Practice Changing Your Mind

Questions and answers, advice, tips, and suggestions for using the power of your mind for health.

Asleep at the meal?
Practice Conscious Consumption

Diets don't work, so why do we keep trying them? Because we're stuck on the idea that the symptom -- fat -- is the problem, when it's the message that there's a problem with the way we eat.

Years ago I read an article that suggested that the reason we overeat is that we are not present to enjoying our food when we're eating, therefore, we don't know when we've had enough. It seems that when we eat what we truly want, and make sure we're fully aware of the experience of eating, we naturally return to a moderate and balanced approach to food.

Many things stand in the way of being conscious when we eat. We're not present to what we eat when we're worried about eating "right." We're not present when we feel guilty about how or what we're eating. We're definitely not present when we distract ourselves with television, the computer, reading, or socializing. We're not present when we eat for reasons that have nothing to do with being hungry. And we're certainly not present when we eat food we think we "should" eat but don't enjoy, rather than eating what we really want.

Conscious Consumption

I've named the practice of being present to what you take in Conscious Consumption. You can modify this practice to work for any area of life where you feel that you can't get enough of something -- like shopping, sex, or any other area where your desires seem to control you.

Here's the short version:

Eat only when you're hungry.
Eat exactly what you want.
Do nothing but eat when you're eating.
Savor every bite.
Stop when you're no longer hungry.

Like most simple plans, this one requires your conscious, thinking, feeling, aware participation. Waking up to your relationship with food -- being present -- is a lot more challenging than following a diet plan that you stick with only as long as it takes to lose the desired amount of weight. However, waking up to how you eat and learning to be conscious will enable you to eat in a way that is absolutely satisfying and naturally moderate because you address the source of the problem, rather than trying to "quick fix" the symptom and shove your problem with food under the rug.

Like most practices, once you really understand how this one works, you will not need to practice it with the diligence that you use initially. It takes about a month of following the steps of the practice before you start to develop the habit of being present when you eat. I found this practice was easier for me at first if I ate by myself as much as possible. Eating with others was a major distraction to being present to the experience of enjoying my food.

This plan seems terrifying to many people who fear their desires and have no confidence in the natural internal regulating mechanisms they have smothered with their mistrust of themselves. I suggest that if you find this plan frightening, you try it the way you would any absurd diet you've ever attempted: do it for a month and if you don't notice a radical change for the better in your relationship to food, you can return to your old, demented, "I shouldn't be eating this; it's bad for me" style of consumption.

It may seem like too much trouble to have to pay this much attention to how you eat. But most of you drive cars and have learned to pay attention to hundreds of details automatically when driving because it's important for you to get where you're going in one piece. Once you learn the steps of Conscious Consumption, they, too, become automatic, and, like the rules of the road, they will help you get where you really want to go with food: to satisfaction, balance, and enjoyment of effortless natural moderation.

Here's the expanded version of the steps of this practice:

Eat only when you're hungry

We eat by the clock or when we smell food, see food, think about food, or are offered food. We also eat to distract or drug ourselves in order to avoid noticing various uncomfortable feeling states. In short, most of us have forgotten that being hungry is the signal that we are ready to refuel.

You will only be hungry so often during any given day. In a way, then, your hunger is like a budget. If you "spend your hunger" by eating between meals, you may not be hungry when mealtime rolls around. If you want to be hungry at a party you're attending, you may need to skip a meal so you're hungry when in the presence of the festive food.

You will also notice that you have a trigger that could be called, "I want to eat something," that has nothing to do with being hungry for food. You want the anesthesia food provides, or the distraction from some emotion or situation, or you want something but you haven't figured out what it is or can't get it in your current situation. There are many times where eating seems like an easy way to fill in the "I want something" gap, but if you aren't actually hungry, practicing Conscious Consumption means you either live with your restless desire to eat or find a more appropriate way to fulfill it.

Feeling hungry -- physically, mentally, or emotionally -- is not a bad thing. People all over the world live with feeling hungry. Notice how you feel when you're hungry. Notice how it sharpens your desire.

If you are in the habit of depriving yourself of food you want, you may need to remind yourself that this practice is not about deprivation. When you choose not to eat while practicing Conscious Consumption, it it because you aren't hungry or don't find the available food appetizing and are saving your hunger for something you really want.

Those who suffer indigestion or other digestive problems usually discover that the natural moderation that results from eating consciously eliminates digestive distress. You may need to remind yourself that you're choosing to eat with awareness in order to feel comfortable, not to deprive yourself.

Eat exactly what you want

This step is often distorted to "eat whatever you want." But instead of giving you permission to run amok, eating exactly what you want enables you to relearn a healthy discrimination by focusing on precisely what satisfies you.

