Shamrock Shake-Up

I do love a Shamrock Shake.  You know, from McDisgusting's.  They are so minty and sweet and creamy and refreshing.  And chemically.  And sweet.

Although my mindful eating practice has been a little lacklustre lately, I am proud I have resisted the lure of the Shamrock Shake for 2014.  Instead, I was inspired to try "mindful substitution", as Dr. Jan Chozen Bays calls it.

You see, we can't deny the fact that we have cravings.  "It does no good to stifle them; they just go underground where they can cause mischief.  It does no good to indulge them; they just gain strength", Dr. Bays says.  Instead, we can recognize them for what they are, understand where they came from or what they are signalling to us, and mindfully deal with them in a variety of ways.  One of these methods is mindful substitution.

My shamrock shake craving was purely a product of highly effective marketing by a massive corporation.  And of high school years spent in a small northern Ontario town with absolutely nothing going on in March.  After my friends and I were done checking out the SAAN store and BiWay (that's the proto-dollar store for you young folk) at our infamous mall, we'd walk down the highway to McD's for a Shamrock Shake - the highlight of our weekend.  No wonder that 20+ years later a glimpse of a green billboard can short-circuit my rational brain.  The seasonal orange-flavoured McDonald's shake doesn't have the same grip - probably because it came out in the summer when we were at the beach instead. 

I really really did not want to get sucked into buying a Shamrock Shake this year.  The last time I had one I was in the US, where, to my total disgust, they topped the thing off with whipped topping and a maraschino.  I scraped that garbage off, but I still ended up with a sad belly full of toxic cement.  As one generally does when one eats at McD's.  Those were the dark, pre-mindful eating days of early 2013.

And yet, let's not kid ourselves - when the thought of a Shamrock Shake has taken hold of one's mind, is a nice cup of mint tea really going to cut it?  No, it's not, for this fledgling mindful eater.

As I've mentioned before I like to be creative in the kitchen.  So I thought if I brewed some really strong mint tea and froze it into ice cubes, and then blended that with almond milk, a bit of maple syrup, a banana, and half an avocado, I'd have my own McMindful Shake.

I give the McMindful Shake top points for texture, healthiness, and minty-ness, and for satisfying the Shamrock Shake urge.  It left no odd oily post-shake mouth-feeling, and it did not punish my belly.  I did not gulp it down in one long slurp.  I had lots of time to anticipate its deliciousness since the mint cubes needed to freeze solid.  It definitely lost points in the flavour department though - a little too much avocado, a regrettable lack of vanilla.  You can be the judge of the visual appeal.  Regardless, it was pretty yummy, and my Shamrock Shake inklings have dissolved. 

So, on a mindful substitution success scale, it gets an 8.  Not bad!

March 2015 Update: Mindful eating success!  The Shamrock Shake has no appeal to me whatsoever this year!!  I crave it not.  I even sort of talked a friend into trying one today (it's OK - she's one of those "intuitive eaters").  I went into McDonald's with her, saw the marketing, saw her shake, and...nothing.  It didn't even register in the deep brain recesses where cravings are spawned.

Let your body do the shopping

Well.  THAT was interesting.

I just walked down to the neighbourhood deli to get something delicious and vegetabley for supper.  Disappointingly, they were out of brussels sprouts.  So I just started wandering around the store looking for something that appealed to me.  I ended up picking up some Bufala Maple Yogurt (no surprise there), a nice fresh store-made Greek salad (so lazy, but made sense), and a can of mackerel fillets (????).

 


You tempt me not. Tonight.

TRUE FACT: I even started down the aisle with the Coco Camino chocolate bars, but my body had no interest tonight (see, chocolate is NOT the boss of me).

Wandering around a grocery store to see what you are drawn towards is an actual mindful eating exercise, meant to help you tune into "cellular hunger".  This is not to be done on an empty stomach.  I spontaneously did the exercise in the store tonight, and I'm glad that I did.  I rarely buy fish, but I know it's good for me and I know Canadian mackerel is a sustainable seafood.  It was delicious on my salad.  My body is happy now.

