Mindfulness: increase Presence, facilitate Change
From 1999 to Present: the History of the "Eating the Moment" Project
I first started working on this project in 1999. At that time I was doing my Pre-Doctoral Internship at the Pittsburgh Veterans Administration hospital system. In the course of my Behavioral Medicine and Primary Care rotations I began to train in delivering cognitive-behavioral weight management and co-led my first group for weight management. I finished the manuscript by 2000 and entitled it "No-Diet Diet."
The following year I moved to Wyoming and began my Post-Doctoral Training at the University of Wyoming Counseling Center with parallel rotations at the Cheyenne Family Practice and at the U of W Health Center. Weight management was "popping" up again and again as a behavioral medicine clinical modality. I finished the second draft of the book, this time changing the title to "Mindful-not-Mouthful."
After my Post-Doc in Wyoming, I returned to Pittsburgh and accepted a job as a Clinical Director of a drug and alcohol program at the Allegheny Country Jail. This was 2001 and I began crystallizing an eclectic clinical approach for dealing with compulsive spectrum disorders that I later described in a monograph "The Recovery Equation." My approach to working with impulse-control disorders (inclusive of substance use and other compulsive presentations) began to take a more humanistic and existential form that combined the principles of Logotherapy and Harm Reduction. These two camps, coupled with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, seemed to be a successful clinical recipe for empowering clients and equipping clients with craving control know-how.
At around the same time, probably early in 2000, I started to organize my haphazard understanding of Buddhism, Daoism, Jainism and the teachings of Gurdjieff, into a project that I called "Egg Drop Soup for the Mind." This was a fun writing project that I later came to view as an act of literary hooliganism. In trying to consolidate my understanding of Buddhism in particular, I started imitating - in writing - the Buddhist genre of koans, and began a meditation practice.
By 2003, my clinical approach became an amalgam of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Exposure-Based Relapse Prevention Treatment, Logotherapy, Harm Reduction and Buddhist Psychology and more. I continued to polish "Mindful-not-Mouthful" for 3 more years.
In 2003 I started to transition into a generalist private practice. With behavioral medicine and health psychology experience as part of my clinical repertoire, I continued to offer weight management/diet compliance/overeating-focused interventions to the clients that presented with bulimic or binge-eating disorder presentations. Also, I began offering psychological assessment to candidates for gastric bypass surgery some of whom elected to continue to work with me post-surgery.
By 2006 I was on my 5th draft of "Mindful-not-Mouthful." At around this time, my wife, tired of this seemingly never-ending literary commitment, suggested I go ahead and submit the project for publication. I put together a book proposal and pitched it to what I considered to be one of the best publishing houses for psychologists on the market. A few months later Melissa Kirk, a New Harbinger acquisition editor, called me up with a "green-light." The rest is history.
The book that began in 1999 as "No-Diet Diet" and mutated through a series of drafts under the working title of "Mindful-not-Mouthful" is now, hopefully, in your hands as "Eating the Moment."
The features the following original Awareness-Building (AB) and Habit-Modifying (HM) exercises.
