Zen Anti-Diet:
Mindful Eating for Health, Vitality and Weight Loss
Copyright © 2010 Aaron Hoopes.
Smashwords Edition
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ISBN: 978-0-9743247-2-2
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Mindful Eating for Health, Vitality and Weight Loss
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Zen Anti-Diet
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Zen Anti-Diet is a response to the needs of a population that is falling prey, at an alarming rate, to weight issues, disease, mental disorders and stress. Too many of us are constantly on the go, never seeming to have any free time to stop, take a deep breath and enjoy the moment. Most of us live a frantic, fast-paced lifestyle. We devote our precious energy to keeping life on track and navigating our career, while our family’s busy schedules keep us in a perpetual mode of doing more.
We are faced with a very real danger of declining health. We live in a world that has supposedly reached the pinnacle of civilized society, yet our bodies ache and our minds feel like they are out of control. Simply managing day-to-day living can be overwhelming.
It was not always like this.
For thousands of years the human body was used in physically demanding ways. Hunting, gathering, and manual labor were all a major part of life in the past. But modern life has changed everything. We live in a predominantly sedentary society in which our basic needs are met with as little effort as possible. We are beholden to the flow of information, and mis-information, coming out of the television, radio, computer and cell phone. With advertisements being hurled at us from every angle and news channels and websites churning out conflicting information on every subject, it is no wonder we find ourselves distracted, confused, emotionally disturbed, physically unfit or, in some cases, in complete denial that there is anything amiss in our life at all. The food we eat is a major factor in this breakdown. If we are not paying attention to what we are eating the probability is that what we do put in will not be good for it. Food, in fact, is meant to be the sustenance we take in that allows us to be healthy and physically active. That sounds simple enough. But modern life has distorted this concept and turned the process of eating into something altogether different. The rise of the microwave, fast food chains, chemical preservatives and additives, as well as an increasingly fractured family unit have contributed to a diet that is not giving us what we need to live happily and healthy.
The Zen Anti-Diet is a different way. It seeks to bring our focus back to the present moment and helps us pay attention to what we are putting into our bodies. The fact is that most of us simply do not eat properly. We consign our food intake process to our urges and desires. Our eating habits are often determined by how busy we are, instead of listening to the needs of the body.
Through the concepts presented here, the changes that we are able to initiate can be life-changing. When we begin to pay attention to what we are eating a profound experience opens up. By taking time to fully experience eating, to enjoy it to the fullest; we can begin to understand its importance in relation to our well-being. This will allow us to bridge the gap between body and mind and bring ourselves into balance. The foremost result of this process is the experience of ultimate good health, well being and a stabilization of body weight.
Nothing presented here is complicated or difficult. And though some of the practices may take a little willpower or persistence, the benefits are immeasurable. We stand at a significant point in history where connection of body, mind and spirit is essential for further evolution. The Zen Anti-Diet is a key component of this process. Don’t let this opportunity slip away.
Wishing you peace,
Aaron Hoopes - June 2010
EATING ZEN
This is not a diet book and I am not a dietitian. I am not going to tell you to count calories or recommend the food pyramid as a guide. There are hundreds of sources for that kind of advice, along with thousands of other sources providing conflicting information. It has become difficult to distinguish truth from foolishness. It’s hard to know who to listen to.
But there is one source that will tell you the truth, if you are willing to take the time to get to know it.
Your body will tell you the truth, but only if you are paying attention.
Whether you eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and grains or one of sugar, carbohydrates and fats, your body responds. Unless your mind is calm, clear and focused, it is difficult to sense those responses.
This book is about learning to focus the mind on the present moment. It is about connecting the mind and body so that they are working in harmony towards health and good feeling. It is a holistic approach to eating. Many diet books are concerned with changing eating patterns, others are about changing thinking patterns. This book is about ceasing thinking patterns and focusing on the experience of eating. It is an approach that infuses your being with energy as you bring two fundamental aspects of your being together in the present moment.
