WEEK TWO, BEYOND WHAT’S BROKEN: This is a review of Geneen Roth’s Women, Food and God Online Retreat, which takes place over a 6-week period.

Read the following for more information:

• Introducing the Women, Food and God Online Retreat
• Ending the War: Review of Women Food and God Online Retreat Week One

Week Two Course Overview
We covered a lot this week! Here are some bulleted main points from the lecture:

• Geneen elaborates on how you can trust yourself and your hunger to eat the right foods in the right amounts and at the right times.

• When we follow the guideline “Eat when you’re hungry,” we can start turning towards living the life that we want instead of dulling our emotions with food.

• Learn about what makes you tick when you examine your actions and trace them back to your beliefs.

• You are innately whole and good, but your critical inner voice makes you doubt your inner compass, your capabilities and your greatness. This critical inner voice, a.k.a. The Voice, shames you and keeps you small.

• First, you must distinguish when you hear that voice. Second, you must interrupt The Voice with even greater wrath and force than it uses towards you. When you extricate yourself from its nearly ongoing communiqués, you allow for your transformation to living the life you want.

The Meditation
Geneen walked us through another meditation where we were to inhabit our bodies and be aware of our surroundings. She explained that this is a tough practice to conquer, and we’ll do it each week.

Even though we might feel bored, frustrated or impatient while she takes us through the slow-paced, non-critical tour of our bodies, our appendages and torsos, there’s a good reason for doing it.

Geneen says that most of us don’t spend our time where we are. We dwell on the past or worry about the future, always letting our minds wander and rarely focusing on what it’s like to be in our bodies. The problem is, we’re missing out on the here and now and we’re out of touch with our physical selves. We can engage in the present moment by spending time in our bodies.

Geneen says that taking this time for ourselves might seem like a luxury, but she considers it a necessity to be able to be where we are now. And this is important: Hunger and fullness signals come from the body, so we need to learn how to be there to listen to it.

She said that if we are checking out during our guided body tour, to notice that. I felt like,

“Well, I have an excuse because I’m seven months pregnant and inherently uncomfortable. If I let myself feel my body, the way my back aches, I’ll want to get out of this chair and not sit through the whole session.”

I was guilty of having my Facebook page open, and felt caught red-handed when Geneen asked, “Is your Facebook page open?” She didn’t yell at me though. She simply said, “Notice that.”

Then it occurred to me that just about everybody on the call probably had an excuse or thought process as to why they didn’t need to fully listen. And the weird thing was that when I did tune into my body, shift my position and rub my back, the pain went away and I became very relaxed.

The big lesson Geneen points out is that we need to notice just how darn difficult it is to pay attention to ourselves. She says there’s a guideline called, “Eat without distractions,” and if it’s hard to pay attention to yourself now, then it will be hard to eat without distractions. So that’s why we’re practicing paying attention to ourselves now, and each week of the retreat.

Reinforcement of the Guideline: Eat When You’re Hungry
Geneen went over some common themes that have arisen among participants as they engaged in last week’s practice, “Eat when you’re hungry.” She says it’s likely that, previously, a lot of us had been eating according to a plan or a schedule or what we think we should eat, ignoring hunger cues.

If we’re not hungry when we wake up in the morning, then it doesn’t matter what the experts say about eating breakfast. Maybe you’re not hungry for an hour or two after you wake up. So then wait until you become hungry to eat! The same idea holds about lunchtime. If you aren’t hungry, then who is to say you need to eat at that moment? Wait until your body is asking for food.

I remember when I was young and thin and naturally ate intuitively. I had a coffee with cream for breakfast at around 10AM, and then lunch was a hot entrée from the work cafeteria, usually a balanced meal of meat, vegetables and starch. It was very rare that I ate a huge dinner and felt uncomfortably full at bedtime. I only ate what I needed, and I stopped eating when I was satisfied. I simply didn’t think that much about food.

I remember in those days hearing all those studies about how only fat people don’t eat breakfast. But I was completely disinterested in food in the morning and I certainly wasn’t fat. I shrugged my shoulders and ate what I wanted, when I wanted. It worked for me.

At some point over the years, after reading this study or that study, I started eating five times a day, including a big breakfast. Now I eat breakfast out of habit and it’s not based on hunger. I eat too much at dinner, mindlessly and in front of the TV. I no longer eat intuitively, and it seems like a huge struggle to stay in shape.

Geneen says that if this week you ditched that plan or schedule and ate when you were hungry, then it’s likely that you were faced with the realization that you need much less food than you thought you do. Perhaps you didn’t get as hungry as often as you thought you would.

