Drinking Water

It is better so I have been taught to drink plain water but not with food. It is best to wait to eat after drinking for 30 minutes and to wait after eating for 2 hours. This makes it hard to drink what we are supposed to drink - which is your weight divided in half and expressed in ounces. So if you weigh 120 lbs. you would drink "half" in ounces, thus 60 ounces per day. If I exercise and sweat it is easier to drink more water. I have a pitcher of water that gets filled in the morning and doesn't always become empty at night

Eat-I-tude: Eating with Gratitude

Conscious chewing increases well-being, weight-loss, and self-sustainability.

Chewing well is a key to having enough to eat with portion control and having the satisfaction to be in control of what you eat rather than have the food control you. It is true that if you eat slowly then the body gets satisfied with better digestion and knows when enough is enough. If food is eaten quickly and eaten in combination with other tasks, we are not able to know when to stop eating. We tend to eat what is in front of us. If the portion is huge, and the pace is habitually fast, then we are not in control. If we try putting half the amount on the plate and eating it two times slower with no other activity (no TV, no driving, no reading), then we will be happy the new amount!

If you try walking around after you finish and are still hungry, then sit, after a few more bites, you will know when you are full.

In January 2009, I read an article in Macrobiotics Today, January/February 2008: “Conscious Eating” by Lino Stanchich. I also am a student of Bonesforlife®. Its creator, Ruthy Alon, said that eating should be eating – “with clean hands” meaning to put down the spoon or fork or sandwich as soon as the food is in your mouth. This eliminates the mindset that leads to automatic, mindless movement to get the food in quickly. She also said that any change in habit feels like a terrible mistake. So when I began the experiment, I was not able to put the fork down so easily. However, if I remembered to push lightly on the fork or spoon that became the cue to put it down. I also read that eating while standing is harder on the heart and this may be difficult to accomplish but it makes sense.

Slow seated chewing is a luxury that we are not used to.

What started as an experiment in the spring of 2009 has become a new habit. It took time but the benefits were worth it: greater enjoyment and a deep satisfaction in the gut after eating – and a surprising loss of weight of about eight pounds that has stayed off. It is now July 2009. In the article Lino Stanchich wrote that the process of conscious eating was good for the body, improving the acid-alkaline balance and helpful in loosing weight. So I was interested to try.

By eating with eyes closed after a few meals I started having a visualization of patterns in the chewing that made each bite seem like a distinct design, a little piece of art. This was a discovery! I had not read about any visualizations. At first, the bite was a dance of the tongue and then a zigzag shape with the mind and the tongue. I was counting the bites and the designs made it easier. I had lots of designs, like Greek columns, beginning with Corinthian and then Ionic and finally Doric when the food was flat. I also had seven candle menorahs with four chews per candle, in and out, to make as many as 56 chews.

I now am doing a figure eight on its side with my tongue and reinforcing it with hand movements. The ring finger and the thumb touch and move in the slightest circle, so slight it is almost not a movement. This makes the chewing very deliberate and slow. Variations on this are to have the ring fingers and thumbs of both hands interlock and move in very small and slow circles. This is like the shape of the symbol of infinity. The movement of the tongue and jaw makes the same shape. Another variation is to have both hands touch at the connection of the two circles formed by the thumbs and ring fingers on each individual hand. The idea of infinity symbol that I see in my mind and mouth and hands corresponds to the vastness that brought the food to my plate and my mouth. I feel a deep connection to the universe with… gratitude.

I have since read that chewing with the mouth closed but making large movements with the jaw is as good as counting the chews. So, sometimes I count, but often I just chew slowly and use a hand movement that determines the pace of chewing. I like the thumb and ring finger –it seems easier than the thumb with other fingers; it is slower and takes up less brain power than the other fingers.

The food being eaten determines how easy it is to chew many times. Soft foods are harder to chew many times than are cooked greens and raw vegetables. Sometimes I use the large jaw, closed-mouth chew that Paula Garbourg writes of in her book, The Secret of the Ring Muscles.

I taught this to my husband who had been a fast eater, and it has made a difference. He says he does not do the process in earnest, however it has helped him in that he eats more slowly. I have taught several friends who will be contributing to this Blog. I am bringing this technique to more people this summer. Although food fads are prevalent and I hesitate to put one more out as a panacea, I have found that there are benefits to eating this way.

Horace Fletcher made a similar discovery in the early 20th century, and many people were counting their chews. I feel that eating may become a chore if one has to count the chews. But even eating one meal per day in EATITUDE will be a benefit.

One caution: It is not easy to eat this way in company of others unless others are eating this way as well.

The Process of Eating.

I look at the plate of food. It is pretty. It is enough. I think about the fact that this food originates from many places and passes through many hands and processes before it has landed on this plate. Soon it will become me. I am grateful for it.