It starts with the concept of Zen.
What is Zen?
Zen is the experience of living in the present moment. Zen is right here, right now. Zen is this moment of existence. You, here at this moment, reading these words…notice your hands, your feet…blink your eyes….that split-second of recognition you just had…that is Zen.
The roots of Zen are based in ancient Chinese philosophy. The Chinese word for Zen is ch’an. In Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, it is dhyana which can be roughly translated as pure human spirit. Zen is sometimes translated as meditation. Zen can be imagined as the integration of the disparate aspects of the self into one complete and divine being. Zen is not a religion. It does not worship any God. Zen provides an internal and spiritual aspect to life and brings the mind and body together.
Zen came to Japan where it was elaborated on and “perfected” by the Japanese samurai. It is the foundation of the Bushido code, the way of the warrior. The samurai, who lived their lives at the edge of a sword and could die at any moment, were taught to concentrate on and immerse themselves in the here and now in order to center themselves and connect with the fundamental core of their being. It helped them develop the powers of concentration, self-control, awareness and tranquility. If they approached each battle as if it were their last, they would have every part of their being at their command.
To practice Zen is to live fully and completely, not in the past or the future, but right here and right now.
Applying Zen to the act of eating is a practice that allows you to fully experience the food you are taking into your body. By providing nourishment in a way that allows your body to gain the most benefit while keeping your mind present and focused on the act of eating creates a fundamental connection between mind and body. Most of the stimulus in daily life tends to encourage a disconnection between the mind and body. This can be especially true of food if you are not paying attention to what you are eating. Have you ever consumed a whole bag of potato chips thinking they were the greatest thing on earth only to find that as soon as you finish you are overcome with a terrible feeling in your body? Did you ever drink a soda or energy drink and have your mind telling you how great it was while your body feels uncomfortable and strange?
The body tries to take sustenance from everything put into it. Energy comes from the food you eat. Eating junk food or consuming chemicals, fats and additives can play havoc with your body’s ability to effectively process nutrients from your food. In much the same way, what you focus your mind on determines the state of your mind. Filling your mind with television and other distractions plays havoc with your ability to think clearly. If you could focus your attention on everything going into your mouth, and experience the food you are eating, you can monitor your food intake as well as experience the amazing sensation of simply tasting your food and savoring the experience.
The practice that the Zen Anti-Diet offers is an opportunity to slow down and take more notice of what and how we eat. If you start paying attention to the food you are putting in your mouth then you may find that you don’t actually want it. In addition if you begin to notice the manner in which you eat and how you feel afterwards, you may discover that altering your eating habits will assist you in feeling much better.
Zen is about going with the flow of life and staying present in your mind. Of course there are times when you will be in situations when the only thing to eat is not the healthiest of choices. As long as you remain aware of what you are doing and notice what effect the food you eat has on your body, you should be able to maintain your center and be able to make the choices that will allow you to remain aware and present.
As you might imagine, this concept of Zen encompasses much more than eating. If you were to bring this awareness to all that you do, you can add a quality to your life that will enrich it and help you make a deeper spiritual connection to the world around you. But while this principle of Zen awareness can be applied to everything in life, let’s stick with food and eating for now and see where it leads.
ANTI-DIET
What exactly is a Zen Anti-Diet?
To put it simply, a Zen Anti-Diet is a way to eat smarter and healthier without getting entangled in complicated or confusing eating habits that are unsatisfying, unpleasant or unsustainable. It is giving your body what it needs and enjoying it. This concept is counter to most of the popular fad diets. In using the word “diet” here, I am not talking about a healthful eating regimen that may have been recommended by your doctor or a nutritionist. Instead I would like to discuss the get-thin-quick-by-radically-altering-your-eating-habits diet.
In ancient times diets didn’t exist. There was no calorie counting or measuring cholesterol. There were no genetically modified foods or microwaveable TV dinners. No one knew what trans-fatty acids were. Obesity was not an issue. Life was much simpler then.
The Zen Anti-Diet is about making life much simpler now.