I certainly had some breakthroughs in my eating habits by paying attention to hunger cues, and also asking myself “What do I want to eat?” instead of relying on the old stand-bys. If I want a veggie stirfry with shrimp and mango for lunch, then that’s what I’ll have. I no longer think, “Oh that’s too much trouble,” or “No, that’s not what I planned to eat.”

I’m eating healthier foods, more fruits and vegetables and a greater variety of food. I’ve been eating a smaller breakfast and feeling more energetic without having a big feast sitting in my belly. And I only woke up in the night with heartburn once this week, which as the pregnant ladies know, is a big victory.

Why Eat When You’re Hungry? Why Not Follow a Plan or Schedule?
If you aren’t even hungry to begin with when you start eating, then you won’t know when to stop eating. Geneen says that if we eat when we aren’t hungry, then we’re totally out of synch with what our body wants; we won’t know what to eat or when to stop. On the other hand, if we eat when we’re hungry, then we know to stop eating when we’re no longer hungry.

Geneen explains that there’s a big difference between mouth hunger and body hunger. Mouth hunger is in your head. You might see a certain food and decide you want it, whether you need it or not. She says if you’ve been on a diet, then you might be convinced that your body wants food you’re not “supposed” to have while dieting, or food you don’t eat without guilt. Geneen says that’s deciding with your mind, and has nothing to do with your body.

Instead, body hunger is connected with what will nourish the body. Geneen says your body wants to feel good, energetic and vital; your body wants to move with ease. It takes discernment to figure out what your body really wants. [Hint: probably not sugar.]

What Should You Turn to When You Aren’t Hungry?
Geneen says, “Once you begin following that guideline [Eat when you’re hungry] a lot comes up.” When you trust your hunger and listen to your body, then you stop using food to push away emotions, feelings and issues.

Geneen says you might be bored, lonely, sad or afraid you won’t like your own company. There might be that feeling of, “Okay, I don’t need food, SO NOW WHAT?!” You might have doubts that not eating is the right thing to do according to the diet experts.

The good news is that these uncomfortable feelings are the doorway to your new life! When you’re feeling uncomfortable, ask yourself how you want to live. What do you want your life to be like? See what’s most important to you.

Once you decide what you want out of your life, you need to keep re-deciding on a daily basis. We need to re-decide every day that we’re only going to eat when we’re hungry. At least in the beginning while we’re getting used to it, it’s going to be scary. We’re going to have not-so-nice emotions and we’re going to want to go back to old patterns. However, we need to re-decide every day how we want to live our lives.

This brings to my mind that famous Zig Ziglar quote: “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

Every day, we need to decide that we’re going to get out there and live the life we want. Over time, it will get easier as we gain new habits and ways of being.

Learn About Yourself
Geneen offers us another opportunity to learn about ourselves. She says that being in tune with our hunger and eating will show us the beliefs that we have, both in our approach to food and other areas of our lives.

She says a belief is a thought you take to be true, and a thought you’ve had repeatedly is a belief. Thoughts lead to feelings, and then feelings lead to behaviors. Thus, thoughts and beliefs drive actions.

When we want to change our actions, we should discover the thoughts and beliefs that are driving them. We often don’t question our beliefs because we think they’re facts, but it’s time now to dig them up and face them and be curious and open about your beliefs.

What Are Your Beliefs?
Explore why you can’t eat a meal by yourself while you take the time to pay attention to your body and the sensations you’re feeling. Maybe you believe you can’t take the time to eat a meal by yourself because it’s self indulgent and you need to give to others, and not yourself, to be loved.

We all have our reasons. Maybe you have a fear that it’s not okay for you to take time for yourself. If you rush with food — whether it’s at the fridge, at your desk, standing up, or in the car — that’s a signal that you won’t take time for yourself.

Maybe when you’re eating alone, you’re bored, lonely, irritated, frustrated or angry, and you don’t want to pay attention to your body.

Maybe you think you always need to be learning, taking in, understanding, achieving, fixing, accomplishing and you think it’s not okay to slow down.

This is definitely my problem! I eat the majority of my meals at my desk at work in front of my computer. Come to think of it, this morning I ate my breakfast in front of my computer, and I do that just about every day. The only meal I don’t eat in front a computer is dinner, and I do that in front of the TV. DOH!

Part of the problem might be my eating “schedule.” I plan to eat 3 meals, plus 2 snacks each day. I feel like if I took the time out to eat each of those meals carefully, I wouldn’t get anything done. And so I plan them ahead of time, and then eat them while multitasking. But if I eat only when I’m hungry, then I probably won’t eat as many meals in a day. This will free up the time for me to enjoy each of my meals like they’re special occasions on which I can concentrate.

