GENEEN’S EATING GUIDELINES
In addition to Zaphiropoulos and Hirschmann’s three questions
Are You Hungry?
What Do You Want to Eat?
Are You Full?
I have added two eating rules, in an effort to make the Fruit Loops consumption a bit more mindful. I borrowed them from Geneen Roth’s Eating Guidelines. I have been following Geneen Roth and reading her books since the early 1990s. If you are interested in self-demand feeding for adults, I highly recommend visiting her website: geneenroth.com.
Her seven eating guidelines are:
Eat when you are hungry.
Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.
Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music.
Eat what your body wants.
Eat until you are satisfied.
Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.
Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.
The two that we are focusing on as a family are 2 and 3. We need to eat sitting down, with our food on a plate, without screens or books. This is in contrast to eating cereal out of the palms of our hands while standing in front of the cupboard, or slurping ice cream while staring at Instagram.
So far, the person who has struggled the most with this change is my husband.
I have noticed is that eating like this slows everybody down. I am not certain that anyone is eating less, but we are eating more slowly. Sometimes there is more conversation as a result, sometimes not. From personal experience, I know that the physical feeling of full, as opposed to stuffed, speaks quietly. It can be easily drowned out by beautiful food or an emotional scene in a movie.
If I could distill Geneen Roth’s philosophy into one sentence, it would be this: if you are truly eating mindfully, it is impossible to eat what your body does not need. So I am working the mindfulness angle, as well as the legalizing food angle. Think that’s all the angles I can handle right now.