The truth is that the majority of fad diets don’t work. They just don’t. In fact, most people who go on a diet end up regaining all the weight they lost, and then some, when they go off the diet. Unfortunately, diets have become big business. Billions of dollars are spent every year in an attempt to lose weight. Bookstores, magazines, television and radio are crammed with diet plans and schemes that are “guaranteed” to help you lose weight.
For most people, they don’t.
Even though the failure rate of most diets is astronomical, people continue trying one after another, always hoping that each new scheme will give them the body image or healthy feeling they desire.
The problem is that when faced with a shortage of calories, the body’s natural response is to conserve fat. This body mechanism was crucial to humans for thousands of years because there were times when food was scarce for any number of reasons. However, today, in a world where any kind of food is available in huge quantities this process is counterproductive.
DOWNWARD SPIRAL
Most diets get off to a promising start since the restriction of calorie intake, which most of them call for, causes the body to break down muscle tissue for energy. When muscle protein is broken down, it releases nitrogen which is quickly washed away by water drawn from tissue cells. This causes an immediate reduction in body water weight and is reflected in a quick loss of weight on the scales.
That weight loss is an illusion.
The water weight will be regained as soon as you drink enough liquid to replenish the body’s supply. But that is not the only problem. Since the first thing you lose is muscle protein, the loss of muscles will cause a decrease in your metabolism. Your body slows down to compensate for the change in muscle tissue. This is something I call a downward metabolic spiral.
Let’s look at metabolism. What is metabolism?
Metabolism can be thought of as the process of converting calories to energy. The more active the metabolism, the more effective this conversion process is. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. It requires a certain number of calories each day to maintain itself. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn regardless of your level of exercise. When dieting, your muscle mass drops as does your daily calorie requirement. With the muscle tissue gone, the body now requires fewer calories to maintain the present weight. In order to lose more weight, you must restrict calorie intake even further.
Down and down you go – metabolically speaking. It is difficult to get out of this spiral once you begin it.
And it gets worse.
Most people are unable to keep up with diets for long. Eventually old eating habits return along with the weight. The problem is that even though you lost both muscle and fat during the diet, all the weight that is put back on is fat. You may weigh the same as you did when you started the diet, but there is now a lot more fat and a lot less muscle. Less muscle means a slower metabolism. When your metabolism slows, you require fewer calories to maintain your weight. Even if you maintain your dieting restrictions, it becomes impossible to lose any more weight since you now require fewer calories because of the muscle loss. Returning to your pre-diet eating habits makes things even worse. In fact, many people end up gaining more weight than they initially lost when they began the diet. The deadly downward spiral continues as the slowing of the metabolism makes it progressively more difficult to lose weight and keep it off.
These types of diets simply don’t work! The obesity rate has doubled in the last twenty years and is on the verge of eclipsing smoking as the number one cause of death in America.
Why is this happening?
One big factor is that modern society makes it very easy to gain weight. We have cultivated an obsession with convenience and quantity. Fast food chains line major roads offering super-sized everything. Fats and sugars are the main ingredients of many mass-produced foods. Despite a new trend to offer low fat, organic or vegetarian dishes, menus in most restaurants are full of choices that are loaded with fat and calories. Fast foods, very high in salt, sugar and fat – especially saturated fat and trans-fatty acids – have come to dominate food preferences in contemporary society.
While quick, cheap and easy, this type of food has very little positive benefit to offer and plenty of negative consequences. Most people are becoming aware that a diet high in saturated fat can lead to increased blood cholesterol which is a cause of cardiovascular diseases, stroke and certain cancers. It is also common knowledge that diets high in sugar and carbohydrates put people at risk for Type II diabetes. But let’s turn for a moment to the other side of the coin: what fast foods don’t contain. Most fast food lacks essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals that allow the body to function properly. This robs the body of the proper materials needed to stimulate the metabolic process and produce energy.
