food or work with a disordered relationship with food and eating.You’re interested in fostering a healthier relationship with your body.You’re willing to try the practices in this book before you decide whether they can benefit you or not.You’re not afraid to try something new, and you’re open to what new experiences may teach you.You want to discover how to approach eating from a lifestyle rather than a diet approach.You’re a healthcare or holistic practitioner who would like to introduce mindful eating to your patients and clients.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are weaved into this book as the For Dummies way of drawing your attention to and highlighting important information.

This icon is worthy of your attention. It informs you of special advice to help you recall key principles from the chapter.

When you come across this icon, be open and ready to try something new. You may be guided through a mindful eating technique or engage with an exercise in your mindful eating journal (discussed in Chapter 4) to help you better understand the practice and principles of mindfulness and mindful eating.

Pay special attention to the note next to this icon. It cautions you against potential problems and helps you avoid them.

Soak in the meaningful words from the wise offered next to this icon.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the wealth of material offered in the book that you’re reading right now, you can also access additional resources online. Check out extra articles about mindful eating at www.dummies.com/extras/mindfuleating.

Changing habitual patterns around food and eating can take some time. One of the best ways to help you form new habits is by asking yourself questions like: ‘Am I hungry?’ Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/mindfuleating to find the Cheat Sheet to help you navigate this and other questions with grace and ease and to strengthen your mindful eating muscles.

Where to Go from Here

This book is laid out in a modular way so that you can dive in wherever you want to start exploring. Perhaps you’d like to have a good look at the Table of Contents and use your intuition to start wherever you feel called.

If you’re new to mindful eating, I recommend you take a more traditional approach and start with Part I. Chapter 1 lays a solid foundation for you to build on, and then you can read the chapters in order after that, or in whatever way you feel is appropriate for you. Each chapter complements the others, yet offers standalone material and information to aid you on your mindful eating journey.

Part I

Getting Started with Mindful Eating

Visit www.dummies.com for free access to great Dummies content online.

In this part …

You are introduced to mindful eating and its roots in the practice of mindfulness.You find out about the many ways that people eat mindlessly and how mindfulness can help prevent some of the negative consequences of eating without paying attention.You identify how mindful eating can help you as you discover the wonderful benefits that mindfulness and mindful eating have to offer.

Chapter 1

Discovering Mindful Eating

In This Chapter

Defining mindful eating

Exploring your relationship with food

Understanding mindfulness

Discovering the mind-body connection

Looking at the beauty of the now

At first glance, mindful eating may sound simple. And at its most basic level, it is simple, yet mindful eating is also extremely profound and goes far beyond merely slowing down or removing distractions while you eat.

In this chapter I lay the groundwork for the chapters to come by exploring in-depth what mindful eating actually is, uncovering its roots in the art and practice of mindfulness, and looking at who can benefit the most from incorporating mindful eating into their everyday lives.

Exploring the Different Slices of the Mindful Eating Pie

To help you understand what mindful eating is and how it can help you, check out the opposite side of the coin and examine a few mindless eating scenarios. See if you can identify with any or all of the following situations:

Can you remember a time when you walked up to your fridge, opened the door, picked out some leftovers and started eating them without really paying attention to what you were doing, as if you were on some kind of automatic pilot? And then all of a sudden you clued back in, realized what you were doing and noticed that half the food was already gone, but you only vaguely remembered tasting it.What about this scenario: you walk into your kitchen and there it is, in plain sight on the counter – the chocolate cake. You ate two pieces of that chocolate cake yesterday, felt subpar afterwards and told yourself that you wouldn’t do that again. But today’s a new day … and that’s a new piece of cake! You go back and forth in your mind, struggling with the lure of the cake, and before you know it, you’re eating another piece of cake faster than you’d like to admit while feelings of guilt, shame and blame start to arise before the last bite is gone.Can you remember a time you continued to eat so much food your stomach hurt, even though you knew you would regret it shortly afterwards?Do you ever notice other things often distract you while you eat? Perhaps you routinely eat (and often overeat) without paying attention to what you’re doing because you’re distracted by a movie, a conversation over dinner or preoccupied with emails while working at your desk. Afterwards you’re left feeling unsatisfied and wanting more, despite being full.Have you ever eaten something and noticed that before you were even finished eating it, you were already lost in thoughts of how you wanted more of that food and had started mentally planning how you were going to get it?Do you ever turn to food as a means of avoiding an uncomfortable situation or because you’re procrastinating on a project, or simply because you feel bored? What about after an argument with a friend or your partner? Ever notice yourself automatically turning to the pleasure of food as a means of distracting yourself from feeling something you’d rather not feel?What about using food as a pick-me-up from the pressures of leading a busy and stressful life, or as a way to wake yourself up when you’re feeling tired or run down?

