From 1999 to Present: the History of the "Eating the Moment" Project
I first started working on this project in 1999. At that time I was doing my Pre-Doctoral Internship at the Pittsburgh Veterans Administration hospital system. In the course of my Behavioral Medicine and Primary Care rotations I began to train in delivering cognitive-behavioral weight management and co-led my first group for weight management. I finished the manuscript by 2000 and entitled it "No-Diet Diet."
The following year I moved to Wyoming and began my Post-Doctoral Training at the University of Wyoming Counseling Center with parallel rotations at the Cheyenne Family Practice and at the U of W Health Center. Weight management was "popping" up again and again as a behavioral medicine clinical modality. I finished the second draft of the book, this time changing the title to "Mindful-not-Mouthful."
After my Post-Doc in Wyoming, I returned to Pittsburgh and accepted a job as a Clinical Director of a drug and alcohol program at the Allegheny Country Jail. This was 2001 and I began crystallizing an eclectic clinical approach for dealing with compulsive spectrum disorders that I later described in a monograph "The Recovery Equation." My approach to working with impulse-control disorders (inclusive of substance use and other compulsive presentations) began to take a more humanistic and existential form that combined the principles of Logotherapy and Harm Reduction. These two camps, coupled with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, seemed to be a successful clinical recipe for empowering clients and equipping clients with craving control know-how.
At around the same time, probably early in 2000, I started to organize my haphazard understanding of Buddhism, Daoism, Jainism and the teachings of Gurdjieff, into a project that I called "Egg Drop Soup for the Mind." This was a fun writing project that I later came to view as an act of literary hooliganism. In trying to consolidate my understanding of Buddhism in particular, I started imitating - in writing - the Buddhist genre of koans, and began a meditation practice.
By 2003, my clinical approach became an amalgam of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Exposure-Based Relapse Prevention Treatment, Logotherapy, Harm Reduction and Buddhist Psychology and more. I continued to polish "Mindful-not-Mouthful" for 3 more years.
In 2003 I started to transition into a generalist private practice. With behavioral medicine and health psychology experience as part of my clinical repertoire, I continued to offer weight management/diet compliance/overeating-focused interventions to the clients that presented with bulimic or binge-eating disorder presentations. Also, I began offering psychological assessment to candidates for gastric bypass surgery some of whom elected to continue to work with me post-surgery.
By 2006 I was on my 5th draft of "Mindful-not-Mouthful." At around this time, my wife, tired of this seemingly never-ending literary commitment, suggested I go ahead and submit the project for publication. I put together a book proposal and pitched it to what I considered to be one of the best publishing houses for psychologists on the market. A few months later Melissa Kirk, a New Harbinger acquisition editor, called me up with a "green-light." The rest is history.
The book that began in 1999 as "No-Diet Diet" and mutated through a series of drafts under the working title of "Mindful-not-Mouthful" is now, hopefully, in your hands as "Eating the Moment."
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Mindful-Not-Mouthful Approach Isn’t a Diet But a Diet-Facilitator
Three Reasons Why We Eat
Four Reasons Why We Overeat
Mindful, Not Mouthful: Developing the Mindful-Eating Habit
No, It’s Not the First Book on Mindful Eating
How to Use This Book
A Note to the Skeptic
Chapter 1: But Everyone Else Was Eating! Becoming Mindful of Environmental Triggers of Eating
Eating Out of Habit Means Overeating
Environmental Triggers Both Initiate and Maintain Overeating
Hunger Vs. Craving: What’s the Difference?
Craving-Driven Eating vs. Hunger-Driven Eating
Eight Common Environmental Triggers of Eating
The Toolbox: How to Control Cravings and Triggers
The Four Strategies of Craving-Control
Trigger Control: Trigger Avoidance and Desensitization
Regaining Control
Chapter 2: Becoming Mindful of the Process of Eating
One-Track Minds
Pragmatic Hedonists
When You Eat, Eat: Anti-Distraction Exercises
The Four Mindfulness Targets
Mindfulness of Smell
Mindfulness of the Movements of Eating
Becoming Mindful of the Meal Script
Becoming Mindful of the Meal Setting
Developing a Habit of Paying Attention to the Process of Eating
Chapter 3: Becoming Mindful of Fullness
When Should You Stop Eating?
A Continuum of Fullness: Three Stopping Points
Fullness, a Bodily Sensation; Satisfaction, a State of Mind
Speed of Eating and Fullness: The Waiting-Game Solution
Preloading on Smells, Liquids, and Umami
Sensory-Specific Satiety
Being Stuffed Doesn’t Have to Mean Weight Gain
Preventing Hunger by Maintaining Fullness
Committing to a Definition of Fullness
Chapter 4: Mindful Emotional Eating
How Did Chicken Soup Become the Remedy for the Soul?
Five Principles of Mindful Emotional Eating
Overeating Vs. Binge-Eating
A Note on Perfection
Chapter 5 Meaningful, Not Mouthful
Eating as an Expression of Values
Eating as Existential Rescue
Mindful Eating as Appreciation of Abundance
Mindful Eating as an Opportunity for Spirituality
Developing Your Own Philosophy of Eating
What Does Your Eating Philosophy Imply?