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Do you go all day without eating, perhaps only drinking coffee, only to gorge yourself on anything that doesn't move once you get home?

Do you virtuously dine on cardboard-tasting, calorie-controlled, low-fat, low-carb meals for a period of time, ultimately leading you to binge on all those foods of which you were depriving yourself?

Trying to be "good," do you say NO to the luscious chocolate lava cake, just to go home and mindlessly consume two or three pints of Ben and Jerry's?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you're well acquainted with Ravenous.

Ravenous is a scary-looking, dark, furry creature with huge, dagger-like teeth.  It’s mean, ornery, and moody, with a mind of its own and is about the size of the King Kong with an appetite to match. While masquerading as your best friend, it comes out and takes over... pretty much anytime it feels like it, rendering you helpless and powerless to cater to whatever it desires.  Residing “within,” Ravenous has access to all of your “weaknesses” and will use them against you.  Since it is very possessive, it won’t allow you to have any other friends, isolating you and making you feel that its friendship is all you need to feel complete and fulfilled. 

Starving, depriving, and disrespecting your body ensures you a relationship with Ravenous.  In fact, it can easily lead to an “inner marriage,” though a dysfunctional one.  At first, being with Ravenous feels so good, but after a very short while you realize you made a big mistake by accepting its friendship. You discover that a friendship with Ravenous destines you to a life of high and low drama.

All of this is by way of saying that food is never going to fill the hole of whatever is missing in your life.  Overeating and/or bingeing won’t substitute for a healthy relationship; it will only leave you feeling ironically empty, no matter how full the food has made you feel.  Furthermore, it leads to a barrage of negativity and self loathing which is the abusive nature of Ravenous.

Sadly, some stay unhappily engaged in unhealthy relationships forever because they believe they have no choices.  However, this is not true at all.  Just so you know, Ravenous is most threatened byMindfulness.

In fact …

Mindfulness is the Nemesis of Ravenous

Mindfulness, on the other hand, is a gentle, caring, and compassionate soul who neither needs nor wants to control or own you.  Mindfulness simply wants to be your friend for life and guide you in the most loving, nurturing and healthy ways.  This sensitive being wants to teach you to listen to the voice of your true, physical hunger.  This involves attuning yourself to your body’s signals.  Notice the subtle feelings in your stomach when you’re physically hungry- is it a gnawing feeling? growling? a sense of emptiness?

Knowing the physical sensation of hunger is the first step to being able to mindfully attend to it.

With our busy schedules and the many demands and expectations on us in our everyday lives, we tend to fill our time multi-tasking- even when we eat.  Mindfulness, a wise, patient coach, teaches that to really enjoy food and nourish your body, you have to utilize all of your senses and be fully present when you eat.

§  Simply eat, doing no other activitiy including talking on the phone, answering emails, reading…

§  Use your eyes to visually take in the food, noticing the colors, textures and shapes of the food on your plate. 

§  Smell the aroma of the food.  Does it smell fresh or overly cooked?

§  Taste the food by slowly chewing and extracting all the flavor from it before taking another bite.  Note the lingering taste.

§  Experience the sound of the food as you chew and notice the textural changes

§  Touch the food and notice if it feels smooth, rough, hot, cold

Having Mindfulness as your friend, you will learn the art of being compassionate and non-judgmental toward yourself and your body, enabling you to make peace with both and feel whole-body, mind, and spirit. 

Rather than, calling yourself fat, or focusing on the size of your thighs with disgust or bemoaning the folds of skin on your tummy, be gentle with yourself.  You would never speak to a loved one as harshly as you do to yourself.  Treat yourself as you would your best friend with loving kindness, appreciation, and respect. You have to begin with the negative messages you give yourself.  Catch yourself immediately as you critically exclaim, “I hate my repulsive, fat legs!” See a stop sign, hear yourself yelling, ”Stop” in your head and reframe your negative comment into something non-judgmental, kind, and encouraging like “I appreciate the strength and power of my legs for carrying me from place to place in my life.”  Even if you don’t believe it 100%, give your body positive affirmation.  The more you stop the negativity, the better you will ultimately feel. No one becomes mindful overnight.

Being with Mindfulness is a process that requires some energy and effort since the relationship has to develop slowly in order to truly evolve.  A relationship with Mindfulness is not a “contextual friendship,” one that will fade once you move cities or change jobs; but a true friendship that will last a lifetime.

In learning to decode the hunger language of your body, I’m going to let you in on the secret: Ravenous is trilingual and speaks in Starve, Deprive, and Stuff.  It’s an easy language to acquire but due to its ease, there’s no positive personal growth that comes from knowing it.  Those who speak these languages appear unhappy and internally tortured.  

Conversely, Mindfulness speaks only one language but it is the World’s Expert in it…Attunement.  Learning to speak in Attunement takes time, concentration, and patience but it is well worth your tenacity. Once learned, you will understand the language of true, physical hunger and of inner satisfaction. Using the breath will help you learn to speak in Attunement.  Take 5-10 deep diaphragmatic breaths (belly breaths) and stay focused on the “in breath,” then the “out breath” as much as possible.  Even when your mind wanders into thoughts of what you need to do, daydreams about taking a vacation, or worrying about a troubling interaction with a friend, bring it back to the breath.  Once finished, ask yourself, “Am I physically hungry/” If not, ask what am I hungry for? What am I feeling?  What thoughts are going through my head?  This simple breathing practice of tuning into your own inner process will enable you to be fully present in the moment, another key element of mindful eating.

Those mastering Attunement also learn to hear their own voices so they can nourish and nurture themselves and live according to what is healthiest for their bodies and souls.  Learning the language of Attunement from Mindfulness frees them from the grip of Ravenous so they can discover what is truly fulfilling and what gives their lives meaning.

To me, it’s a no-brainer-Mindfulness seems clearly to be the better choice.  Even if at first Mindfulnessappears not to be your type of friend, be open-minded and listen to its loving, nurturing voice within.

You may be surprised that Attunement is easier for you to pick up than you think.

Allyn St. Lifer has been a therapist in private practice for over 30 years and specializes in teaching clients mindful eating to determine physical hunger and the point of satisfaction.  She is the founder and director ofSlimworks, a mind/body, non-diet approach for managing weight and transforming one’s relationship with food, body and self.  To find out more about Allyn, please visit her website: www.slimworks.com.  She is a regular ShareWIK.com columnist. 

Read other Allyn St. Lifer articles, here. 

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