When I eat, I eat; when I sleep, I sleep.
If you are like me, you are literally fed up with diets and diet books. The freshly baked chocolate cake is staring you right in the face. You know that chocolate (cacao) is a superfood. Yet, because the cacao beans are bitter, it is loaded with sugar to sweeten it up. Fortunately, this is deep, dark chocolate, very rich, and the frosting is manageable. If you are like me, you go for it.
Now is the time to enjoy it, to relish every morsel. If a single slice of dessert is going to bring you to ruin, you might as well relish every moment!
Transform Your Relationship with Food
We, Americans, have as strange a relationship with food as we have with sex. Although we have a superabundance of it, we treat it as desperately scarce. We place an endless number of rules around consuming it, and whenever we violate one of those rules, we beat ourselves up.
We take it all so seriously that it hardly ever dawns on us that food, like sex, could be fun and actually good for us.
While you might think that we are the food we eat, as every one of our cells is entirely replaced within a year or so, we are actually the Source of all food. We are God being human for a time. We are not made for food; food is made for us. As we consume it, it is only appropriate that we remember our Higher Self, and give thanks for it.
As life is a precious gift, so food is a precious gift. In indigenous cultures, tribal people would give thanks for the animals and plants that gave up their life that they might eat.
One need only think of the Sioux Indians who used every last scrap of the buffalo, including its hooves.
Think of all the cows, pigs, sheep, turkey and chickens, not to mention all the big and small fish, and the delicious creepy, crawly crustaceans along the sea floor. Think even of the lettuce leaves and the cabbages that give it all up for us.
Diet No More, Binge No More
I propose an end to all dieting and bingeing. Without a diet, there is no bingeing. If everything is lawful, you need not be obsessed about any one kind of food. Diets hardly ever work, apart from the obsessive-compulsive types, because they are meant to be broken.
That is the whole fun of bingeing, to cheat on your diet. The Catholics refined this to perfection with Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, in preparation for Ash Wednesday and lent in anticipation of Good Friday and Easter. If you are going to forfeit meat for a few weeks, you might as well live it up, first!
Most foods can be enjoyed in moderation.
The issue lies with heavily processed and refined foods, which comprise much of the SAD (Standard American Diet). Dr. Mark Hyman, America’s pre-eminent authority on blood sugar management, recommends we all go to the “Farmacy,” whole food, farm-fresh markets.
Many of the previously prohibited foods, such as meat and seafood, with lots of protein and fat, are actually encouraged today. Dr. Hyman just published a book on getting thin by eating fat: Eat Fat, Get Thin.
If this sounds like a fraud, it is important to know that President Bill Clinton consulted Dr. Hyman, who has helped prolong his life. Dr. Hyman started out in college studying Eastern philosophy, and became a yoga instructor before becoming an M.D.!
Go For Nutrition
If you put nutrition first, you will begin automatically gravitating towards healthy foods.
For example, heavily processed foods in many fast-food joints and chain restaurants give out a strange scent, which can be extremely alluring to the uninitiated. To people who get accustomed to farm-fresh foods, that same smell can be repulsive. We have become conditioned against our better judgment to compromise.
When you start your day with well-chosen supplements and a healthy breakfast, such as a fresh fruit-and-yogurt shake, you will begin to develop a taste and appetite for so-called healthy food. This may not happen overnight, but it certainly will happen within a few weeks.
Fresh, nutritious food simply tastes better and keeps your energy levels stable all day.
Why not get into the flavor, texture and color of various plants? The same could be said of grass-fed beef and poultry. Many of the cattle and chickens are raised in virtual factories. The beef no longer tastes beefy, and the chicken like real chicken.
A few years back, I exchanged massages with a master masseur in his 70’s with skin as soft as a baby’s. He grew up on a farm before heavy pesticides prevailed, and you didn’t even have to worry if the food was organic. In those days, you literally had to work at making yourself sick. Food was healthy.