CHAPTER 1
1. Why Did You Eat Just Now? (AB)
2. Why Are You About to Eat Right Now? (AB)
3. Hunger Essay (AB)
4. Craving Essay (AB)
5. What Do You Crave Most Often and Why? (AB)
6. Craving-Driven Eating Vs. Hunger-Driven Eating (AB)
7. Trigger Detective (AB)
8. Acquired Taste? (AB)
9. What Kind of Craver Are You? (AB)
10. Trick Your Nose (HM)
11. The Nose Knows (AB)
12. To TV or Not to TV? (AB)
13. No-Food-in-the-Library Rule (AB)
14. Peer-Pressure Eating (AB)
15. A Study of Appetite Manipulation (AB)
16. A Fiesta Not a Feast (HM)
17. A Fast, Not a Feast (HM)
18. The Times of Our Eating Lives (AB)
19. People Who Influence Your Eating (AB)
20. How Do You Control Cravings Now? (AB)
21. The Mind Lava Lamp (AB)
22. Counting Craving Thoughts (AB)
23. It’s Just a Craving, for Crying Out Loud! (AB)
24. Craving-Control Chair (HM)
25. Craving-Control Success Record (HM)
26. Mindfulness + Relaxation: A Master Skill for Craving-Control (HM)
27. Breath-Focused Relaxation (AB/HM)
28. Exhale the Craving (HM)
29. Talk Yourself Out of a Craving (AB/HM)
30. Create a Self-Talk Script (HM)
31. Record and Playback Your Self-Talk (HM)
32. Distraction-Extraction Exercise (AB)
33. Craving Destruction through Distraction (HM)
34. A Master-Skill Combo Vs. a Combo Meal (AB)
35. Developing a Craving-Control Habit (HM)
36. Hungry Eyes (AB)
37. Hungry Ears (AB)
38. Food Shrine (AB)
39. Food as Art: Inhaling Life into Nature Morte (AB)
40. Food as Function: The Orange Paperweight (AB)
41. Food as Product: The Delicious Profit Margin (AB)
42. Food as Work: Produce the Produce (AB)
43. Food as Medicine: A Spoonful of Antioxidants (AB)
44. The Carrot Cake Fight (AB)
45. Trigger Avoidance: To Avoid or Not to Avoid? (AB)
46. People, Places and Foods (HM)
47. No-TV Diet (AB/HM)
48. Need-Based Eating (HM)
CHAPTER 2
49. Boring Eating (AB)
50. Eating Out Solo (AB)
51. Distraction-Free Eating (AB/HM)
52. Recognizing the Four Aspects of Taste (AB/HM)
53. The Subtext of Texture (AB/HM)
54. Blind-Tasting (AB)
55. Recognizing the Specific Ingredients (AB/HM)
56. Taste Essay (AB)
57. The Essence of Flavor (AB)
58. Assessing Your Taste Memory (AB)
59. Developing Taste Memory (AB)
60. Extreme Snacking (HM)
61. Water Study: A Sensory-Linguistic Exercise (AB)
62. The Color of Sweet (AB)
63. From Start to Finish and Back (AB)
64. The “Mmm” Mantra (AB/HM)
65. The Case of Mayo (AB)
66. Know Your Food Favorites (AB)
67. Start a Food Blog (AB/HM)
68. Sampling Mini-Fruits, Teas and Tisanes, and Liquid Breads (AB)
69. An Egg Sample of How to Sample Methods of Food Preparation (AB)
70. Sampling the Degree of Difference (AB)
71. Social Savoring Instead of Social Eating (AB/HM)
72. Tasting Club (AB/HM)
73. Tuning In to the Tuning Out (AB/HM)
74. Edible or Not Edible? A Game for your Nose (AB)
75. Anosmia on Demand (AB)
76. Eating While Sitting on the Floor (AB/HM)
77. Eating While Standing (AB/HM)
78. La-Z-Boy or O-Bese-Boy? (AB)
79. Bed Eater (AB)
80. Shadow Eating (AB)
81. Eating with Wrist Weights (AB)
82. Eating with Your Nondominant Hand (AB)
83. Utensil U-Turn (AB)
84. Edible Utensils (AB/HM)
85. Straw Sip Vs. Free Sip (AB/HM)
86. Nonutilitarian Utensils (AB)
87. A User’s Guide to Eating Popcorn (AB)
88. The Perfect Move: Eating Optimization Exercise (AB)
89. Just One Bite of Just Eating (HM)
90. Dessert First (AB)
91. Matching Tableware with Food (AB)
92. Your Favorite Place to Eat (AB)
93. Your Favorite Place to Overeat (AB)
94. Your Most Mindful Place to Eat (HM)
