If you just can’t bring yourself to get on board with raw food and juice cleanses, or if the idea of trying another diet has you ready to pull your hair out in frustration, don’t worry! There’s another option out there that is much simpler… no pre-packaged foods, no numbers to count, and no deprivation.
The trick? Staying fully aware of what you’re consuming through mindfulness. In fact, Dr. Chozen Bays, author of Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food, and Dr. Lilian Cheung, a Harvard nutritionist, posit that mindfulness while eating can be the solution to a society conditioned to binge in an almost unconscious state.
Most food consumption that occurs today has very little to do with hunger, need, or nutrition. Instead, it is centered on celebratory events like Superbowl parties, holiday meals, or mindless snacking in front of the TV after a long day of work. The hurry-hurry of modern society has spilled over into our daily eating habits, creating a situation in which no diet has been able to adequately impact the growing obesity problem.
The idea behind this new method of diet control is mindfulness: by staying aware of the eating process, turning it into a meditative and mindful moment, and stopping to enjoy each bite (putting the fork down in between) the body will be satisfied with less.
The typical eating habits of most people are a conditioned response to consume quickly. People are in a hurry, and food is prepared quickly (microwave versus oven; fast food versus sit-down restaurant). We tend to respond in-kind by eating just as quickly. By retraining the mind to focus on the act of eating, experiencing each flavor and texture of the bite, chewing slowly and thoroughly, and truly experiencing the food being eaten, you can transform your body.
Because mindful eating does not require participants to give up favorite foods but simply to learn to slow down and enjoy them, the idea is that less food will be required to achieve satisfaction, which often has very little to do with hunger and more to do with emotional demands like stress and anxiety. Chozen refers to the process as an “anti-diet.”
More than just slowly enjoying the food, mindful eating requires you to focus on your food without the distraction of TV, conversation, music, or other interference. The Food and Brand lab at Cornell University has embraced the practice, conducting a number of studies that reveal how successful mindful eating can be at reducing the amount of food people consume.
This article reminds me of the author Geneen Roth. She has written many books, but the most recent one I’ve read is Women, Food, and God; she advocates a similar approach as far as not depriving yourself of foods you truly want and paying attention to what you’re consuming. She even has retreats where people practice these skills. I think that mindful eating is really starting to emerge in popular culture because it’s so refreshing compared to systems like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc. that (although they claim not to) have a very rigid component to them, while mindful eating is much more intuitive.
I will have to check out Geneen Roth! Another book that advocates similar ideas is Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole. I would highly recommend this to anyone, the ideas are very similar to the ones put forth in this article (focusing on internal cues rather than external).