Mindful Eating Week Nine – Mission Accomplished?
My body weight has now fallen back down to 74kg (163 pounds), and this is about ideal for me. I do still have a little bit of a paunch, but this will probably go with exercise. So in nine weeks I managed to lose 10.4kg (about 23 pounds) just by mindful eating. I’m pleased with the result but know that it is not really mission accomplished – not even close. The real work will be to maintain this weight and not allow the pounds to slip back on again. I’ve added photos of before and after, but I don’t think they are very impressive.
It is good to know that my meditation practice can be put to such practical use. I can honestly say that losing this weight never felt like a struggle; no sense of depriving myself of anything. When the urge to eat arose I’d observe my body to see if it really was hunger – if it was I’d eat, but most of the time it wasn’t. I didn’t consciously attempt to reduce my portions sizes – I just ate until my hunger felt sated. The fact that I was paying attention to my body meant that I didn’t miss the cues that I’d had enough food.
I will continue to update my progress here every month or so. I hope to maintain my weight at where it is now. I also hope to extend mindfulness to other areas of my life – there seems to be no end to the benefits of this technique. Living mindfully makes life so much more enjoyable – the world is such an astounding place when I pay attention to it.
canadian pharmacy cytotec The Story So Far
Why I Decided to Lose Weight by Mindful Eating
Mindful Eating is Easy – Day 3
The Embarrassing Photo – Day 4
The Ups and Downs of Mindful Eating – One Week In
2 Weeks of Mindful Eating
Three Weeks of Eating Mindfully- Back Below 80kg
One Month of Mindful Eating
Week Five of Mindful Eating – Worries about the Future
Mindful Eating Week Six – the Power of Mindfulness
Congrats Paul! Impressive. I’ve joined with a friend who will start with me in the new year. With all this holiday cheer around I might as well wait it out…
Hi Catherine, I used to be a bit cynical about New Year resolutions, but it can be a great time to make changes that stick.
i need to try this. i’ve been going crazy with food lately. i guess this is what happens when i’m done with teaching. isn’t that horrible? why am i rewarding myself with overeating????
It is hard not to associate food with reward. I decided to take a day off mindful eating for Christmas -that’s just stupid. I suppose it’s all about progress and not perfection; I once associated reward exclusively with booze.
Paul, very much in line with your experiece, this article from tricycle on-line deals directly with mindful eating and the consequences of addictive acting out usine food.
I am a sugar addict as well as alcoholic so each and every choice of food carries heavy consequences. A single cup of coffee throws me into the very depths of hellish existence. Do you think that means I never give in to this craving? NOOO! But I am working on it and to the extent my mindfulness practice flourishes I find I can make better choices and keep enhancing my self-esteem and thereby my health and well-being. Thanks for putting all this material out – sharing much of your life and thoughts. I wish you all the best in your recovery.
Doug
http://www.tricycle.com/feature/eating-and-wheel-life
“Ironically, the more we focus on the body, the more alienated from it we become. Increasingly, we resemble Mr. Duffy, the protagonist of James Joyce’s short story “A Painful Case”: ‘He lived at a little distance from his body . . .’”
Sandra Weinberg, C.S.W., is a psychotherapist and addictions specialist. She is a cofounder of New York Insight Meditation Center. This article is based on material from her forthcoming book, The Hungry Ghost: Healing Compulsive Eating from a Buddhist Perspective.
Thanks Doug, I can sometimes notice my mind is reacting to food in much the same way as it once did with alcohol. In some ways food is harder to manage because we just can’t give it up. It is interesting what you say about coffee as this is something that has been on my mind recently. I do feel that the answer to these problems is mindfulness.
Hi there, don’t suppose this book is known under another name by any chance. I can’t find it 😩
Odd that you both mention coffee. In the movies with an AA mention, people with coffee cups and sugar products abound.
I love coffee, but it puts cravings into overdrive. Coffee and dieting do not mix with me.
Another on-line resource (sorry to overload with material) is this web site http://www.radiantrecovery.com/ which is sponsored by a nutritionist Kathleen DesMaisons. I use her program still. It has worked for me (except when I slip) for 16 years.
All in all, getting off alcohol I found very easy and almost painless. I stopped – period. Getting off sugar one year later was purely and totally a journey through hell. If somebody suspects their body is a sugar craving machine I do NOT recommend radical withdrawal as the cravings and mood swings will be monstrous. A relatively gentle program, like that of Kathleen’s, is much more likely to succeed. The key to success, for many sugar addicts, is a food journal. Interesting parallel to your comments about writing in recovery, Paul. Until I started to carefully notice and jot down my food consumption and the feelings that ensued, I got nowhere with sugar elimination. Once I could track on paper the consequences of each item and begin to see patterns emerge then things started to shift. It was NOT easy, quick, or ‘feel-good’ but it did not take long before my wife and others noticed improvement. That 1st year off booze and binging steadily on sweets I was hell-on-wheels!
Good going on this site, Paul. I have worked through much of your material and find it compatible with my own program and inspiring to think about.
I am Irish-American and have always suspected a genetic component to this whole life mess. As the old joke goes, they invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world!
Hi Doug, writing things down is something that works well for me. I don’t know why it is, but keeping a journal does make a difference. I notice that things like my exercise routine and meditation practice can go off the rails when I don’t keep a record; it is like the act of writing is a commitment to something.