95. Alfresco Vs. “Aldesko” (HM)
96. Eat as If Everybody Were Watching (AB)
97. Car Eating (AB)
98. Caviar in the Backseat (AB)
99. Table Feng Shui: Creating an Eating Place (AB/HM)
100. Eating-Mindfulness Placemat: Your Portable Mindful-Eating Space (AB/HM)
CHAPTER 3
101. Why Did You Just Stop Eating? (AB)
102. Zip It (AB)
103. Celebrate the Moment of Hunger Relief (AB)
104. Studying the Moment of Hunger Relief (AB/HM)
105. Shoe-Tying Fullness Test (AB)
106. Pleasant Fullness Essay (AB)
107. Unpleasant Fullness Essay (AB)
108. The Closure Complex (AB/HM)
109. Redefining the Portion Size from Fullness to Mind-Fullness (HM)
110. Pace-Eating: Half-by-Five and All-by-Ten Schedules (AB/HM)
111. Rest-Your-Hands Technique (AB/HM)
112. Inverted Eating Race (AB)
113. The Admittedly Annoying Thorough-Chewing Exercise (AB)
114. Slow-Eating Record (AB)
115. Counting the Chips (AB/HM)
116. Reminiscence Eating (AB)
117. A Cooling-Off Period (AB)
118. Noseful-Not-Mouthful (HM)
119. Soup-erior Fullness (AB/HM)
120. Umami: Taste of Fullness (AB)
121. Exploring Sensory-Specific Satiety (AB/HM)
122. Safe Overeating (AB/HM)
123. Making Fullness Last (AB/HM)
CHAPTER 4
124. Relaxation as the First Course (HM)
125. Feeling Vaklempt? Talk Amongst Yourselves (HM)
126. State Your Expectation (AB/HM)
127. Know Your Comfort Foods (AB)
128. Normalizing Your Relationship with Comfort Foods (HM)
129. Calibrating the Dosage (HM)
130. If Food Is Your Therapist, Then Talk to It (AB/HM)
131. Emotional Eating Koans (AB)
132. Ritualizing Emotional Eating (HM)
133. Developing a Reminder Mantra for Mindful Emotional Eating (HM)
134. Let’s Regress (AB/HM)
135. Harm-Reduced Hand-to-Mouth Trance (HM)
136. Maintaining Mindfulness During an Emotional-Eating Episode (HM)
137. Reframing the “What-the-Heck” (HM)
138. Postpone the Binge (HM)
139. Mindful Emotional Drinking: Water-Drinking Relaxation (AB/HM)
CHAPTER 5
140. Meaningful Eating (AB)
141. Existential Eating: The Last-Meal Experience (AB)
142. Thankful Eating: Wartime Ration (AB)
143. Graceful Eating (AB/HM)
144. Spiritual Eating Reading Assignment (AB)
145. Mindful Eating as an Act of Reunification with the Universe (AB)
146. “My Philosophy of Eating”: A Life-Modifying Exercise (LM)
: Table of Contents
Introduction
The Mindful-Not-Mouthful Approach Isn’t a Diet But a Diet-Facilitator
Three Reasons Why We Eat
Four Reasons Why We Overeat
Mindful, Not Mouthful: Developing the Mindful-Eating Habit
No, It’s Not the First Book on Mindful Eating
How to Use This Book
A Note to the Skeptic
Chapter 1: But Everyone Else Was Eating! Becoming Mindful of Environmental Triggers of Eating
Eating Out of Habit Means Overeating
Environmental Triggers Both Initiate and Maintain Overeating
Hunger Vs. Craving: What’s the Difference?
Craving-Driven Eating vs. Hunger-Driven Eating
Eight Common Environmental Triggers of Eating
The Toolbox: How to Control Cravings and Triggers
The Four Strategies of Craving-Control
Trigger Control: Trigger Avoidance and Desensitization
Regaining Control
Chapter 2: Becoming Mindful of the Process of Eating
One-Track Minds
Pragmatic Hedonists
When You Eat, Eat: Anti-Distraction Exercises
The Four Mindfulness Targets
Mindfulness of Smell
Mindfulness of the Movements of Eating
Becoming Mindful of the Meal Script
Becoming Mindful of the Meal Setting
Developing a Habit of Paying Attention to the Process of Eating
Chapter 3: Becoming Mindful of Fullness
When Should You Stop Eating?