When you are hungry, ask yourself questions to zero in on what you desire and mentally taste your choices as you think about them. Do you want hot food or cold food? Do you want crunchy or smooth? Tangy or sweet? As you think it through, imagine eating your choice. Ask yourself, "When I've eaten this, will I feel satisfied or will I want something else?" If it seems you will want something else after eating your choice, your choice is not exactly what you want.

A common fear is that you will be "out of control" if you let yourself eat what you want. I suggest that you're probably already out of control around food despite -- or because of -- your attempts to control yourself. This practice will reacquaint you with the natural inner moderating intelligence you were born with. After all, children don't eat and eat and eat unless someone interferes with their natural inclinations. Neither will you once you're back in touch with what you want and allow yourself to be fully present to enjoying it.

Anther fear is that you will get sick if you don't eat balanced meals every day. Scientific studies have shown that there is no need to have balance in every meal. Balance in nutritional intake happens across time, not at each occasion for a meal. The current obsession with balanced meals is a health fashion not a sensible approach to eating.

When you first practice Conscious Consumption, you will naturally desire what you have designated as "forbidden foods." You may want only ice cream sundaes, milkshakes, potato chips, or whatever foods you've placed off limits. It will not hurt you to eat nothing but desserts or snack foods or whatever you crave for as long as it takes for you to get these pent-up desires out of your system

Nonetheless, you may fear that you will never be satisfied no matter how much of these "forbidden foods" you eat. Remember: this fear is what drives your insatiability. Once you allow yourself to have what you want, as often as you want it (but only when you're hungry), while savoring it and staying fully present to the experience of eating it, you will soon satisfy these cravings and want to eat other things. Until you allow yourself the fearsome step of trusting your natural inner ability to regulate what you eat, you will be run by your feared desires.

Remember, when doing this practice, eat nothing because it's "good for you." Eat only and EXACTLY what you want, whatever that may be. Worrying about what you eat or feeling guilty about what you eat interferes with being fully present to eating. Your goal is to eat exactly what you want and revel in the deliciousness of every morsel.

Do nothing but eat when you're eating

You cannot be present to fully enjoying your food if you are:

Watching television
Reading
Socializing
Worrying (about anything, but especially about what you're eating)
Feeling guilty about what you're eating
Thinking about the nutritional content of your food
Exhausted, tense, anxious, angry, hurrying or emotionally upset
Working while you eat
Sitting at the computer
Doing anything but focusing 100% on enjoying your food

People who eat too much or who feel obsessed with food as the key to health rarely allow themselves to really have the experience of enjoying eating and feeling satisfied. In fact, most people who are fat insist they love food, yet they eat as though their real love is the sensation of general anesthesia that comes from stuffing themselves.

After you become a Conscious Consumption professional, you will be able to socialize when you eat, although you will probably notice that it still distracts you somewhat from being fully present to your eating experience. But eating is often, and maybe even ideally, a social experience, and you can learn to pay sufficient attention to enjoying your food and noticing when you're satisfied even when you eat with others.

The rest of the list of distractions should be permanently eliminated from being combined with eating if you want to retain a satisfying relationship with food.

Savor every bite

You insist you love food or love to eat. Now you get to act like you do. During the initial month of the practice, commit to savoring every morsel. Look at the food you are about to eat. Smell it. And most importantly, put down your fork, spoon, or food between every bite and focus totally on savoring what's in your mouth.

Do not pick up the food or take more on your fork until you have swallowed what is in your mouth. I found this the hardest step of the practice. I'm from a family of five children and if you didn't eat fast, you didn't get seconds. I'm also tend to be a bit tightly wound, so slowing down and wallowing in pleasure is not one of my native skill sets. But this step is essential to being present to enjoying what you eat.

You will undoubtedly notice that some desired foods do not "savor" well. This is especially true of the category labeled "comfort foods," those bland, gluey concoctions that are often used to soothe the rumpled spirit. And you'll notice that ice cream is only good for savoring for a couple of bites because your tongue quickly gets too cold to taste it.

Notice your impressions as you savor your food. Does each bite taste as good as the first? Does the taste bloom in your mouth or flatten? Is the aftertaste appealing or icky? Does what you're eating have a lot of flavor or do you simply enjoy the bland smoothness, crunchiness, or the temperature?

Stop when you're no longer hungry

Yes, children are starving all over the world, but it doesn't help them if you clean your plate. You were probably raised not to waste food, which meant you ate everything on your plate. But here's your new mantra:

Food is not less wasted because I run it through my body before throwing it away.

