| “I
love food. Food movies, food novels, food just a bout-
anything. . . . I like to eat, too, but regarding
food, really, it’s the imagined pleasures to come
I particularly go for.”
- Beverly Lowry, author
For
the week beginning July 1st, 2004
HAVE YOU EVER been elated just by imagining your upcoming
mealtime pleasures? Do your food fantasies exceed your actual experience
with food and eating? Some excitement around food is normal. However,
food emotions can also lead to unhealthy or obsessive eating habits.
For this reason, eating mindfully means even becoming aware of the excitement
and fantasies you may have about food. With mindful awareness you can
go deeper and explore the why beneath your emotions. For example, in
his classic book On the Road, author Jack Kerouac writes repeatedly
of his favorite food as he travels across the United States. You can
sense his excitement as he writes, “I ate apple pie and ice cream
– it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger,
the ice cream richer.” But Kerouac does not understand, as we
must, what emotional hunger or need drives his fantasy and desire.
•
What inner hunger is beneath
the food you desire?
“Never eat more than you can lift”
- Miss Piggy, Muppet puppet character
For
the week of July 5th
WHEN YOUR EYES are bigger than your appetite, do you
eat all the food on your plate even if it is more than you need? Restaurants
are notorious for large portions. If you are in need of portion control,
this can help: Whenever I want more control over my portions, I adapt
what I learned in the monastery. I start with an empty plate. Then I
take only the amount of food from the “serving” plate that
I want. When I’m done, I always have the option of adding a little
more food onto my plate. Start with an empty plate, whether you eat
alone or with others. You can easily do this at a restaurant by asking
for an extra plate. This way, you are in control of the amount of food
on your plate and can take home the “serving” plate leftovers.
•
Control today’s portions with an extra plate.
“The secret of staying young is to live honestly,
eat slowly, and lie about your age.”
- Lucille Ball
For
the week of July 12th
DO YOU EAT slowly and deliberately? Do you savor each
bite or gulp it down? Eating slowly may, in fact, help you discover
the real taste of food. You may find that a food tastes better (or worse)
when you really taste it. I know a man who learned mindful eating with
olives – a food he regularly ate. During his mindful eating exercise
he learned – to his surprise and chagrin – that he disliked
the flavor. He has not eaten an olive since. Slowing down with each
bite has another benefit. It takes about fifteen or twenty minutes for
the body to register the feeling of fullness after eating. If you eat
quickly, you can overeat before you ever feel satiated. Take deliberate
bites, chew your food until it softens into liquid – thereby aiding
digestion. Examine all your sensations.
•
Savor your meal by slowing down
and really tasting it in detail.
“Without attention, the human sense of wonder
and the holy will stir occasionally, but to become
a steady flame it must be tended.”
- Huston Smith, The World’s Religions
For the week of July 19th
HOW
OFTEN DO you tend your flame of mindfulness at mealtime? This
is one of the great challenges of eating. It is all too easy to drift
back to mindlessness where the sense cravings and emotions can take
control. Mealtime can be a time of escapism, or it can be a time to
be in the moment. Today’s meal is a chance to be awake instead
of sleepwalking through life. Tending the flame requires two things:
enthusiasm and effort. Hopefully, these meditations inspire you and
fire up your enthusiasm. But to keep the enthusiasm you need the effort
to stay on the path daily. There are five basic obstacles to effort
that can lead to mindless eating.These include food cravings and desires,
unhealthy emotions and focusing on negativity, sleepiness and fatigue,
anxiety and restlessness, and doubt. Be mindful of when they appear.
•
For now, simply watch for the five
obstacles to effort. When they get in the way,
simply note them as “desire, desire” and
“fatigue, fatigue,” and so on.
“Surrender is inner acceptance of what is
without any reservations. . . . Surrender does
not transform what is, at least not directly.
Surrender transforms you.”
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
For the week of July 26th
DO YOU EVER feel the urge to binge, overeat, or engage
in other disordered eating? Instead of waging a battle against the impulse,
can you accept that the voice you hear
at this moment is one part of you? Can you find peace with the voice
through acceptance and awareness of it? Where is the fight taking place?
Who is engaged in this battle, anyway? There is no fight if you decide
to just watch like a bystander. By hearing your voice of despair, you
can surrender to it and accept its presence. But that does not mean
you need to submit to it by following through with a destructive action.
If you do lose mindfulness and submit to your urge, you can compassionately
return to the inner acceptance of your action – knowing that you
are still a whole person, a valuable person.
•
Inner surrender and acceptance
builds up strength over time.
© Meal
by Meal by Donald Altman published by Inner Ocean Publishing, All Rights
Reserved, 2004
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