Recipe for Non-Mindful Eating

There are five key steps in the process of Non-Mindful Eating. I unfortunately am proof that these steps work! If you carefully, or even lackadaisically follow these steps, you are certain to have a non-satisfying meal, pack on the pounds and get mired in depression!

1. Get too hungry. You can easily get this way if you skip breakfast, wait too long to eat or put yourself on some crazy restrictive diet. You may know this feeling – growling stomach, slight headache, maybe even slight weakness from drop in blood sugar. Even before you make it to the car to head home, you are developing food fantasies.

2. As you think about your next meal, focus on a trigger food. While trigger foods may differ for all of us, the result is the same – we go unconscious as we eat it, eat more of it than is reasonable, eat it too rapidly, and crave more the next day or next meal or next hour. Trigger foods for me include sweets of most any kind but candy in particular and potato chips and dip (YUCK! I know – how disgustingly perfect that combo is! – Salt and Fat). To become expert at Non-Mindful Eating, I need to keep these foods readily available.  

3. Make more food than you need. Last night in my Non-Mindful Eating activity, I made black bean nachos. Now, there is nothing really wrong with black bean nachos, even with light sour cream added.  My problem arose when I pulled out the round pizza pan I use to make them. Rather than make ½ the tray full, I very rapidly justified that I had not eaten enough lunch and it would even out. So, basically I made enough nachos for 2 dinner-size servings. I think I even thought for a moment, I’ll just put a half on a plate for my dinner. But instead, when they were bubbly, I took the whole pan and ate right off of it!

4. Sit in front of the TV while eating. Pull up your chair, your TV Tray (Why’d they invent those things?), or just bend over and eat off the coffee table or your lap. Scan the channels, using the remote of course to prevent burning calories. (Does anyone remember when we used to have to get up to change the channel?) You have two options here, you can scan through your entire meal or find a show that intrigues you but be sure to “Pay No attention to the woman eating” behind her curtain of non-mindfulness. Before you know it, the food will be gone and since you had little awareness that you were eating, you’ll find yourself craving more even though you just ate two meals worth!

5. Probably the most important step to Non-mindful Eating happens after you’ve eaten. To do a most excellent job of Non-Mindful Eating, you must get out the big baseball bat in the closet and bang yourself over the head with what a slothful, rotten, worthless human being you are since you ate this meal that way and Give Up! Decide right then and there that you’ll never get it right, you’re hopeless and OMG “What’s the Use?”. This final step assures that you’ll continue eating non-mindfully to cover the self-hate you are fueling. Non-Mindful Eating is very difficult to perfect, so you just have to keep trying!

WHEW! Are you bummed out enough in reading this? I am! And this is the process that I and so many of us emotional and binge eaters engage in over and over and over. So, What’s the antidote?

Recipe for Return to Mindful Eating:

1. Honesty. Be honest with yourself about what just happened and how you feel about it.

2. Plan to begin again. Better yet, just begin again now. Begin again to commit to Mindful Eating. Begin again eating mindfully aware of your process and the foods you eat.

3. Be kind and gentle with yourself. If you struggle with this, consider how a loving friend might respond to your faltering in your commitment. Or choose someone like the Dalai Lama or Jesus or Mother Teresa or another person who loves so well and ask “How would he/she respond?” Offer yourself this level of kindness as you continue on your path.

I recommend you use the Recipe for Non-Mindful Eating sparingly. There may be days or moments when these choices make sense but as a long term strategy they result in self-loathing and numbness. No Way to go through life! I recommend you honor yourself and your human-ness and return to mindful, supportive eating when you stray off course. That’s my plan for the day!

JME Affirmation for the Day:

Each day I begin anew with my commitment to eating mindfully and healthfully. Each day I grow in love and respect for myself.