Of course, I may also have been subconsciously influenced by *Michael Pollan's "In Defence of Food", which I just finished reading.  This is not a mindful eating book; it's an eater's manifesto.  Pollan's aim is to help people reclaim their health and happiness as eaters by exposing the aberration that is the Western diet, and by providing some simple guidelines on what and how to eat.  He champions real food (as opposed to engineered food-like substances, or fud as one of my clever friends calls it).  Like many mindful eating authors, he notes that when we eat real food and pay attention to our body's signals, we no longer crave crappy junk like no-fat instant pudding.  Instead we crave mackerel fillets and brussels sprouts while shunning the Panama extra dark.  It's almost like magic.  Except for the part where I have to remember to try to be mindful every day to actually reap the benefits.


Michael Pollan's "Eater's Manifesto"

*Michael Pollan is a super-smart contrarion.  Learn more about his books and other writings here.  If you haven't heard of him yet, you must not be a granola-type nerdy biologist who likes to garden.
 

Sometimes mindless eating is OK; judgment never is

A few days ago I travelled to a dreary town with no redeeming qualities* for a work meeting.  At the end of the meeting a colleague recommended we check out the baked treats at a local cafe on the way out of town.  "Their brownies are to die for!" she promised. 

Dreary town's redeeming feature.

What do you know?  This town now has a redeeming feature.  The cafe was charming, with friendly staff and a countertop full of fresh-baked treats.  The obscene brownies had a chocolate chip cookie base and a thick, dense brownie centre topped with a half-inch layer of icing.  They weighed about a pound each.  I requested the largest one.

"It's also important to understand that mindful eating includes mindless eating", Jan Chozen Bays says in her book (see side panel).  This is the first mindful eating book that I read, and that phrase was the one I remembered most often for the first few months of my attempt at mindful eating.  Funny how thinking "it's OK for me to eat this massive amount of food when I'm not hungry because I acknowledge that I am doing it mindlessly" didn't really change my eating patterns.

Back to today's brownie.

I may have mentioned before that chocolate is not the boss of me.  I may even have been a little righteous about that declaration.  So why did I buy that colossal brownie and then eat the whole thing in the span of 10 minutes in the car on the way home, while talking to my coworker AND driving?  Why did I make such a mindless -  and ultimately unsatisfying and slightly nauseating - choice? 

I wasn't actually having a chocolate craving, and I definitely wasn't hungry.  Our colleague planted a seed in my brain, and I let it take root and get watered by several factors.  I was tired.  It was the low point of the afternoon (2:45 pm - you kill me). I hadn't had a coffee all day.  I told myself this was my monthly over-the-top treat.

When Jan Chozen Bays talks about mindless eating, she's not talking about a Get Out of Jail Free card.  She's talking about the times when you choose to eat your food without fully appreciating it, for practical reasons.  Eating that brownie, at that time and in that way, was not the best choice I've made in the past few months, and I didn't have a good reason for making it.  But judging myself is not going to help; in fact, feeling guilty leads down a dangerous path.  For a moment in the store I worried that I would slip into my old daily cookie/chocolately treat habit, just because I was buying one brownie. Before I learned about mindful eating, that might have been true. 

Now I have more conscious control over my food choices.  I didn't fully enjoy that brownie, and I felt yukky after I ate it.  It's kind of like Pavlov's dog again, but in reverse.  When I have treats like that, I don't feel good afterwards.  When I take the time to enjoy each bite of a treat and stop when I've had enough, I feel good.  So, with this huge, complex, human brain that I've been training for years through yoga, meditation, and other means, I can make those connections each time.  And, I always have the option of making my next food choice a healthy, satisfying, and mindful one.  I love this quote from the Centre for Mindful Eating: "Remember that when you feed yourself, you are feeding your life.  Make wise choices so that you can grow into the person you were meant to be".