A Continuum of Fullness: Three Stopping Points
Fullness, a Bodily Sensation; Satisfaction, a State of Mind
Speed of Eating and Fullness: The Waiting-Game Solution
Preloading on Smells, Liquids, and Umami
Sensory-Specific Satiety
Being Stuffed Doesn’t Have to Mean Weight Gain
Preventing Hunger by Maintaining Fullness
Committing to a Definition of Fullness
Chapter 4: Mindful Emotional Eating
How Did Chicken Soup Become the Remedy for the Soul?
Five Principles of Mindful Emotional Eating
Overeating Vs. Binge-Eating
A Note on Perfection
Chapter 5 Meaningful, Not Mouthful
Eating as an Expression of Values
Eating as Existential Rescue
Mindful Eating as Appreciation of Abundance
Mindful Eating as an Opportunity for Spirituality
Developing Your Own Philosophy of Eating
What Does Your Eating Philosophy Imply?
Breaking Down the Recipe of the Book
Contrary to the implication of the book title, "Eating the Moment" is about more than just the Buddhist know-how of mindfulness. Throughout the book I use the term "mindfulness" both in a classic Western sense of awareness and in its Eastern/Buddhist sense of "mindfulness" as a specific attentional technique. In fact, the book builds on 5 key components, each of which references one or more schools of clinical thought. So, let's take a look...
Part 1 deals with mindfulness of the environmental triggers of eating: the idea is to help you become more aware of the eating triggers that switch on the eating zombie. After differentiating craving from hunger, the discussion focuses on eight different types of environmental triggers that cue us to eat. Following the discussion of triggers, I offer you a comprehensive toolbox that consists of a) trigger control and b) craving control skills. More specifically, I offer two trigger control techniques: trigger avoidance and trigger desensitization. I then offer you four craving control strategies: distraction, relaxation, self-talk, and mindfulness, along witha generous helping ofawareness-building and habit-forming exercises to help you cultivate skill-power. This part of the book is a combination of elements from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure/Response-Prevention Therapy (ERP), Dialectical-Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Acceptance-Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Buddhist Psychology (mindfulness as a craving control strategy).
Part 2 focuses on increasing the mindfulness of the actual process of eating. This part is primarily influenced by Buddhist style mindfulness.
Part 3 focuses on increasing the mindfulness of the sensations of fullness and satiety. I offer a discussion of various aspects of fullness/satiety, sensory-specific satiety, pre-loading on liquids and smell. I offer a continuum-based definition of fullness: from a Moment of Hunger Relief to the Onset of Pleasant Fullness to the Onset of Unpleasant Fullness. I also offer you to redefine fullness in terms of mind-fullness, inviting you to shift from unpleasant fullness of body to the pleasant expansion of mind, by measuring fullness not in mouthfuls but in mindfuls, not in servings but in savorings. This part of the book builds on both Western-style and Eastern-style minfulness of eating sensations.
Part 4 of the book offers a Humanistic/Harm Reduction approach to emotional eating. I validate and normalize the potential coping utility of emotional eating (eating as a way of coping) and offer you to get more coping out of emotional eating. This is essentially a lesser-evil strategy. If you are not able to completely cut out emotional eating right off the bat (and chances are you aren't, otherwise you wouldn't be shopping for a book of this sort), I offer you a process of increasing your sense of control over emotional eating by making it more effective.
Part 5, the final part of the book, offers you to experiment with Meaningful-not-Mouthful eating. In particular, I offer you to first examine your existential priorities and to choose an eating philosophy that is inline with your philosophy of eating. This part is essentially an application of the existential therapy called Logotherapy to the problem of eating.
So, as you see, the conceptual recipe of the book is a synthesis of Buddhist Psychology, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Harm Reduction Therapy,Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, AcceptanceCommitment Therapy, Existential-Humanistic/Logotherapy. These are, in a manner of speaking, the six "whales" on which this books stands to support your eating modification endeavors.
Pavel Somov, Ph.D.
Copyright 2008