Day 5 - Beck Diet Solution, Eat Slowly

A very challenging task for me personally. But so important for success on the Beck program and beyond. After years of struggling to make this habit, I happened on this helpful book on Amazon, which puts a fun spin on the slow eating challenge by turning it into fun games you can play with your kids, or anybody for that matter!

Once again, we can come up with plenty of excuses as to why we eat fast:

I don't have time to eat slowly.
I like to eat fast.
I don't want to think about that stuff when I'm eating - it just stresses me out!
I have to eat fast so I can get back to taking care of the kids/spouse/dogs/fish...in other words, everybody but me!

How would you answer these excuses back with Helpful Responses?

Eating slowly is another element of the mindful eating we are striving for in Beck, and for the rest of our life. We want to enjoy our food, be satisfied by it, be nourished by it, celebrate living with it! The next time you're eating, take the time to notice how the food feels in your mouth. What does it taste like? What are the textures? How does it make you feel? Does it nourish you?

Beck also offers some other strategies to slow down at the table - for instance, you can use an interval, like this one: http://boxingtimer.org/. Take bites whenever the interval beeper goes off. When I tried this method I started off at 30 second intervals. It feels like being part of a science experiment, but it's a great way to retrain yourself to slow down between bites.

You can also rearrange your eating environment. Set the table with your finest china and best tablecloth if that's what it takes to inspire you to slow down and savor. Why should you only save them for holidays anyway? Celebrate yourself!

By Jeremy Noble from St. Paul, via Wikimedia Commons

Comments

Day 22 - Beck Diet Solution, Say “Oh Well” To Disappointment

Inigo Montoya: Who are you? Man in Black: No one of consequence. Inigo Montoya: I must know... Man in Black: Get used to disappointment. Inigo Montoya: 'kay. The Princess Bride (20th Century Fox 1987) Just as Inigo shrugs off the disappointment of the Man in Black’s declining to reveal his identity and gets right back into the duel, so too must we shrug off those discouragements that go hand-in-hand with losing weight and keep truckin’ down the weight loss trail. It’ll go easier for us if we do. What if we just lay around bellyaching about how horrible it is that we can’t have that donut, can’t eat/drink exactly what everybody else does at parties, can’t just open the fridge and eat whenever we felt like it? How much would we really accomplish that way? Even if we do stick to our plans for a little while under that mindset, we’d be fighting an exhausting battle with ourselves every day and eventually give in. Even the patience an...

Day 18 - Beck Diet Solution, Change Your Definition of Full

Sacha Chua via Flickr Naturally-thin people are usually good at the skill of eating to the point of normal fullness. In general, this means being just as able to take a brisk walk after a meal as before the meal. Eating past fullness doesn’t feel normal to thin people – it feels uncomfortable to them, says BDS. But for people with weight problems, this overfull sensation may actually feel normal for a number of reasons – wanting to prolong the eating experience, taking advantage of food being around, wanting to load up to avoid being hungry between meals, and so on. If you’re worried about getting hungry before your next meal, just remember what we’ve learned about hunger – that it’s never an emergency and that we can withstand the sensations. We have plenty of distractions and anti-craving techniques at our disposal to deal with cravings as well. If you’re triggered to eat more because there’s food sitting around, like at a dinner or party, you c...

The Ogre

By Joseph Jacobs John Dickson Batten [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Shelley and I were friends almost immediately. However her father did not like me. The only reason I can imagine is that my family was too poor for him and that he did not consider me fit to be around his daughter. Despite how her father felt about me, the moments when he was away at work as a lawyer, and when Shelley and I were together were the thrill of my life. We did everything for fun, it seemed like there was nothing we couldn't do, no fun that we couldn't have. Her house was an entire wonderland within itself. An enormous granite-walled mansion, there were four floors of enchanting adventure for us. The first floor held a kitchen where we made all kinds of goodies, an adjacent playroom where we played house, Barbie, watched "It's A Living," "Silver Spoons," "Small Wonder," "Dukes of Hazzard," "Laverne & Shirley," two mag...

Endless Summer Creations

Search This Blog