The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [120]
If we don’t feel satisfied, we’ll begin to look around for something more or something different to eat. Everyone has had the experience of roaming the kitchen, opening cupboards and doors, looking vainly for something, anything, to satisfy. The only thing that will cure this, a fundamental kind of hunger, is to sit down and be, even for a few minutes, wholly present.
If we eat and stay connected with our own experience and with the people who grew and cooked the food, who served the food, and who eat alongside us, we will feel most satisfied, even with a meager meal. This is the gift of mindful eating, to restore our sense of satisfaction no matter what we are or are not eating.
COMMON MISPERCEPTIONS
People get confused about mindfulness. They think that if they just do one thing at a time, like eating without reading, or if they move veeerrry slowly and carefully, they are being mindful. We could stop reading, close the book, and then eat slowly but still not be mindful of what we are eating. It depends upon what our mind is doing as we eat. Are we just eating or are we thinking and eating? Is our mind in our mouth, or somewhere else? This is a crucial difference.
As we begin to practice mindfulness it does help a lot to slow down and to do only one thing at a time. In fact there are two essential aspects of becoming mindful as we eat. They are slowing down and eating without distractions. As we become more skilled in being present, we can be mindful and speedy. In fact we discover that when we are moving quickly we need to be much more mindful. To be mindful means to have the mind full, completely full, of what is happening now. When you’re chopping vegetables with a large sharp knife, the faster you slice, the more attentive you have to be, if you want to keep your fingers!
It’s also important to understand that mindful eating includes mindless eating. Within the wide field of mindfulness we can become aware of the pull toward mindless eating and notice when and how we slip into it. We can also decide, according to this situation and time, how we’re going to approach eating. Part of my work as a doctor involves testifying in court cases as an expert witness. Maybe I’m on the way to court and I haven’t had time for lunch. I know it will be hard to stay clear on the witness stand and that court is unpredictable. I may be there for hours. I mindfully decide to undertake mindless eating and order a veggie burger from a fast-food window to eat in the car, trying to at least be mindful about not spilling the special sauce on my one good suit. Mindfulness gives us awareness of what we’re doing and, often, why we’re doing it.
ESTABLISHING A HEALTHIER RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD
When our relationship to food falls out of harmony, we lose our innate enjoyment of eating. When the relationship has been disordered for many years, it is easy to forget what “normal” eating is like. Actually it’s what “normal” eating was like, because in infancy almost everyone experienced a natural happiness with eating and an instinctive awareness of how much was satisfying.
Here are some elements of a healthy relationship to food.
You feel happy and fully engaged in life when you are not eating. (Food is not your only reliable source of pleasure and satisfaction.)
If you are not feeling hungry, you don’t eat.
You stop eating when you feel full and are able to leave food on the plate.
You have intervals of at least several hours when you are not hungry or thinking about food, punctuated by (meal) times when you do feel hungry and take enjoyment in eating.
You enjoy eating many different kinds of foods.
You maintain a healthy weight that is steady or fluctuates within a range of five to seven pounds. You don’t need to weigh yourself more than