*I apologize for the hurt feelings of anyone who recognizes their town in this post.  I don't take back what I said though.  I have never come to your town without getting lost or feeling a derelict, gloomy vibe.  I do like the look of your downtown yoga studio. 

Chocolate really ISN'T the boss of me

But it definitely used to be.  I love it! (A rare trait in a woman, I know.)  I thought I NEEDED it during the afternoon lull, during monthly hormone rampages, or whenever it was present within a 50 meter radius. 

While mindful eating is NOT about dieting or using willpower to restrict food choices, I have found that seriously cutting back on processed sugar helped reset my brain and body so that I could take control of my relationship with the beloved chocolate.  For the first time in my entire life, chocolate has a lifespan in my home.  I've had a bag of dark chocolate squares in my kitchen for a month, and there are still at least 10 left.  In fact, the bag's sitting next to me right now, and it's not even calling my name.

If you, too, have been a slave to chocolate, you will appreciate what a coup this is.  In university I had a skinny roommate, German Nat, who used to leave half a chocolate bar (of the good German variety) sitting in the fridge for days at a time.  My normal roommates and I were astonished, infuriated, and tortured by this bizarre behaviour.  Now *I* am German Nat, and I'm so pleased with myself.

There's not one particular mindful eating practice that has caused this miraculous transformation, but breaking my sugar addiction was key.  I am convinced that processed sugar is an addictive, toxic substance.  You will be too if you check out this and this.  And I'm not even getting into the environmental implications of how it's produced.  

After not having it at all for a few weeks, I now try to have less than 6.5 teaspoons or 26 grams of added sugar per day, as recommended in Nutrition Action.  It's really not that hard once you try it.  I've done a lot of cleanses where you can't have sugar, fruit, alcohol, wheat, honey, or fun.  That's hard.  Saying no to treats and processed foods isn't so bad.  I did find that increasing my fruit intake helped.  So did eating a few chips once in a while, actually.  Our bodies do need fat, and chips don't hold the same addictive allure for me.  Taking this approach wipes your palate and endocrine system clean, letting you set a new baseline for your tastebuds.

I can't be too annoyingly smug here though - there is still Bufala Maple Yogourt. Best to keep that out of the house for now...

Rome wasn't built in a day...

...and dismantling a lifetime of food habits and hangups won't happen overnight, either.  A reassuring thought, no?  No need to beat myself up when I forget (every single day) to try to eat mindfully.  Baby steps are good enough for me. 

I started my new mindful eating approach by writing out some of the tips that I found most resonant, and keeping them in a jar on the kitchen counter.  Things like:

• slow down and enjoy
• is a cup of tea what you really want?
• let yourself experience emptiness
• fully love all treats

Here are a couple of practices I've been trying each time I eat (when I remember):

• Put down the fork or spoon between each bite 
• Pay attention to what your body, rather than your ingrained habit mind, is asking for

There are many, many, many, many mindful eating tips and practices.  Your habits, patterns, and deep dark food issues will determine which ones really click for you.  You might be surprised.  I certainly am each time I realize that I have the next forkful of food waiting at the door before I've even finished chewing, swallowing, and experiencing what's already in my mouth. I had no idea I was a shoveller.  I've also found it quite satisfying to listen to my biological hunger, rather than my craving/habit hunger.

Craving/habit hunger: It's Tuesday.  You know what that means.

Me: Tell me.

Craving/habit hunger: You should get a mocha latte.  You'll be going by the coffee shop.  You haven't had one since last Tuesday.  They're so delicious.

Me: Good idea!  I love that ritual. I think it makes me feel happy.

Biological hunger: Uh, not only am I not thirsty or in the mood for coffee, but how about some vegetables?  I need something green.

Me: Hey, GREAT idea!  You just saved me $5.35 (+ tip). Kale it is!

Craving/habit hunger: You haven't heard the last of me...<<sinister cackles>>