This is your brain on post-exercise endorphins

A funny thing happens when you live your mindful eating practice instead of putting all of your energy into reading and writing about it: your thought patterns start to change without you even noticing.  Surprise!

This week I started swimming with a master's group again.  It's been many years since I participated in one of these structured, hour-long swim practices.  Instead, I'd been going for 20 minute floaty swims on my own when the fancy struck me, accepting that people several decades my senior pass me with ease.

Today I swam harder than I have in my whole entire life.  That's what it felt like anyway.  At one point I told the coach I was going to stop for a sec because I was feeling a little barfy.  His reply?  "Don't stop - I'll get you a bucket".

I came out of there smiling, feeling energetic, alive, and fantastic.  Oh, and a little hungry.  In the ol' pre-mindful eating days, my gobbley brain would have convinced me to eat all 4 of the pieces of homemade pizza I'd brought for lunch, since I had just earned them with that big workout (and they were quite delicious, I don't mind admitting).  After that it would have convinced me to go buy a fancy coffee or some other treat on top of that, since I *deserved* it.

But now I have mindful eating brain, with a new set of thought patterns.  What do you know?  I automatically checked in with stomach hunger - about a 7 - and ate 2 small pieces of my pizza.  Then I naturally checked in with my stomach again and noticed I was full.  I even went grocery shopping afterwards and had no interest in treats.  Part of my fantastic feeling I was experiencing included a complete lack of desire for chocolate or jelly beans.  So novel.

Is this funny cuz it's true,
or just really sad cuz it's true?

My intention for exercising still has a very small weight loss component - old habits die hard, especially when reinforced by the massive bulk of media.  Mostly I exercise because it's fun, makes me feel great, and prepares my body for aging and for all the extreme activities my sweetheart has me doing.

I cringe when I hear people talking about the calories they're burning while working out, or the amount of exercise they'll have to do to compensate for some delicious thing they're enjoying.  Worst of all - hearing about their Fitbits.

What a way to suck the joy out of two inherently pleasurable activities - eating and exercise, that is. Why make one the penance for the other?  Why not enjoy each fully for their own sake?  I'm aware that somewhere in the equation between energy in and energy out there is a place where my clothes fit better or worse.  But I know if I get all hung up about the relationship between the two, I'll sink into unhealthy and stressful patterns that lead nowhere good.  Forget Fitbit - just do something you love and see where it leads you.  I bet that place won't be the cookie aisle.

Live to eat, or eat to live

Well, I know which camp I fall into.  My sweetheart falls into the other.  I recently asked him to do one of my mindful eating exercises with me.  Here's how it went:

Him: I'm not chewing 15 to 20 times.

Me: Just try it!  You should do it so you can notice mouth hunger.

Him:  I don't have mouth hunger - I have belly hunger!!  I want to get it down there!  Give me that!!

This is the same man who suggested that if I felt upset about eating too many brownies, I should just stop putting them in my mouth.

APPARENTLY he doesn't experience mouth hunger (ie: a craving to put food into his mouth for the sake of enjoying its flavours and textures, rather than to satisfy physical hunger).  He said he eats when his belly is hungry.  Maybe he'll chew on a blade of grass sometimes.

I couldn't let such an audacious declaration, which I assumed must be a flagrant lack of self-awareness, rest.  I thought of examples to prove him wrong.  I reminded him of his stash of "Chicago Mix" flavoured popcorn in his vehicle, or his habit of getting a McDonald's muffin (the absolute epitome of a "food-like substance") on every road-trip.  But he had clear awareness of the motivations behind eating these things.  Interestingly, he said he enjoys the surprise of the different flavours that you get with each handful of Chicago Mix.  Hmm.  Sure sounds like "mouth hunger" to me.  

Can this be eaten mindfully?