Whatever is the case for you, the common thread here is a tendency towards mindless eating, the antidote to which is mindful eating – the topic of this book.

At mindless times like these you can benefit from the practice of mindfulness, which helps you to snap out of that all-too-familiar knee-jerk reaction mode (see cake, eat cake) into conscious-choice mode (does my body really want cake right now? How will I feel after I eat this?).

This book is a guide to help you step out of the mindless eating patterns that most everyone is familiar with and into a way of living that cultivates mindfulness as its foundation and incorporates mindful eating as a solution to many of the food-related troubles so many people experience.

Who Can Benefit from Mindful Eating?

The wonderful part about mindful eating is that it can benefit anyone and everyone. No matter how old you are, what you do, where you live, how active you are or how much you weigh, everyone can reap the rewards of eating more mindfully.

Mindful eating can be especially helpful to you if:

You notice you regularly eat when you’re not hungry.You’ve tried many different diets with little success.You struggle with being over- or underweight.Your health is having a negative impact on other areas of your life, including your relationships.Your health is causing you pain, suffering or general discontent.Your health is preventing you from living the life you truly want to be living.You’re constantly thinking about food and what you should or shouldn’t be eating.You feel uncomfortable in your body.You want to discover how to become more mindful about your food choices.You regularly eat to cover up your emotions.You eat as a method of distraction.You’re afraid to eat from fear of gaining weight.You’re afraid to eat in front of other people.You want to feel better about and more accepting of your body.You feel that you’re too busy to eat healthfully.

Indulging in the richness of mindful eating

At the most basic level, mindful eating is simply paying attention while you eat. It may sound simple, yet this seemingly mundane task has the capacity to offer you a vast array of life-changing insights and has enough depth to keep you busy exploring new territory for at least a lifetime!

At this point, you may be asking yourself: what am I supposed to be paying attention to? Great question! To which there are innumerable answers! When it comes to where you choose to place your awareness, you have a buffet of choices that can be divided into two fundamental categories:

Your inner realityYour outer reality

Exploring the world around you

One of the joys of living is being able to experience the world around you through your senses; by touching, seeing, smelling, tasting and hearing life, you have the opportunity to explore countless experiences through your senses. Using the full range of your senses is one of the easiest techniques at your immediate disposal to practice mindfulness.

Put down this book for a moment and close your eyes. What do you hear? The art and act of listening is enough to ground you in this moment. See how long you can listen before your mind steps in to label the experience. Try to have a direct experience with the sounds without the need to identify what they are (bird, cars, dog barking and so on). When thoughts do arise, just notice the thoughts without adding another layer of labeling on top of that, as if you’re watching your thoughts pass by like clouds in the sky and continuously bring your attention back to the direct experience of listening.

This was your first mindfulness practice. How did it feel? What did you notice? I’ll dive into mindfulness a little further along in the chapter, so stay tuned in – literally!

When it comes to eating, you can have a whole new experience of food through the simple practices of becoming mindful of your sensory experience before, during and after you eat. This practice of mindfulness includes paying attention to the taste, smell, sight, sound and touch, as well as the mouthfeel (the way food feels in your mouth), of food. You can choose to focus on many aspects of your senses, but one of the most important things to remember is that the gifts of these unique experiences are all fleeting and require awareness and attention towards them. Otherwise these gifts pass by without you registering that they even happened. You don’t get to experience them, and that means you’re missing out on life. All of these sensory experiences are occurring in the present moment, which makes tuning into your senses a technique that anchors you to the gift of here and now.

Chapter 9 provides a more in-depth look at experiencing food through your senses.

Welcoming the universe within

Think of your senses as the doorway that connects your outer reality to your inner reality. Your interpretation of the world that you experience around you with all of your senses makes your experience unique to you. The way you perceive, process and filter your reality through your thoughts, feelings and emotions makes up your personal experience of life. Twenty people can attend the same dinner event and all have a completely different experience based on the way that they experienced the food, their social interactions and even the surrounding environment.

