Mindless eating issues come in a variety of packages

Cigarettes and chocolate milk - these are just a couple of my cravings....If I should buy jellybeans, have to eat them all in just one sitting.  Everything it seems I like's just a little bit sweeter, a little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me.

You may recognize these as lines from a Rufus Wainwright* song, and not an excerpt from my mindful eating journal.  I guess I could have written them, except I've never smoked. Rufus is a skinny guy.  But just like you or me, he's clearly got some mindless eating issues. 

Why can't I stop eating jellybeans?

There are 2 kinds of people out there: those who like Rufus Wainwright, and those who don't.  Joke.  The 2 kinds are actually intuitive and controlled eaters.  I've previously referred to these as "eat to live" vs. "live to eat" people.  If you're reading this blog, you're either in the second camp, or you are my sweetheart.  People in the second camp are much more likely to have food issues.  To learn more about this concept, check out this fantastic TED talk.

I know 2 different people who are food-hoarders.  So much so that it makes them socially awkward in certain settings (although I don't think they realize that, so I hope they're not reading this!)  I'm trying to figure out why they're like that.  They are both very fit people.  They both come from well-to-do homes.  They both make enough money to feed themselves.  What's up with them?  Obviously it's something deep down that they're probably not even aware of.   Kind of like most mindless eating issues.  So, are they in the first camp, or the second?  I haven't a clue.

Despite being a pretty intuitive eater for a lab, my dog M displayed a bit of this mindless food-hoarding behaviour today.  I'm looking after a passive, almost pathetic dog, named B.  To try to perk them both up, I gave each a very special cookie. (You can blame your parents for your food issues if they did this with you.  Another joke. Do you actually know a parent who hasn't done this?)  

Why do I eat my cookies so fast?

Anyway, B just let his cookie loll out of his mouth as he continued to melt into my floor in a hairy heap.  M, on the other hand, chowed into his with gusto.  While still chewing half of his, dropping the other half on the floor, he went after B's cookie too.  No mystery as to what's up there.

It's none of my business why my 2 pals are food-hoarders.  I'm mostly curious.  And, as practitioners of mindful eating, we can be equally curious about our own idiosyncratic eating habits.  What's up with them?  You probably won't write a beautiful song about them like Rufus did, but you might be illuminated.

*If you don't know Rufus Wainwright, or even if you do and you're in the first camp, you really should check out his version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.  Not as good as kd lang's, but way up there.