Update:1 (compulsive eating)

This is a meal I had prepared once for my late father's birthday dinner.I was inspired by the late Julia Child. I love eating meals that are colorful, have a little variety and is healthy along with being tasty.  I don't want to live forever by eating cucumbers and watermelons. 

Its been three days since I decided to discipline myself with my eating routine and so far I have failed quite miserably. I cannot seem to get myself active enough in the morning to eat at appropriate times. When I start eating I  stop long after I'm full, I have this compulsion to keep on eating.

Control it , one would say. But, if you zone out and eat like I do, you don't really realise what you have done till its done. Sometimes when you catch yourself in the act, or your body starts rejecting the food, you shut it down and keep on eating because you don't want to waste it.
Its like  a high, you don't feel like getting off. You wanna ride it till the end. Eating should not be like taking a drug. It should be a moment of meditation and peace and happiness. 

With that in mind, I turn to Buddhism. In Buddhism, the monks practice a technique called mindful eating.If you've ever seen monks eat, you'll see that they eat quietly. They try not to converse with each other during mealtimes. What they do is, they eat mindfully, consciously, they focus on just the act of eating for that time being. They have a lot of very particular eating etiquettes which I don't want to go into right now because there's a lot of it and I just want to focus on the mindful eating part.


 I've read a lot of articles about how consciously eating helps with the feeling of satiety. So,in order to do that, I have to adopt a few practices-

1) stop eating in front of the television.

2) start eating with a spoon or  a fork instead of my hands(Indian custom)  in order to reduce the size of my mouthfuls and eat more slowly.

3) Really taste my food. Eating should be an experience.(although our maid is a terrible cook and eating becomes a very boring and painful experience at times)

4)Not hurry myself between mouthfuls.

5) take at least twenty minutes for each meal. Therefore, eat slowly.Not too slow though ( ain't nobody got time for that)

6)Prepare my mind and body before each meal. I love how Christians say grace before  a meal and I've seen anime where the characters say something like "I humbly accept" with folded hands before digging into their food. I think that's a good idea, a little ritual before meals to alert you body that it is about to receive nourishment. Maybe the ritual could be simply drinking a little water or three deep breaths.

Let's keep it to these six points for now. Lets see how it goes. Tomorrow is a new day and a new chance.