Worst of all, our children are not immune. Even if they are well fed at home, the outside world is looking for their cash. Big business pays a lot of money in order to place vending machines in schools which offer soda, candy and chips instead of more healthy choices. TV bombards them constantly with popular athletes drinking soda or eating junk food. Stores present unhealthy food at eye level.
Yet every day new evidence from nutritionists and researchers confirms what we already know – poor diet habits are deadly.
Of course we need to eat. We do it every day. Like breathing, it is essential to life. It keeps us alive and gives our body energy. Understanding the metabolic process of converting calories to energy should help you understand the imperative of having it working properly. Your heart needs energy to circulate your blood. Your lungs need energy to process oxygen and expel waste as CO2. Your muscles need energy to move. Your whole body needs energy to function properly, for with a decline in energy we become tired and sluggish.
So we eat.
That, of course is not the problem. We are supposed to eat. The problem lies in what we eat and how much we eat.
This is where the diets come in, and it is a lucrative business.
There are all sorts of diets: low calorie, low carb, low fat, low cholesterol, high fiber, high protein, no carb, no fat and everything in between, many spouting claims of magical weight loss without any effort. And I’m not even going to discuss diet pills.
It goes beyond confusing to ridiculous.
“I lost 50 pounds in 2 weeks.”
“I went from a size 16 to a size 8 in less than a month.”
Claims like this are simply not true. Neither are the before-and-after photos that show a change from obese to supermodel. It is all part of the business of diets.
And this is where diets show their true colors. There is a lot of money to be made selling diets because so many people are truly desperate to help themselves. They are easily taken advantage of as their disappointment grows. They are willing to spend more and more money on crazier and crazier dieting programs hoping that the next one will be the one that makes them lose weight and feel better.
It all stops here with the Zen Anti-Diet.
UPWARD SPIRAL
The goal of the Zen Anti-Diet is to reverse the downward spiral and start on a process of feeling happy, healthy and alive. As usual, the simplest and most beneficial method is often the most neglected in the continuing quest for a healthier, more fulfilling life. Instead of looking outside yourself for the answers to your weight problem or poor eating habits, you must turn your attention inwards and carefully listen to what your body tells you about your wants and needs. By becoming more mindful of your eating habits, you can gain better control of them. It starts with awareness, learning to focus on the connection between your body and your mind to pay attention to what you are eating.
It is a simple proposition; eating well should be enjoyable. There are so many tastes and flavors to be experienced. There are many foods that make you feel good and healthy. Learning how to enjoy eating them without feeling bad or guilty is of paramount importance. Becoming upset because there is a favorite food you can’t have or a healthful food you seriously dislike is not helpful. Such feelings associated with eating send a negative message to your inner self, and that negativity is detrimental to achieving a fulfilling and happy life.
The time has come for a change.
However, it is absolutely critical that you truly want to improve and control your eating habits. If you are reading this book, then I will assume that is the case.
The concept is basic. By internalizing some common-sense eating habits, practicing some simple exercises and staying mindful your body begins to feel better. It becomes infused with increasing amounts of positive energy. As you feel better, this energy raises your metabolism which in turn creates more energy. It is a positive upward spiral. Your body wants to feel better, all you have to do is let it.
So how do you do this?
You begin by watching how you consume your food. Then you start to pay attention to what is in the food you are consuming. And finally you begin to understand what happens to the food you consume. By making your body an ally instead of an enemy, it begins to work for you instead of against you. It does no good to eat something you like, only to berate yourself and feel guilty about it afterwards, or conversely, to reject eating something only to feel angry or guilty later. It is detrimental to your well-being to radically restrict yourself from eating certain foods that you love to eat. You are simply asking for trouble. If you can feel better about the food choices you make, get more enjoyment from the food you eat, and banish negative feelings that may be related to eating in your life, you will start to notice wonderful changes within yourself. By learning to replace unhealthy habits with smarter eating and adopting a mindful awareness based on common sense and the principle of moderation, you will begin to create a healthy lifestyle that will move you on the upward spiral.