“Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food by Jan Chozen Bays

I had surgery on my gums in February. Let’s be honest, nobody likes to have dental surgery.  But as the weeks and then days lead up to my appointment, I because almost giddy with excitement. My brain filled with the magical thinking that as the result of having stitches in my mouth for two weeks, my weight would suddenly drop down to the dream weight I once was in 1994 when I had the stomach flu. The surgery went well, and that night I began a diet of soup and tea. As I sipped and slurped my way through each meal , I felt a sense of superiority, as if I would never need to eat solid food again. However, within only a few days, I started eating pretzels on the other side of my mouth, away from the stitches. I was both happy and disappointed in my crafty mastication. Pretzels then proved to be the gateway food to other things like rice cakes, taco chips, nuts and then the crack of all snack foods – Wheat Thins. I quickly fell back into my old habit of unconscious eating. “Mindful Eating” by doctor and meditation teacher Jan Chozen Bays is a wonderful book about how you can teach yourself to eat with pointed purpose again. She talks about diet trends that came and went, cultural food differences and even the habit we now all have carrying around water bottles, perhaps needlessly. She offers not only insights into how to eat better, but also tips on how to slow down. She suggests using chops sticks or eating with your non-dominate hand in an effort to slow down. This thoughtful self-help book paints a very practical picture. We all just need to take a breath, slow down and eat more deliberately. Smell. Taste. Think. Feel. Unfortunately, that there are no short cuts when it comes to diet and exercise. The goal is to learn to balance the two in a perfect equilibrium, by being more mindful. To purchase this book on Amazon click here.