Mindfulness: increase Presence, facilitate Change

An excellent, very helpful book , January 12, 2009

By	(Munich Germany)

I wish I would have found this book years ago. I've been a yo-yo dieter for over 30 years. And I used food to take care of my needs, during stressful situations and to calm me. For me "control" has never worked, there was no way to control my cravings or to control my appetite or even to control my feelings and therefore diets actually have never worked in the long run.

But Dr. Somov has showed me easy to follow ways to be conscious of my cravings and to take care of them or just to let them be. Even though my life is still the same - still enough stress and a huge work load - I dont reach for the cookie bowl anymore and - for the first time in my life since I have been a child I eat according to my needs. I always new that the cure for this eating problem lies within me and Dr. Somov has just showed me the way. Thank you so much for this long-distance therapy, I hope your book will be translated and published all over the world.

 

A Reader-Friendly Guide to Mindful Eating, January 10, 2009

By

With its focus on mindfulness, Eating the Moment presents what is often a missing link in the battle to overcome eating issues. Dr. Somov writes about the important distinction between the typical "sprint" toward weight loss that is so common in dieting approaches and is so often a temporary fix, and a long-term change in lifestyle that results in lasting, healthful change. Somov's writing is smart, funny, and thoughtful. The activities are presented in an easily digestible format that is applicable to a wide range of readers - from those who are interested in changing their eating habits, to those who are interested in understanding more about their relationship with food, to professionals who are looking for creative, effective ways to help their clients.

 

Learning, one bite at a time, December 14, 2008 By (The Ozarks, Arkansas) This is an excellent book for getting conscious about why, when & how one is eating. The exercises are helpful and revealing.

 

Mindful practice, December 12, 2008

By

(NY USA)

This book is for individuals who understand there are no "miracle diets." Rather, it is a sophisticated read, in straightforward language, that proposes that the solutions many individuals use to deal with overeating can become problems of their own. Dr. Somov points out that diets typically are short-term efforts to lose weight, when what is needed is a long-term change in how one lives. Thus, as a part of an effort to increase one's mindfulness, Dr. Somov presents a set of 141 practices to increase our awareness around food and eating. These including noticing what triggers our eating, what foods we crave, even what thoughts and feelings are associated with different types of eating.

 

An engaging, practical guide to mindful eating, November 30, 2008

By

From the inviting cover to the meaningful ending, Eating the Moment is an engaging and very useful book. Somov's style is informative, respectful, and often playful- very enjoyable to read. His suggestions for awareness-building and habit-modifying exercises are diverse enough to provide useful tools for readers of all mindfulness skill-levels. This book is quite valuable, and you can learn a great deal from it, even before experimenting with the exercises. I enthusiastically recommend this book for anyone seeking to develop a more balanced, self-nurturing experience of eating.

 

Helpful & Fun, November 23, 2008

By	(Arkansas)

As a long-term (30 + years) on-again, off-again dieter, I have read more than a few self-help books on the subject of eating. "Eating The Moment" not only provides practical exercises, it is also fun to read! The feeling that you are having a conversation with the author makes it easy to take the suggested mindfulness exercises and apply them to your own situation, whether it be addictive behavior with food or simply that, like me, you really, REALLY like food! Thank you, Dr. Somov, for new insights into so many aspects of our relationships with the foods we eat. Now I am thinking more about the 'Why?' of my eating.

 

Mindful eating: key to empowerment and healthy living, November 18, 2008

By	(Pittsburgh, USA)

In his well-thought out and well-articulated book, "Eating the Moment: 141 mindful practices to overcome overeating one meal at a time," Pavel G. Somov elucidates on the phenomenology of eating from an inside out perspective. His invitation to practice mindful eating is written in a succinct and irresistibly persuasive style. The practices he suggests to overcome overeating are practical and experiential. More importantly, they are empowering: they are designed to turn on self-awareness rather than raise self-consciousness. The pedagogical value of his mindful eating practices appeal to all consumers of food. Somov's expertise in this realm stems from a healthy blend of his own practice as a clinical psychologist in helping clients deal with addictions and his acumen of contemporary culture's challenges vis-à-vis eating and food.
- Aloysius Joseph PhD

 

Elevated Awareness, November 17, 2008

By

Pavel Somov has poured his years of practical experience as a clinical Psychologist focusing on addictive behaviors into his latest book; "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time". Part psychology, part physiology and part scientific exercise, Eating the Moment seeks to elevate the awareness of readers through a unique approach to attentive eating. This is not a diet book, per say, in that its focus is on the readers perception of food and the reasons behind why we eat... and often, over eat. The 141 Practices range from simple and thought provoking that can be performed at the moment of reading to the complex, sometimes bordering on laconical, that actually go the furthest in elevating the readers awareness. At its core, Eating the Moment is an Eastern style approach to what is a Western style problem. Further, it revives a perspective long lost for many developed countries in which food is always as readily available as the next drive through window, in that it strives to make the reader aware of bodily signals (physiological) of the need to eat vs. environmental (psychological) or even Pavlovian triggers learned over a lifetime of over abundance and eating on auto-pilot.