Eat to Eat
One Zen mastered was asked what to do when you are enlightened. He replied to eat when you eat and sleep when you sleep. The disciple countered with the assertion that we all do that. The master responded that when most people eat, they think of 10,000 things. When they sleep, they think of 10,000 things.
Why not try just eating, just drinking. As an experiment, when you are hungry, take a small portion of your favorite food and stop everything you are doing, even talking at the table.
Chomp into the food and relish the texture, flavor, and aroma. Relax. Eat in harmony while celebrating your healthy being. Enjoy yourself. Get into conscious eating. Just eat!
You are going to eat when you eat, and stop eating when you stop eating. No matter what. Why don’t you at least pay attention to the food while you are eating?
The more attention you give, the more likely the experience will be satisfying to you. Every bite sparks a new experience. It might be so satisfying that you are disinclined to stuff yourself. That is the whole point!
Conscious Eating Is Pleasure
When fully enjoyed, well-cooked, well-prepared food is one of the most delightful pleasures of life. In the Great Depression, neighbors would meet in each other’s houses and share gifts… of food. Food, itself, was a gift. Back then, a full quarter of the American people couldn’t find jobs. So they took nothing for granted. They truly appreciated their next meal.
No matter what else might be going on in your life, you may not be burdened down with finding food to put on the table. Currently, America is experiencing obesity as a major challenge to people in every state and city, largely due to its highly processed diet.
It is no accident that Americans have also never been so pressed for time as today, with continuous bombardment of digital media and the necessity for a two-income family. No time to think about what you are actually eating. Just grab anything and consume it.
If Americans, like the French and the Japanese, could simply decide to make food and cuisine an art, they would automatically start losing weight. I have seen precious few French or Japanese men and women overweight, not withstanding the Sumo wrestlers.
Every aspect of eating in both cultures is a finely tuned art, including preparation and setting.
The French also enjoy their desserts; they just don’t overdo it. As a consequence, they have a much lower rate of diabetes.
It’s not about overeating – it’s about eating a balanced meal that makes your taste buds dance and fills you with great energy.
Conscious Eating Is Celebration
When you consciously eat and consciously prepare food, you are celebrating life. It is natural to want to share that experience with friends and family. When we finally awaken from the endless wheel of becoming (Samsara), we shall see that this life is, in its own way, PARADISE. Everything we could ask for has already been provided for us on Planet Earth.
When the first Puritans settled in Massachusetts, and braved the very first winter, they celebrated in the spring with the Native Americans, who shared freely of all the abundance of creation around them. This was the inspiration for America’s most sacred family holiday… Thanksgiving.
Gratitude is one of the greatest secrets of life. Meister Eckhart put it, “If the only prayer you ever say is Thank You, that will suffice.” If the Law of Attraction works at all, it works primarily out of profound gratitude. Our Higher Self remembers and rewards us all abundantly.
Conscious Eating Is Sharing
Every day, over a billion of us struggle for adequate food and clean water. While Earth even today has the capacity to feed us all, the political and economic context in which we live suppressed many people’s ability to survive and thrive. While one thinks first of the continent of Africa, it is true for people on every continent, with the possible exception of Antarctica.
Dr. Deepak Chopra came up with the brilliant idea of giving away food for every pound you lose in his book: What Are You Hungry For? Instead of beating ourselves up for our unconscious eating habits and our bulging stomachs, we could make it a delightful, conscious game.
Start being choosier in what you eat. Chances are, you will spend less and eat less. For every pound you lose, you donate a proportionate amount of food to people in developing nations.
Tony Robbins may have gotten it best in his Basket Brigade, a national program that gives turkey dinners to disadvantaged people on Thanksgiving throughout America. His personal commitment is running to literally tens of millions of families. When Tony was a teenager, his family couldn’t afford to celebrate. Some gracious stranger surprised them all with a big basket of groceries.
Lighten up about food. Choose your food and eat consciously! It’s part of your physical and spiritual healing. We can make a difference in this terrestrial ball of ours by deciding to fully enjoy it, and share it with everyone!
The Joy of Conscious Eating appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.
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