Knowing the harvester of the food makes it more special. I have just begun buying from a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture. I saw the woman who brought eggs, fruit, and vegetables to me from her farm to a pickup location.

If it has come from my garden, I really feel good about it. It is very easy to say a blessing if the food was grown by me. It is a miracle to eat food from my own yard, but the goal is to feel the miraculous in all food that I am about to eat.

The blessing feels more in tune when I am eating consciously. In Jewish tradition we say blessings over a variety of foods. I’ve heard that this is a form of payment for ‘stealing’ the food from God.

I may not say the traditional blessing, but I feel the blessing of the food before me. Perhaps if I wrote down on cards several blessings it would be easier. I like to think something like “may this food serve me well and keep me until I eat again.”

I like to eat sitting on the floor against a wall with the food on a plate or bowl on top of a book that serves as a tray. I like to put my knees up and put the book between my knees and sternum (chest bone) but when I am in the company of others I do sit at a table. Between bites the fork is down and my eyes are closed to appreciate the act of the chew, the bite, the taste the texture. My hands are in my lap in the circles I described above. I am totally relaxed. You can really taste the quality of the food this way and realize that eating before you learned this technique was swallowing far too soon! One student said she noticed what she had been eating all along didn’t taste good and that she had been swallowing chunks of food.

When I am eating this way, I am living in the present (bite). Saliva becomes abundant. It showers the food. I am thinking of that bite and feeling it first in my mouth and then in me after swallowing.

I am eating evenly on both sides of my mouth as suggested by Paula Garbourg. The tongue is the rudder of the spine. It can influence posture so it is good to chew evenly right and left. I notice that the tongue is the source of taste and can identify which part of the tongue senses the most taste. It seems to be on the tip of the tongue. If stressed with events of the day, then this is reflected in my chewing. If I am in a hurry, it is not a successful experience. If I forget and start eating too fast, I become conscious of EATITUDE, and I improve with the next bite. I may take a rest between bites and just do a chewing movement without food, or just rest briefly. Near the end of the meal with the last few bites on the plate, I notice how full I am. I am beginning again to realize that I am thankful for the food. I am aware of the last bite and that I want it to count. It is special. The food is now in me – it is me.

If my stomach makes a dialogue during the meal, and I hear the acids, it feels good. It’s as if my stomach is saying “thank you.” If I let out a burp, it also feels good! It’s a bigger “thank you.” I an in control, because I can go from meal to meal without feeling starved, or in a hurry to eat again. The feeling of satisfaction is one of lightness and ease and not in need of more.

I invite you to try any of these ideas to make eating a freeing and a healthy act. The benefit of eating like this is that it can be a meditation and a relaxation and a feeling of an empty mind. This is an altered state of awareness. It is a pleasant state. If you are filled with goodness in eating, the goodness spills over into other areas of your life. The patience required in this form of eating teaches goodness and that more goodness is possible.

I don’t want to give this up. I am in control of my portions and of my chewing. I am the authority of my eating!

Dr. Michael Levy told me that chewing is important and has found that chewing gum helps recovery after gastric surgery. We know that we have a gut feeling and butterflies in the stomach and it has been found that there is a “brain” in the gut. There are a hundreds of millions of nerves in the digestive tube and a connection between the gut and the brain. (The Second Brain, Dr. Michael Gershon, 1998). A peaceful and grateful attitude increases saliva, and saliva is the life-force in Chinese Medicine (Dr. Li Chuan Chen).

Dr. Li Chuan Chen writes in his First Pillar of Integrative Health that poor chewing leads to the need to drink with meals which worsens digestion by diluting the enzymes which then leads to the desire for more food which is not really needed. He says to eat with love.

Who is this meant for?

Lino Stanchich writes of his father, Antonio’s discovery that, while a prisoner in a cold concentration camp, he found that if he chewed his water and his small amount of food 150 times, he felt warmer and had more energy. He told his fellows about it. Only two followed his advice. They were the only three who survived. Lino was told this as a teenager and remembered it and was later a political prisoner. He writes that he was also cold, hungry and in misery but the counting of the chews brought him survival as well and greater mental and spiritual strength which brought him faith and confidence. He is a teacher and writer today.

I was talking to a friend who as a child was “always hungry” when displaced from Berlin to Shanghai during WWII. He said he wishes someone had told him about chewing many times.

So it is for anyone who finds himself or herself without enough food. But it is also for those who are suffering from too much food. Obesity and malnutrition have much in common. Chewing restores assimilation of food.

It is also for those of us who can make the time to enjoy the simple process of eating with awareness. And for anyone who would like to feel lighter by loosing a few pounds.

I invite you to try any of the above ideas to avoid over-eating, to increase your sense of control, and to improve your health and enjoyment of the miracle of food.

Please write what you learn from this. You will find your own visualizations and hand movements and hopefully give feedback.

Thank you. – Walli Chefitz, Miami, Florida.