In addition to paying attention to your outer reality with your senses, mindful eating invites you to explore your thoughts, feelings, cravings and emotions surrounding food and eating. When it comes to eating something, you may think to yourself, ‘I’ve tasted that a million times before! I know what that tastes like,’ and without realizing it, you’ve defined your experience before you’ve even had it! When practicing mindful eating, you allow yourself to approach food and eating as though every experience is a new experience. This kind of attitude helps you stay open to new information that may guide you in a new direction, a direction of your own choosing.

A vast universe within awaits you. That’s the beauty of mindfulness. It opens the doorway to the exploration of one of the greatest journeys of all – discovering your own self.

Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine a slice of pizza. What are the first thoughts that come to mind? Your initial thoughts may be: fattening, delicious, guilt, tempting, addiction, control, out-of-control, pleasure and so on.

The practice of mindful eating allows you to notice your thoughts around food and become more aware of all the judgments and belief systems that you bring to the table when you eat. Pizza is just pizza, but you define how you experience it. Better yet, through mindful awareness, you can start to notice your thoughts about food with an attitude of non-judgment and notice how your thoughts are shaping your experience. Chapter 5 has more on cultivating a mindful eating mindset.

I had a client who would think about food, particularly ice cream and cookies, for most of her day. She expressed how it made her feel bad about herself and also how much it got in the way of her work. Ironically, when she would go home and eat cookies and ice cream she was so preoccupied with thoughts of guilt and worry that she was rarely present to actually experience eating what she thought about eating all day long!

Mindful eating can be viewed as a way to train your mind to become present so that you can have a more joyful experience with eating and with life in general. The present moment has so much to offer you, especially when it comes to enjoying the simply delicious pleasures of food. You’ll enjoy your food more thoroughly after you begin to stay present long enough to really experience it!

Lastly, when it comes to exploring the universe within you, mindful eating also helps you tune into your actual physical inner reality, including chewing, swallowing, digesting, how food makes you feel physically after you eat and how your body feels before you eat. The body scan practice outlined in Chapter 8 is a great way to help you start tuning into this wonderful world within and start benefiting from getting to know yourself a little bit better.

Serving up a broader definition of mindful eating

Although the term mindful eating refers to the act of eating and paying attention while you eat to both your inner and outer reality, the larger concept extends out beyond this. Mindful eating includes the moments leading up to eating as well as the moments after eating (and everything in between!) that envelop the whole process of eating.

Your relationship with food reflects and encompasses your relationship to yourself, including the exploration of your thinking mind, your feeling body and the energy underlying your emotions. On the highest level, getting to know and understand your relationship with food can be a reflection of your relationship with life itself.

Take a sneak peak at some of the wonderful things that you can discover by cultivating mindful eating, and which are explored throughout this book. Mindful eating:

Tunes you into your hunger and fullness cues so that you can use your inner wisdom to choose the appropriate amount of food for you that is satisfying, nourishing and supports your health and optimal weight.Reconnects you to the inherent wisdom that you already possess.Empowers you with the freedom to consciously choose what you eat.Helps you become aware of what’s triggering you to eat when you are and when you aren’t hungry.Helps you become more aware of how your food choices are affecting your physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.Encourages you to become aware of how your food choices affect the environment.Allows you to be present with the food you’re eating in order to appreciate the moment-to-moment experience and enjoyment of food.Teaches you how to engage all of your senses while eating to fully experience the act of eating.Offers insights into your relationship with food, your body and with life.Shines the light of awareness on your food-related thoughts, judgments and belief systems.Involves a wide range of tools, techniques and practices to help you cultivate awareness of your relationship with food.Cultivates a specific, positive mindset that can have a far reaching impact on all areas of your life.Helps you become aware of mindless eating tendencies and develop new ways of relating to food that avoid the (often painful) consequences of eating without paying attention.

Think of mindful eating as less a specific practice and more as a set of tools that you can use on your mindful eating journey. Mindful eating then becomes part of a broader mindful lifestyle where you’re cultivating awareness in the everyday moments of your life.

Looking at the pleasure – and pain – of eating

Food, and the act of eating it, offers an incredible source of pleasure in life. Yet, for a surprising number of people, food – or rather, their underlying relationship with food – is a major cause of struggle, pain and suffering. Why is this?

Paradoxically, western culture is one of the most health-obsessed cultures in the world, yet at the same time it is extremely unhealthy, with an unprecedented increase in rates of food-related diseases and obesity, especially amongst the young.

