Slow Down, Eat and Be Kind Tuesdays

For the next 8 weeks,  I’m going to focus on an aspect of Marc David’s  The Slow Down Diet – incorporating wisdom form Geneen Roth’s Women, Food and God and Jean Fain’s The Self Compassion Diet.   Though diet is in the title of David’s and Fain’s books – they are not diet books.  They are books filled with information and suggestions on how to reach a healthy weight without the stress most standard diets produce.  The suggestions they provide are more about creating peace with oneself which opens up the mind to possibilities of eating for nourishment.

David’s approach includes 8 steps.   The first is simply to slow down and breathe before eating.  The deep breathing helps relax the body so that it can actually use the nutrients in the food.  (David alleges that when our bodies are under the siege of stress, the digestive system actually shuts down and the body can’t absorb the nutrients).  And in conjunction with the deep breathing,  he advocates slowing down while eating.  This is for two reasons:  1.  Shoveling the food down so fast that you don’t even realize you’ve eaten creates stress in the body.  2.  Slowing down allows you to actually taste what you’re eating – and perhaps decided you don’t like it.

Geneen Roth suggests 7 guidelines on HOW to eat.  The first of which is eat when you are hungry.  Very simple.

And Jean Fain suggests ways to check in with yourself when you want to eat and you’re not hungry.  One of her ways is to visualize talking with a compassionate advisor and soliciting information from that advisor.

So, here’s my take away to practice this week:

1.      Eat when I’m hungry

2.     Take a few deep breaths before and during meals

3.     Eat slowly so I can enjoy my food  - and check my satiation level

4.     Talk to my imaginary friend, er I mean compassionate advisor

And true to my word – I shan’t write about this as the sole purpose of a blog entry again until next week.   I intend to practice these guidelines while living my life and actually engaging in fun and interesting activities – as well as taking care of everyday matters and tonight that means I’ll be pulling off the dried up brown spots on the Million Bells that D helped me save and we left out in the blistering sun for 3 days.  Just when it was starting to look great again, too!