Do you usually notice how much you eat? Can you stop when you feel that you've had enough? Sometimes I eat too fast or get destructed by something like a movie, Internet or a conversation that I do not pay attention to the amount of food on my plate. This is the problem I am trying to solve for myself. I have found some information on the topic and want to share it with you. Hopefully it can be helpful.
The concept of “right amount” comes from the Buddhist teaching of the Eightfold Path to enlightment. Each part of the path is described with the adjective “right”: right view, right mindfulness, right effort, and so on. In the Buddhist teaching “right” means appropriate, beneficial, leading to happiness and freedom.
What then is “right amount”?
We need to eat just enough to remain healthy, just enough to feel satisfied, just enough to meditate without becoming sleepy, just enough to not be swayed by greediness.
“Just enough” is not fixed amount. It changes according to circumstances. We have to be aware of changing conditions, how hungry we are, how much we’ve been exercising, and how cold it is. But a young active man who is still growing needs portions twice as large as a middle-aged person.
The beloved Buddhist monk Ajahn Chah gave these guidelines about right amount: “When you think that after another five mouthfuls you’ll be full, then stop and drink some water and you will have eaten just the right amount. If you sit or walk afterward you won’t feel heavy… But that’s not the way we usually do it. When we feel full we take another five mouthfuls. That’s what the mind tells us. It doesn’t know how to teach itself… Someone who lacks a genuine wish to train their mind will be unable to do it. Keep watching your mind.”
“Normal” portion sizes have grown dramatically over just one generation. This increase has occurred wherever food is found, in the portions sold in grocery stores, served in restaurants, estimated in cookbooks, and dished onto plates at home. When we use bigger plates, bowls, and serving utensils, we serve ourselves more and eat more.
Asian and European visitors tell us the huge portions in American restaurants shock them. Rather than eat too much food, or waste too much food, they may split a meal with second person.
Research shows that up to the age of five, children have a wellfunctioning “appestat.” Even if they are served extra large portions of macaroni and cheese, they eat until they are no longer hungry and then stop. After the age of five children begin to rely on the amount on the plate to tell them how much to eat. But by the time they enter kindergarten the greed of eye, nose, and mouth hunger begin to override the wisdom of stomach and cellular hunger.
Many adults have ignored the signals from their appestat for so long they have no sense of when to stop eating. They rely on social and visual clues and generally stop eating only when other people at the table have finished eating and the food is gone. Or they rely on painful signals from on overstretched stomach.
Zen masters recommend eating until you are two-thirds full. The Okinawans, the longest-lived people in the world, call this practice “hara no hachi bu”, which means “stomach eight parts full.” It means never to eat to capacity, to leave a little room in your stomach. A Japanese proverb says that eight parts of a full stomach sustain the man; the other two parts sustain the doctor.
Taking in the right amount:
1. Before we eat, stop to look at the food you will be eating and assess how much you would need to take to be just two-thirds full. As you take a smaller portion and eat it mindfully, reflect, “I am eating this portion for the good health of my body and mind.”
2. Take at least twenty minutes to eat. When you feel two-thirds full, drink some liquid.
3. Now think are you satisfied or not? If one part of you wants more to eat, why does it want it?
4.
If you take second helpings, reflect, “I am
talking this second portion to benefit… something.” See if and how the mind
fills in the blank.
(based on "Mindful eating" by Joan Chozen Bays, MD)
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