Everyone eats mindlessly sometimes.  What's interesting to me is that some people have an innate wisdom that prevents them from doing it EVERY time they eat.  There are so many possible reasons for this, some of which might go all the way back to childhood.  In my sweetheart's case, I suspect he has a diminished sense of smell.  He doesn't seem to get as much pleasure from really good food as I do, and I think it's because he can't taste the subtle flavours in it.  This can work in my favour when I'm being experimental with my cooking, but it's a little frustrating when I make something amazing.  He likes it all, unless it's too spicy.

He summed up our different approaches to food pretty succinctly: "You eat to make your mouth happy, and I do it to feed myself".

I have another friend who is much more like me - we often discuss our food-related frustrations. I don't think she'd be offended if I said she's in the "live to eat" camp too. Not long ago, after a lovely healthy lunch from a local deli, she declared: "I'm full!  I don't know if I want to eat the rest of this."

Think about that for a moment.

I laughed, because I recognized myself in her comment.  I'm full, but I keep eating anyway.  I'm full, but I'm thinking about a treat.  I'm full, but I want to polish something off.  I'm full, but I can't stop.  

She took her leftovers home.

Right Amount

Something highly unusual has happened.  I'll set the stage:

Every morning I have a smoothie for breakfast.  I'm a proud initiate of the Magic Bullet cult.

I love the creative ritual of assembling the ingredients* in the evening.  Then, in the morning, all I have to do is whiz it up and gulp it down!



from: http://eatingmindfully.com/

In the summer, I would sit on my deck and enjoy looking at my garden whilst gulping (slowly). With colder weather I've been sucking back my breakfast smoothie while getting dressed and blow-drying my hair.  I've been telling myself that it's OK to have breakfast in a non-mindful way because I'm on a timeline and I can eat supper mindfully later.

A few Saturdays ago it was warm enough to sit outside - a rare treat for late fall in Ontario.  So I decided to enjoy my smoothie while sitting on my deck and looking at bare soil and leaves I needed to rake.

That's when it happened.  About halfway through my regular smoothie, I noticed I was getting full.  This triggered an internal debate.  I knew, because of all my good mindful eating research, that I should stop and put the smoothie away.  But it was so yummy!  So I decided to have 3 more sips.  And then I put the rest in the fridge.  Baby steps to liberation - that's what I'm talking about.

Dr. Jan Chozen Bays is a Zen teacher, and a wise and engaging writer.  She describes the concept of  right amount in her book "Mindful Eating - A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food".  She explains the connections to Buddhist teachings and Zen traditions, and teaches us how we can become familiar with what is "just enough".  There are many reasons why we keep eating after we've had just enough.  All of them constitute overeating.

Since I've learned about "right amount", I'm much more conscious of the physical cues that my body is sending to my brain, telling me that I'm starting to get full.  Seems like an obvious concept, but it's been quite surprising to find out how often I think about eating something when my belly is actually full.

*Coco's Breakfast Smoothie Ingredients*
I'm one of those people who is hungriest in the morning.  This usually lasts me until lunchtime.

The basics
- 1/4 cup of instant rolled oats, kamut or spelt flakes, or quick-cooking steel-cut oats (all these things need to soak - that's why you make it the night before)
- 1 tsp. raw cacao powder (forget Fry's processed cocoa - enjoy life AND actually get some of chocolate's benefits)
- about 1/2 cup of organic cow milk, sunflower milk, coconut milk, or quinoa milk
- about 1/3 cup of Ceres brand natural fruit juice
- about 1/2 cup kefir or local organic yoghurt
- 1 tsp. organic nut butter - sunflower or almond/cashew is nice

Embellishments
- a few drops of stevia and sometimes some local honey
- Floradix iron supplement (foul-tasting to me - hence the honey)
- hulled hemp seeds
- fresh or frozen fruit (I have a freezer full of organic strawberries I picked this summer!)
- beet seedlings (only during garden-thinning season, of course)

I should warn you: a friend tried this recipe and said it made her nauseous.  I have this every single day and I feel great.  Maybe she did something wrong?