That's right, eating food when you aren't hungry is just as wasteful as throwing it away uneaten. You don't need it and those starving children aren't going to benefit from you turning yourself into a storage tank on legs. With this step of the practice you learn to stop when you no longer feel hungry, even if you've hardly eaten a thing.

Stop when the food no longer thrills you as you savor it. Stop if you notice you don't like the taste even if you thought you wanted the food. Stop as soon as you no longer feel hungry even if all you ate was four bites. When you get hungry again, you can eat again.

How do you know when you are no longer hungry? Odd as it may seem, you have to pay attention as you eat. There is an inner regulator you've learned to ignore; this practice will restore it to your awareness.

Paying attention to when you've had enough is a natural aspect of eating that you have obliterated with habits of distraction or by using food for recreation or as a drug. When you are first practicing Conscious Consumption, ask yourself this question before taking each bite, "Am I still hungry?"

It doesn't take that much food to stop feeling hungry. You might want to try taking half -- or even less -- of what you would usually eat and see if it's enough to end your hunger. Does it seem scary to stop before you're stuffed? Don't worry: when you get hungry again, you can eat again.

Some people fear that if they don't eat heartily and stay fat they will get sick. Remind yourself that this fear is a belief, not the truth about what you need to stay healthy. Most of us have more than enough food stockpiled on our bodies to eat very little for a long time without suffering any ill effects.

Until you become aware of this belief (if it applies to you), it will interfere with developing the ability to tell when you've had enough to eat. For example, while she was sick, Evelyn lost a lot of weight, which she had been trying unsuccessfully to lose for years. During her convalescence, even though she was now at the reasonable weight she had previously struggled to achieve, she worried that she would not be able to regain the weight she had lost.

Although she had never noticed this habit of thought, it seemed that she believed that being less than fat was a sign of weakness guaranteed to lead to poor health. Because she did not change this belief, as soon as she could again eat solid food, she diligently piled the pounds back on until she was safely fat again and could return to futilely trying to lose weight.

When you eat, as you ask yourself if you're still hungry, notice your fears and beliefs about fatness, thinness, sickness and health and food. Remind yourself that these beliefs are not the truth, but are habits of thinking that can be changed.

What else do you get from this practice?

After getting past your fears and actually practicing this new relationship with yourself and food, you may feel exhilarated and liberated. It's such a relief to stop monitoring your food intake, to stop feeling guilty, and to simply enjoy eating. Savoring food that satisfies your cravings is deeply satisfying. Your first reaction, then, is likely to be a positive one.

What comes next is often surprising. You may find yourself angry about this practice. You think you want to eat, but you aren't hungry or you can't think of what would satisfy you. Instead of feeling relieved and happy, you now feel besieged by feelings that you ate to submerge. And the worst thing is that it is suddenly clear to you that eating will never address the source of those uncomfortable feelings. Food becomes what it always was: just food.

Or you may notice that trying to figure out--and get--exactly what you want seems too hard. How does this play out in other areas of your life? Where else do you settle for what's easy rather than going after what's truly satisfying? How much of "this isn't it" would it take to make you feel like you got what you wanted? How is your life out of balance because you don't make the effort to get what you really want?

You may notice that you don't think it's okay to get what you want. You may resist the whole concept of really enjoying yourself because you believe it's dangerous to indulge yourself or fear that you will be out of control if you don't rein in your desires.

You may be convinced that you have no trustworthy inner regulating faculties, and that your body must be constantly managed in order to function properly. Remember, these are beliefs, not the truth. They are habits of thinking and assumptions you learned, and you can replace them with more constructive attitudes.

The whole business of waking up -- becoming conscious -- means you notice things you previously were asleep to. As you play with this practice, notice how others eat and talk about food, and watch and listen to yourself. Notice how much we put between ourselves and the simple enjoyment of food. Notice how much better you feel mentally and physically when you relax about food and eat in ways that naturally moderate your intake. Notice how good it feels to allow yourself to really enjoy your food choices without guilt, fear, or worry.

Mind-body health is about learning to make a habit of feeling good, because how you feel has a far stronger positive effect on health than what you eat. Current food rules, fads, and fashions are based on feeling guilty about indulging yourself or fearful of ill health, and neither guilt nor fear are health promoting.

Every culture and generation throughout the ages has created rigid food rules that have no connection to anything but a futile desire to find health salvation through what you put in your mouth. Such rules always change and always interfere with noticing what you, personally, want to eat, and what you, individually, crave to nourish and balance your body and spirit. Remember that modern metaphysical teachers echo the findings of scientific mind-body research by insisting that how you feel about what you eat is far more important to your health than what you eat. Practicing Conscious Consumption will put you back in touch with feeling good about food.

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