I’ll start with the conclusion-Eating Guidelines:

“1. Eat when you are hungry

2. Eat sitting down in a calm environment.  This does not include the car.

3.  Eat without distractions which may include: radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music.

4.  Eat what your body wants.

5.  Eat until you are satisfied.

6.  Eat (with the intention of being full) in full view of others.

7.  Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.”

I took particular note that the list did not include eating when you are sad, stressed, tired or bored but “Eat when you are hungry”.  A simple and basic concept that I would love to really embrace.  

I review these guidelines and I think about my previous day: I consumed breakfast and lunch at my desk while grading student’s papers (a stressful task in itself).  I did sit down in the dining room to eat a well balanced supper with my husband.  But we had a short dining window because he was going to spend the evening doing laundry and already had his laptop set up to work at home for the evening.  I thought that I had to be somewhere at 7 in order to get some assistance for a writing deadline that is looming.   We did have a pleasant chat but we did not pause to make eye contact, take a sip of anything or savour the wholesome fare.  And I write a blog about celebrating life with food!  I wasn’t celebrating my husband or our time together or my blessed life-I was going through the motions so that I could get onto the next task on my to-do list!

Geneen Roth’s New York Times bestseller also revealed some other thought provoking notions for me based on her premise that “the way that you eat is based on your core beliefs about being alive.”  “Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning, transformation and yes even God.”  I would beg to differ with this last premise but won’t go into it here.

If you have a healthy relationship with food, if you don’t despise any part of your body, if you don’t obsess about getting on and off the scale, if you don’t exercise obsessively, this book is not for you.  But if you said yes to any of the “don’t” items above, this book will help you look at what’s “eating” you.

We only have one life and one body-we are precious and lovely.  Celebrate that!

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