It takes 40 days to change a habit; or so I’ve been told.  So I am embarking on a journey.  The goal, is, in all honesty, to lose 15 pounds.  I like to pretend it is some nobler goal: health, self awareness, enlightenment.  But honestly, it’s to lose weight.  I could do this by cutting out the new bad food group of the month (I think right now it is carbs or sugar or omega 6’s or something).  Except,  I’ve already tried it & though temporary weight loss occurs-it always comes back.  Besides, I already  don’t eat meat if I don’t know where it comes from: limiting my choices at restaurants enough as it is.

So, already giving up meat at restaurants decreases my options of food groups to give up; carbs, even just refined carbs, would leave me with no options at a restaurant; dairy or eggs would be pretty much impossible.  I would not be able to eat out for forty days, limited my ability to socialize.  Socialization has been an important part of eating in almost every culture, & I am not willing to give it up.  Besides, giving up a food group is not the issue.  If you look at indigenous cultures around the world, you find a huge variety of carb/fat/protein ratios without the ill health effects-or tight jeans.  From people to who eat mostly corn & beans in the Americas, to a high protein diet in Africa, to an 80% fat diet from seal blubber in Greenland.  Yet none of these people suffer from chronic health diseases of the western diet.  It appears the Western diet is the only diet that people should not eat.  So giving up some category of food does not appear to be the answer.

So, what habit am I changing:  The habit has two parts:

1)   I cannot take a bit of food without being present with food while I eat it.

2)   I must stop eating when I no longer have hunger.

This phrase, “when I no longer have hunger”, was the phrase given at the Michael Pollan lecture I attended two days ago.  It is used by the French to determine the when to stop eating.  The phrase has two parts for me.  The first is that instead of being hungry, the French have hunger.  This objectifies hunger and gives the person power over the hunger.  When a person is hungry, it is all consuming, it controls you.  When you have hunger, it separates you from the hunger & allows you to control it.  This is also how you describe hunger in Spanish: Yo tengo hambre.  ( I have hunger).  Not Yo estoy hambre. (I am hungry).  There is a form of yoga called yoga nidra that involves a variety of meditation techniques.  One of these techniques involves taking a feeling, emotion, or thought that you have and changing it from “I am______ “to “ _____is present”.  This separates you from anything you are feeling: pain, cold, anger, fear, even happiness.  You can now control it. 

The second part of the phrase is that you are not full, but no longer have hunger.  What’s the difference?  It is day one for me & I already suspect about 100-200 calories per meal.   Being full is quite different from not being hungry (or having hunger).  It requires much more awareness an attention to (or presence in) the eating process.  I cannot describe it, & it does take some experimentation; but it is definitely before I am full and even sooner than when I am stuffed.

The motivation for this journey a the Michael Pollan lecture I attended last Friday.  Pollan’s philosophy is this: Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants.  I knew this already, but was more inspired by the second rule during this presentation.  The first part I have down, the third is debatable (how much is mostly?), but the second is clearly the reason why I can’t fit into that pair of jeans anymore.  I have heard of similar diets, only eating when you are hungry, and I have dabbed in them for half a day or so.  I never really committed to it though.  Now I am ready.  The idea is not that I will succeed in being present for every single bite, but will develop the habit of being present while eating.