Mindfulness - Food

Tighten Up, Flickr

"If you slow it down, eat in courses, your body, mind, stomach 

will catch up with this full feeling and you won't eat as much." 

(Guy Fieri)

I don't know for you, but I have a long history of finding comfort through the mouth: I sucked my thumb longer than most kids, and when I stopped, it wasn't long before I replaced it with another bad habit: a tic that involved biting the inside of my cheeks. I also developed a sweet tooth early in life. And apart from early childhood (a period during which I am told I was not a big eater - perhaps the thumb blocked the way?), I never really knew when or why to stop eating: feeling full wasn't a notion I even considered. I never focused on the stomach. If it looked, smelled and tasted good, and I still felt like eating, I ate. It seems like my mouth enjoyed working overtime. I even talked too much. If I hadn't been so terrified of the side effects, I would have been a prime candidate for smoking.

Regular physical activity probably "saved" me from becoming overweight (apart from a short period after my second child was born), but I am scared to even think of the amount of sugar that has entered my body in those forty years of life.

A few years ago, with no more than ten pounds "to lose" (BMI was already fine), but tired of my relationship with food, I decided to take the bull by the horns, met with a nutritionist, hired a personal trainer, and started journaling the entirety of my food intake, every single day, for a full year. What did I learn? 

I learned that I need way less food than I thought I did: portions shrank and shrank to the point where my plate looked like a toddler's, but interestingly, it did not make me hungry. 

I learned to incorporate more of the good stuff (leafy greens, berries, seeds) and less of the not-so-good stuff (for me, dairy and sweets). 

But more importantly, I learned to listen to my body. In fact, I learned to listen to specific parts of my body. My mouth was always up for more food, especially the sweet type. Now I learned to listen to my abdomen and to my head instead. I realized that they had a lot to tell me if I paid attention. My stomach had a message I had been ignoring: "I'm full!" (It was surprising how fast my stomach became full, long before my mouth was even considering taking a break.) My head, too, had some unheard messages for me: "Please don't eat/drink this, it will hurt!"

As it turns out, some of my favorite foods were doing me the most harm: Sugar. Dairy. Red wine. It was a sad discovery. It was also a thrilling discovery: by avoiding sugar, dairy and red wine, I felt much, much better, both in the belly and in the head. In the process, I shed a few pounds, and lowered my body fat percentage. I was full of energy, mental and physical.

I do not want to make this journey sound easier than it was: there were a lot of challenges, frustrations, and discouragement. One of my realizations was that my relationship with sugar was closer to an addiction than I had ever been willing to admit. And more often than not, my mouth tried to scream louder than both my stomach and head: "We're not done! I want more foooooooood!"

But all in all, my main victory, and the secret to the success of this endeavor, was mindfulness. Slowly but surely, I became mindful of my relationship with food, how I felt about food, how I reacted to food. I already knew that I ate some of my emotions (stress, boredom, fatigue). Now I noticed that I was often on automatic pilot when food I liked was on display (at parties, for example: I would just reach out and get it, even if I wasn't hungry). I noticed I reacted to ads about food (where else would a sudden, intense craving for a specific type of cake or ice cream come from? Once I saw an article about a power plant in France that uses cheese as fuel, and that was enough to make me crave a piece of Camembert.) I noticed that I ate too fast. Reading Thich Nhat Hanh, I learned to eat slowly, mindfully (my trick: practice with grapefruit; it takes so long to prepare that you have no choice but to slow down and enjoy). I realized I don't even like S'Mores, so why do I always have a few when I go camping? And so on.

My mindfulness toward food did not stop there. I started wondering: Where does my food come from? Is it produced locally? Ethically? Is it fair trade? In season? Wholesome? Humane? Environmentally friendly? I was already not a big fan of juice boxes and steak, but this new perspective made me even more aware. To paraphrase Socrates, I began to say "The unexamined food is not worth eating".

Mindfulness was the most important tool I used to conquer my relationship with food, and I had not invented the concept: it seems that mindfulness can indeed help you achieve your weight goals.

Mindfulness this Week

How is your relationship with food? Please share!

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Mindfulness - Why?

BuzzFarmers, Flickr

''From a mindfulness point of view, 
we all have attention deficit disorder.'' 

(Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche)

Year after year, it's the same. We end the year reveling in excesses, we start the year making resolutions. Resolutions that, most often than not, will be reduced to distant memories just weeks into the new year - just look at how jam packed gyms become in January... only to quiet down by February. Even those of us who don't explicitly formulate resolutions could easily identify areas of their life where an improvement is called for, but fails to materialize.

This leaves us with two questions:

1) Why do so many of us feel the need to make resolutions?
    (Why do so many of us hope and plan to improve their lives?)

2) Why do so many of us fail at keeping those resolutions?
    (Why do so many of us fall short of implementing change?)

The reason we make resolutions is simple: Our life is not up to our expectations. We don't reach our goals. (Sometimes, we don't even know what our goals are.) We feel like we should have control over our existence, yet we keep steering it in the wrong direction, by making the wrong choices - big and small. We don't feel good about ourselves, or not often enough. Something is off. We want change. We want improvement.

