Most of my audience – at this point – seems to be ladies.  I intend to change that with your help.  There is a good statistical chance that you’ve got a guy with a spare tire around his waist hanging around somewhere nearby.  Right?  Right.  So, here’s the deal: I am going to write a tip sheet on “how to get your guy to read a book on mindful eating” and you will talk to him?  Deal?  Deal.

Here we go.  Choose the timing and, having curled your fingers into a gentle fist, knock on your guy’s mind-door.  He’d ask (we hope): “Who’s there?”  “You, honey,” you’d say, to awaken him to his own presence (we can only hope, of course, that he knows that he is on the inside, not the outside).  In other words, confuse him with a joke of your choice or any other gesture … And then say: “I love you and I want you to start taking care of yourself … There’s this book on mindful eating, you should read it …”  Two things are likely to happen at this point: he will either agree (if so, good, end of exchange) or (which is what I predict) he will shake his head right off the bat and give you objections.  This is where the tip sheet “on how to get your guy to read a book on mindful eating” comes in.

1. If your guy says he doesn’t want to eat any “vegan crap,” explain – in as few words as possible – that he won’t have to watch his portions or change what he eats, that the book is about the “how” of eating.  Let him chew on that a bit.
2. If your guy says that he’s “got it under control,” smile (non-patronizingly) and emphatically add that this book is about respecting our sense of sovereignty, that, for all intents and purposes, it is libertarian self-help, that it’s not preachy and that it respects any self-change at any pace.
3. If your guy starts with character assassinations of the author he hasn’t met and calls the author “just another Buddhist-health-nut-foodie-Nazi,” tell him that my favorite pastime is to lay down on the floor with a bowl of wasabi peas and watch South Park, that I don’t consider myself a Buddhist or a non-Buddhist, for that matter.  On the “health-nut” point you can tell your guy that while the author did bench-press 400 lbs. in Allegheny County Jail in 2002 (while working as a drug and alcohol counselor, a fact that can be attested by Correctional Officer Correy), he can hardly get through a session of P90X without taking a long break.
4. If your guy continues with character assassination on the author and questions his (author’s) sexual orientation, you can assure him that the author had been blissfully married for 18 years and, just to help the guy relate, add that pretty much throughout this entire time the author sported a pair of love handles (of varying size).
5. If your guy questions the author’s motives accusing Dr. Somov that he just wants to sell his books, tell him that Dr. Somov will admit any time that he wants to sell his books and add that Dr. Somov also made a point to plug other guys’ books on mindful eating (such as Meal by Meal by Donald Altman or Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink).
6. If your guy says that he probably won’t be able to relate to the author because his name is strange and that he probably doesn’t like American football, tell your guy that the author still has all ten fingers on his hands, puts his boxers on one leg at a time (unless he goes “commando”) and, most importantly, that the author was on Carson Street, more than tipsy, on January 25^th of 2009, the night the Steelers won their 6^th Superbowl!  You can also add that the author would watch water polo into the night if they only televised it.
7. If your guy, all of a sudden, says “A-ha!” and triumphantly adds that they do televise water polo, tell him that he is just bickering.
8. If your guy still insists that he won’t be able to relate to the author, proposing that the author is probably just another stuck-up Ph.D., tell him that the author doesn’t even believe in the concept of “self” (in the traditional sense), and, for good measure, tell him that the author did not think it below himself to pick up cigarette butts from the street at the tender age of 8 when he experimented with smoking, and that he is still tempted to do that (but now, for an entirely different reason of eco-consciousness).  And tell him the author currently enjoys driving a used Hyundai Elantra, and admits to having once had a penchant for expensive sedans (that he would always fiercely haggle down in price and never wash).
9. If your guy still insists that he wouldn’t be able to relate to the author because the author probably listens to strange music, tell your guy that the author can just as easily groove to Deep Purple’s “Smoke On the Water” as to old-school Dr. Dre, and, in the spirit of full admission, tell your guy that the author right now – as he is writing this – is grooving to a Tinariwen track (from Saharan “poet guitarists and soul rebels”) that (regardless of what critics say) sounds (to author’s ear) as a brilliant mixture of Delta blues, reggae, and nomadic consciousness.
10. Now, if your guy still is not interested, bombard him with the following potpourri of author-trivia that might peak his interest (because guys tend to like this kind of irrelevant info-junk): tell him the author served in the Soviet OMSBON (in a formerly celebrated military unit that, by author’s admission, was nothing more than glorified military police on his watch);  tell your guy that the author bought his last Timex watch in Laramie, WY Wal-Mart on sale for $39.99 back in 2000 and still wears it, as jewelry, even though it had been needing a battery since 2004; tell your guy that the author does polar-bear swimming and has built himself an ice-box in his backyard (which totally froze up this past winter, so the author had to just limit himself to taking cold showers); and, finally, after a wry smile, tell your guy that the author has this strange notion that … everybody is already perfect and doing their best, so there’s really no pressure.  That last bit is bound to get your guy to think that the author is just crazy enough to check out.

This should do it, I think.  Bottom-line: talk to your guy, and if you don’t have a guy, talk to your “inner guy.”  Get yourself out of your own way.  Go ahead and knock on that mind-door, see who opens it …