In today’s culture, navigating the media hype related to food is difficult. On the one hand the media is constantly presenting images of slim and skinny celebrities, new dieting gimmicks and products that offer a more beautiful future. And on the other hand, everywhere you look you see unhealthy, packaged, processed and addictive foods dangling in front of you, whether you’re watching TV, surfing the internet, standing at the checkout counter of your local grocery store or being bombarded with billboard images of unhealthy foods. Never before in the history of the world has there been more than a billion people starving and simultaneously more than a billion people overweight – what extremes!

On top of that, more people than ever before are unhappy with the shape and size of their bodies and are continuously striving to meet a culturally defined definition of beauty. In a weight-obsessed culture where food plays a large role in how much you weigh, it’s no wonder that so many people struggle with their relationship with food.

Many people aim their frustration and discontent towards food – but food is just an innocent bystander! Food doesn’t cause you suffering; food is simply food. In itself, food is neither good nor bad. Rather, the way people relate to food causes much of their distress. When you mindlessly relate to your food, your thoughts, judgments, opinions, belief systems and busy mind cloud and obscure your experience. And unfortunately, what could be a satisfying, enjoyable relationship turns into a never-ending uphill battle.

Taking a Holistic Approach

In the past, people’s obsession with health tended to be quite food-centric, with a focus on dieting, thinness and weight loss, and with the never-ending quest for the holy grail of youth and beauty. Recently there has been a gradual shift toward a bigger, more all-encompassing definition of health. This larger framework incorporates a more integrated mind-body-spirit approach to health and looks at all aspects of health and wellness. This holistic approach has placed an increased focus on the many health-related benefits of mindfulness and meditation, which originated from the eastern wisdom traditions such as Buddhism but are now commonplace in western culture.

With this holistic framework in mind, a more integrated approach to food choices can be applied. You will discover that not only what you eat, but also how you eat and why you eat influences your health.

Although mindful eating is more focused on how and why you eat rather than on what you eat, you may also notice a gradual shift in what you eat as a by-product of becoming more aware of how and why you eat. Make sense? You can then utilize mindful eating as a method of discovering which foods feel best to you and your body.

Discovering a healthy relationship with food

At the core of mindful eating is an exploration of your relationship with food, allowing you to gain awareness and insight into how this relationship is affecting you, your health and, ultimately, your life. The practice of mindful eating allows you to see food as something that you’re connected to, sustained by and in relationship with, something that supports the totality of your health, including your mind, body and spirit.

Now for the big question: is this relationship one that is supportive of your health and well-being? Or is it hindering your ability to blossom and flourish as the beautiful being that you are and preventing you from living the life you really want to live?

Essentially, one of the core intentions of exploring mindful eating is so that you can develop a healthy relationship with food. A relationship that is:

BalancedGratefulHarmoniousInspiringJoyfulNourishingPleasurableSatisfyingSupportive

Does this sound like the kind of relationship you’d like to have with food? Is this noticeably different than the relationship you currently have? Through starting to eat mindfully, you can become aware of the places within your relationship with food that are out of alignment. You can then take the necessary steps to restore the balance and joy to your relationship with food that is not only incredibly rewarding, but is also your birthright to experience.

Think about yourself, your food and your eating habits in terms of a relationship. In the same way that your relationships with people can be highly complex, so too can be your relationship with food. What is your relationship with eating? On a piece of paper or in your mindful eating journal (flip to Chapter 4 for more on starting a mindful eating journal) contemplate your relationship with food and eating by asking yourself the following questions: does this relationship bring you pleasure? Does it cause you pain? Is it an abusive relationship? Is it a source of hardship and struggle or do you find it very easy to navigate what, how much and when to eat? Does this relationship cause you anxiety and stress? In general, does this relationship leave you feeling satisfied and nourished or usually wanting or desiring more? Is this a trusting relationship? Do you have confidence in this relationship? If you had to describe your relationship with food in one word, what would that word be?

Reflecting a larger relationship

Mindful eating encompasses the underlying relationship that you have with your food. When you delve deeper into this relationship you discover that it’s made up of various and interconnected components. Primarily, your relationship with food includes your relationship with:

Eating: the process by which you consume food.Your body: Much of the time, your eating habits stem directly from how you feel about your body. Your body shares a very intimate relationship with food: it’s an aspect of nature that you willingly ingest into your body, merging your outer environment with your inner environment, literally becoming one with your food source – intimate indeed!Your sense of self (incorporating aspects of the mental, emotional and spiritual): many of your eating habits stem from how you feel about yourself, how worthy you feel you are and how much love and attention you give yourself.Life itself: Food sustains you in your life. Without food you wouldn’t be able to experience the full range of life experiences that are such incredible gifts. The way you relate to food is a microcosm of how you relate to life.