The reason resolutions fail is more perplexing. We really do want to lose weight, stop smoking, spend less time in front of a screen and more time with our loved ones. We really do want to live a purposeful, fulfilling life in line with our values. We are full of great intentions.

The problem is one of mindfulness: we try to implement change but we fail to inspect our life genuinely to determine what, precisely, is at the bottom of our dissatisfactions and bad habits. Why exactly do we feel crummy? Why do we compensate with food, alcohol, shopping, or video games? 

This is where mindfulness comes into play. Mindfulness holds the key to a satisfying life that truly resembles us.  Embracing mindfulness might have a phenomenal impact on your life because it's been shown to make a difference in so many areas. For example, mindful eating would advantageously replace any diet. Implementing mindfulness in the workplace would significantly reduce stress, increase creativity and performance, improve interactions and decision-making, with the bonus of happiness and well-being.

Something tells me that mindfulness might be the ultimate resource and inspiration we need to tap into.

Mindfulness this Week

This week we will slowly acquaint ourselves with mindfulness. We will keep it very simple for now. Our only goal will be to pay more attention, to become more aware of what's going on. Every time we have a chance, we will ask ourselves: What is going on right now, outside of me and inside of me? We will welcome any answer that comes up. We will observe the sensations that emerge. There will be no judgement, no analysis, no further questions. We will simply state, for ourselves, how we feel this right moment... then we will continue with the rest of our day.

Let's begin right now. How do you feel at the moment? Take a moment to assess your internal state and the external situation. Then continue with the rest of your day.

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The Less is More Project: Week 44 - Back to the basic... foods

SweetOnVeg, Flickr

"I don't confuse my digestive system, I just season simple food with hunger." (Richard Proenneke)

Notwithstanding the fantastic legacy of French and other cuisines, despite the culinary techniques that are still being developed around the world as we talk, there is something to be said about very simple foods.

Even if I grew up with a fantastic cook for a mother, and even if some of my all-time favorites food don't quite qualify as simple, I like to say that I could live on a monastic diet: homemade vegetable soup and bread, artisan cheese, fresh fruit, some seeds (with the occasional glass of wine). Left to my own devices I gravitate toward a plant-based diet. What makes the biggest difference in taste isn't a long preparation, but rather choosing fresh ingredients and combining them in the right proportions.

Interestingly, I so happened to meet two other foodies, in the past week, who also advocate for simplicity. 

One was a passionate Family Studies teacher, who despite her enthusiastic knowledge of molecular gastronomy, was quick to point out that in the kitchen, the simpler, the better.

The other was Lauren Marshall, ex Top Chef contestant, with whom my friends and I had a cooking class which was 100% vegan, and used fresh, local foods almost exclusively.

This was refreshing. In grocery stores (as opposed to farmers' markets), I cannot help but think, as I navigate the aisles: "This is not food - how dare they claim it is?" and "What a useless object to have in a kitchen - I would never buy it".

When it comes to food, simplifying is good for the wallet, for the environment, and for our health. "Real" food comes without (or with minimal) packaging, without an ingredient list, and without advertisement. All fresh produce qualifies. And have you ever seen an ad for plain lentils or pumpkin seeds? Ask yourself how often you consume those kinds of foods.

Don't get me wrong. I do like fancy (as in fancy restaurant food paired with fancy wines); I do like exotic (e.g. mangoes in Canada); I even like some fast, unhealthy food (Poutine! Chocolate ice cream!)

But in my daily life I like to keep it simple. I like to know that my food was created respectfully and ethically. I like to know that my food is contributing to my health. It all boils down to mindfulness. Interestingly, mindfulness is the latest trend in weight loss (see this recent article from the Washington Post).

By approaching food mindfully, we will not only benefit our health, but also the environment: 

"An estimated 40-50 percent of U.S. food is wasted along the chain from farm to table. We're destroying the environment with industrialized food production, a good portion of which just gets driven to landfills, where it rots and releases even more methane." (Juliet B. Schor, True Wealth)

Even when we consume all the food we purchase, the excessive packaging leaves a less-than-pretty trace long after we are done: juice boxes, K cups, individual wrappers... they are a sad testimony of our bad habits.

Perhaps it is because we do not truly have to work for what we use and consume?

"If we all had to grow our own food, we wouldn't waste 40% of it (as is done now in the US). If we had to make our own tables and chairs, we wouldn't throw them out the moment we changed the interior decor. If we could see the conditions in which a pig is slaughtered, it would put most of us off our BLT. If we had to clean our own drinking water, we sure as hell wouldn't shit in it." (Mark Boyle, The Moneyless Man - A Year of Freeconomic Living)

And is it really just a matter of big bucks?

"People always tell me organic food is only for those who can afford it, but it's not. If you care about what you put in your body, keeping chemicals, pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and additives out of our food is more important than having a couple of hundred television channels."  (Mark Boyle, The Moneyless Man - A Year of Freeconomic Living)


WEEK 44 IN REVIEW

The new car proved useful this week. On Thursday, we had a storm, so I drove to work. It was nice to get there almost entirely dry. It's in the little things...

My frugal habits are becoming consistent... and strong. I hesitated before buying a new toothbrush! 


Your turn to share about your struggles and victories of the week! What did you resist? Did you donate or get rid of anything? Did you face any challenge? Please comment below! And...

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