 

Mind-Centered Path To Healthy Eating, November 7, 2008

By

-

Pavel G. Somov's Eating the Moment offers a fresh mind-centered approach to healthy eating and weight control. Vastly departing from the standard denials of diet tactics, Somov's playful book guides us through a series of creative and permissive experiments in food-related mindfulness. We are thereby brought to experience first hand that it is truly the mind that eats and that only the mindful mind is capable of eating appropriately in the modern world. Eating the Moment teaches us how to obtain that mind. Kudos to Somov for this highly original work illuminating the nitty-gritty on a key and underexplored aspect of healthy eating.

 

A Great Read!!!, October 28, 2008

By	(Buffalo, NY)

Pavel G. Somov cuts to the core of people's unhealthy patterns of eating in his book, "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time." Dr. Somov's training as a counseling psychologist and experience in working with people trying to overcome addictive behaviors makes him a credible and authentic voice for those struggling to overcome their issues with eating. His easy-to-follow practices are based on the Buddhist principal of mindfulness and are not only clinically relevant, but are practically based and can be used as a foundation for any eating regime.

Endorsements/Reviews for

 

“Eating the Moment is a quick, enjoyable read full of creative, clever exercises and insightful, thought-provoking text. Rather than being shamed into deprivation, readers are taught original exercises to help them learn about their palates and manage their appetites. Who knew that weight control could be so fun and empowering?”

 

—Dina Cheney, author of Tasting Club

 

“In Eating the Moment, psychologist Pavel Somov gives you the practical tools you need to reap the rewards of eating more mindfully. Read it and discover how to have a relationship with food that is smarter, healthier, more conscious, and enjoyable.”

 

—Deborah Kesten, MPH, author of The Enlightened Diet

 

“Somov is one of the most creative psychologists around. He is knowledgeable about research-based and effective therapy techniques. He is aware of Eastern philosophies, and Buddhism in particular. And he is a productive therapist who knows how to translate knowledge into personal action for clients. All of these gifts are evident in Somov's book, Eating the Moment, which is not only informative, not only good reading, but also tremendously helpful in the most difficult area of behavior change—losing and keeping off weight.”

 

—Stanton Peele, Ph.D., JD, author of Seven Tools to Beat Addiction and Addiction-Proof Your Child

 

“Eating the Moment is a thoughtful feast for those who want to understand the psychology of eating and how to overcome mindlessness with food. The 141 eating practices are easy-to-grasp appetizers for becoming more aware, overcoming craving, and transforming your experience with food. If you have ever wanted a primer on eating skills that you never learned at home or in school, this book is an excellent place to start.

 

—Donald Altman, author of Meal by Meal and Art of the Inner Meal

click here to see the review article in Foreword Mag Jan/Feb 2009 issue.

The practice of mindfulness (full awareness of the present moment), is used to treat a multitude of health and psychological difficulties. Here, the author, a private psychologist who regularly evaluates people who are considering gastric bypass surgery, promotes mindful eating. With a doctorate in counseling psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Somov has developed a mindful-eating program based on effective techniques for his clients. His 141 exercises apply not only to very overweight individuals, but also to anyone desiring to adopt a more conscious and healthy eating lifestyle.


The book is arranged flexibly, so as to be either read cover-to-cover or randomly. If readers choose to skip around, the exercises are labeled with ei-ther an AB (an awareness-building level) or an HM (a habit-modifying level) or both. The exercises are based on four reasons why people engage in over-eating: mindlessness of environmental triggers, of the eating process, of feeling full, or of eating for emotional reasons.


Full and present awareness is useful in controlling cravings. By merely noticing something without becoming attached to it, individuals can achieve “disidentification.” With food cravings specifically, mindfulness reveals that craving is a transient state of mind, not the mind itself. “Yes, it is a part of you, but it’s not all of you,” the author points out. No one should strive to block thoughts of food, instead they should recognize them as mere sensations. In short, the author maintains, “mindfulness is a form of controlling by letting go of control.”


Offbeat exercises are designed to break automatic behavior associated with food. The author asks readers to pack together pieces of a carrot cake and hurl the chunks at a tree. Although afterwards a carrot cake might scream “eat me,” it might also start to signal “throw me.” The author suggests that to broaden this exercise, readers should invent creative manners to interact with favorite foods “so that stuffing your face with it is no longer the only fun option at your disposal.”


As a final exercise, the author suggests developing a personal eating philosophy, including the purpose of eating and when to start and stop eating, but he does not dictate any specific terms, recognizing that individuals’ goals will differ. Much more than just a workbook for obese people, this collection of exercises will be useful for many who just want to lose ten pounds. (November)

Review by: Beth Hemke Shapiro

Readers' Reviews

http://crimsoncoconut.blogspot.com/2009/03/move-over-dr-phil-here-comes-dr-somov.html

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=021601&postID=111459

http://gonzogastro.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/i-have-never-felt-such-frustration-or-lack-of-self-control/