Much of the mindful eating discussion that follows in the remainder of this book can help illuminate the aspects of your relationship to your body that may also need mindful attention, care and love. This process is about finding harmonious alignment within your relationship to your body, yourself, your food source and the earth.

Building a Solid Foundation: Delving into Mindfulness

By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the common thread weaving together the various aspects of mindful eating mentioned thus far is mindfulness, a large topic in itself and worthy of its own introduction. Mindfulness is the simple act of paying attention to whatever is arising in the present moment. Mindfulness is a heightened state of involvement and engagement with the present moment. The practice of mindfulness allows you to be actively alert and in a wakeful state and welcomes in an openness to new and continuously unfolding experiences.

Mindfulness is the underlying foundation in many different kinds of meditation practices, including sitting meditation, walking meditation and eating meditation too. Everything in life can be viewed and approached with the intention of mindfulness. Meditation isn’t only reserved for yogis sitting in the lotus position. You can start to view every time you eat as a meditation in its own right, essentially the essence of what mindful eating is.

Mindfulness includes two primary components; the what and the how:

What you’re doing: You’re paying attention and bringing awareness to your immediate experience.How you’re doing it: You’re paying attention with an attitude of openness, curiosity, compassion, acceptance and non-judgment towards your experience. Think of this as the mindset you’re paying attention with. (Chapter 5 explores this mindset further.)

When you’re being mindful, you observe the world around you with an immense amount of curiosity and openness to whatever is unfolding in the here and now. The key part about mindfulness is that on top of staying open, aware and curious you’re also not judging, only noticing. By letting go of judgment, you can have a direct experience of reality without the moment being skewed and distorted by your thoughts.

You may be thinking: ‘But I’m not a judgmental person!’ Try to think of judgment more in terms of labeling everything you see. Judging goes hand in hand with thinking as humans are naturally wired to constantly evaluate their surroundings. (Check out Chapter 5 for more on judging.)

Dropping the speech balloon

I once heard well-known meditation teacher and renowned author Pema Chödrön describe mindfulness as ‘dropping the speech balloon’. What she means by this is that you bear witness to what’s occurring without having to label and attach thoughts to what’s happening. You tend to constantly judge and label things: ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’, ‘I want it’, ‘I don’t want it’, ‘I like it’, ‘I don’t like it’, and on and on it goes.

Mindfulness allows you to witness the world around you with awe and wonder, like seeing the world around you through the eyes of a child without the incessant need to think, categorize and label everything that’s happening. This grounded and present way of living prevents you from constantly being swept away on the thought train to a non-existent time in the past or the future.

Through mindfulness you discover how to become less reactive and how to respond to life with more thoughtfulness, a very helpful tool to have at your disposal when approaching your relationship with food amongst the chaos of everyday life. (Check out the sidebar ‘Strawberry savior’ for more on how to live with mindfulness, whatever the situation!)

Strawberry savior

There once was a student who felt worried and anxious about life and sought guidance from an elderly monk. The monk listened to the student express worry about his future and responded with a short story that went like this:

‘One day a Buddhist monk was walking through the mountains when all of a sudden a tiger jumped out at him and chased him towards the edge of a cliff. Hanging on to a vine, the monk skirted down to a ledge on the cliff only to see more tigers circulating below him in anticipation of his fall – and their dinner. As he searched for options, with tigers both above and below him, the monk looked over and glistening in the sun saw a magnificent, plump, bright red strawberry. In that moment he is totally present, struck by awe for the beauty of the strawberry and mindfully reaches over and eats it carefully. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “What a delicious strawberry!”’

This story is a testament to how you can live your life amongst all the chaos – tigers above and tigers below – with mindful awareness. In some ways, you’re in this predicament all the time, never fully knowing when your own life will come to an end. So what you can do is enjoy the moments that come to you, the moments that bring a sense of contentment, like eating a strawberry or watching a sunrise that you’re fully present for.

Observing the observer

Mindfulness allows you to step back, so-to-speak, and become a conscious observer of your own life. This profound practice can help you make important distinctions when thoughts, emotions and sensations are occurring and help you differentiate between identifying them compared to identifying with