Mindfulness

I'm going deep into mindful eating. I'm not yet ready to say if this will make a permanent difference, but I feel changes to my relationship with food underway.

I took a meditation class a few years ago (and wrote a bit about it here) - the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course, MBSR, a practice developed and standardized at University of Massachusetts hospital for those chronically (physically) ill, and now studied and applied to a variety of situations, such as depression. Since then, I have irregularly meditated on my own, and with the use of recorded guided meditations (of course there are apps for this). From the course, I've seen there are three main strands of guided meditations - general, the body scan, and loving kindness. I've done general meditations for stress and body scans for my chronic backpain, and turned away from the loving kindness which seems the most woo-woo and out there, but not especially for eating.

A blogger I follow, Dayra Rose of the Summer Tomato, sponsored a five-day mindful eating challenge, with daily email videos coaching what to do that day, and a facebook group to share experiences. The basics are "pick one meal, put away all distractions, thoroughly chew and taste and swallow each bite, don't fill your fork until you have swallowed." Specific days had specific things to focus on during the experience. It was useful, and felt like I was on the right track, though not any earth-shattering breakthroughs. The pause to make sure I am experiencing the food, chewing it, tasting it, and not just shoveling it in, has persisted.

So I went to my current meditation app, "10% Happier", which has a combination of discussions about how and why to apply mindfulness to different situations, and they have a 9-section course with Dr Judson Brewer. Brewer has apparently developed a successful practice at treating addiction using mindfulness and is now applying the techniques to the (more lucrative) diet industry.  I did that course, and it kept me mindful, and introduced me to a new practice about riding out cravings, "surf the urge". Don't fight a craving, don't push it away, embrace it and investigate it. As it turns out, Brewer has his own complete app, Eat Right Now, (not free) with months of video coaching and specific meditation guidance, and its own community to share experiences. I've been faithfully daily following that for 20 days (they keep count for you). So this journey has been steady for many weeks now. Finally, I feel like my relationship to food is actually changing.

I think I eat pretty well (though sometimes too much) day in and day out - until about 4 pm each day. I know what food my body likes and I've upped the deliciousness factor as well. I mostly cook at home, or buy not terribly processed meals like salads. I told my doctor I may be her only patient that actually eats seven servings of vegetables every day.

But here's the thing:  I have portion control problems at every meal. I will eat what is served for breakfast and lunch, always always cleaning my plate even if I bought a huge prepared salad. I like the full feeling in my stomach. I have a terrible tendency to binge in the evenings, when my body is jonesing for something, and I can't rest until I feed it. Sometimes the binge is simply on my dinner, seconds and thirds, cleaning the pot of food I'd hoped to eat all week. Often, the binge is sweets, which continue to be in my house because I like sweets and don't want to lead a life of constant denial. I also sometimes feel the imperative so strong I will get in my car in the dark and the cold and go to the supermarket to buy ice cream. I feel I can't rest until I do.

So the mindfulness is helping me break this cycle, with the pause before eating, a pause while eating, and embracing and investigating my cravings while they happen. This feels different. But, I struggle intellectually with some of this, and think about how to put this experience into my other bits and pieces I've learned about myself and other humans, how willpower and self-talk and data and analysis fit together with this. This long post is to catch up with myself, reflect on where I've been with this, and I hope to build from this to additional posts investigating some of these intersections and contradictions.

Question to ponder until next essay: willpower is hard, and won't work for the long term to manage eating. What is the difference between mindfulness contemplation of eating in order to not eat too much or unhealthily, and using willpower to resist eating too much or unhealthily?