Geneen says we all have a web of beliefs, feelings and actions. Our outward behavior is an expression of those beliefs. How we handle food can help trace the path back to what we believe.

So if I think about WHY I eat while multitasking, it might be because my belief that drives my actions is that if I’m seen as an underachiever or a slacker, then I’m a disgrace. I need to perform and succeed to be a worthy, loveable person. If I’m not superlative, then I should be punished and rejected.

Think about how you eat and why you don’t concentrate fully on mealtime. Explore what beliefs you might have about yourself that fuels those behaviors.

Unbrokeness
Geneen says we were born whole. She says children come into the world with a sense of fineness with the way they are. “They’re not self reflective. They don’t know that they know they’re fine.” As children, we all had a sense that we’re fine. There was an “unbrokeness” about ourselves. This is the biggest part of ourselves, and it’s been with us since birth.

She says that by the time we’re four or five years old, we’ve learned that some ways of being are acceptable and some are not. Some ways we express ourselves are loved, while others get rejected. Some behaviors are greeted with huge approval, some statements and expressions are met with anger, judgment, shaming or disapproval.

So we construct our identities and our self images based on what we discover is loveable and what’s not loveable. By the time we’re four or five, we have an ego, a sense of ourselves that’s aware of what it takes to be loved and what will lead to rejection and disapproval.

The Voice
We all have The Voice: this is the internalized parent, the inner critic, the super ego, the piece of your personality that is watching, assessing, judging, and deeming what’s right and wrong.

We learn The Voice from a collection of authority voices and cultural mores, including our parents, that tell us what to do. In the early years, The Voice is a protective measure and it helps us to learn to fit into our culture and society.

The Voice was a necessary part of learning how to grow up and how to embrace socially accepted behavior. It kept us from putting our hands on a hot stove. It probably helps us to look our best when going for a job interview and to avoid slurping our soup on a hot date. Sounds like a good thing to have around, right? RIGHT?!

Well, not always.

Why The Voice Isn’t Cool
The problem now as an adult with The Voice is that it won’t let you be in touch with the part of you that’s not broken. You have a hard time finding those moments of ease, joy and happiness with that Voice nattering on, wearing its Judgey McJudge Pants.

For example, you might be on the beach, smelling the salt air, hearing the waves and feeling the sand beneath your feet. You’re hanging out with yourself, feeling happy and free, just being you and feeling like all is right in your world. That’s a moment of unbrokeness. But then The Voice tells you that your giant ass is casting a shadow on the sun bathers sitting behind you. Not cool, Voice. Not cool!

The point is that The Voice can be overly harsh, nasty and judging. It can make you feel small and weak and unable to accomplish your goals.

As we grow up and experience life and become adults, we have something that’s better than The Voice. We have ourselves, our own clarity and what’s never been broken. We have our own inner compasses.

The Voice likes to convince us that our inner compass is broken, that we don’t know what’s best for ourselves and doles out a hearty portion of self-doubt.

We Must Deal With The Voice
That’s why it’s important to address The Voice — so we can be in touch with what isn’t broken and what’s utterly fine and loveable about ourselves. In order to really know ourselves, to be open, curious, and allowing ourselves to explore our feelings about food, in order to feel it’s ok to be ourselves and to live the life we know we’re meant to live, we must deal with The Voice.

The Voice tends to keep us from changing, from being, doing or saying anything that will upset the status quo. Right now, let’s call the status quo our conflicted relationship with food. Changing that relationship upsets The Voice.

When you try to change, The Voice comes in and stuns you. When you challenge yourself, The Voice can tell you that you aren’t capable. It cautions that you’re going to fail and it shakes your confidence. It cuts you off at the knees so you don’t have far to fall. It cuts you off before someone else can so you’ll be “safe” and powerless to undertake new changes and adventures.

When you’re listening to The Voice, you often feel small, weak, shamed, paralyzed, needy or desperate. You think you’re never going to get it right. You think you need an answer immediately and you rely on The Voice, which might tell you to go back on a diet, because you’re never going to get it right by yourself.

If we let it, The Voice will stop all transformation. It will tell you that you’re wrong and you don’t know what you’re doing. It clouds the objective truth with moral judgment that can be oppressive and discouraging.

First Step: Name The Voice
Unless we begin naming The Voice for what it is, we’ll never change. Changes become impossible and transformation is doomed until we recognize and disengage that part of ourselves that says, “Don’t try, what’s the matter with you? Who do you think you are?”

Geneen asks us to consider five recent judgments The Voice might have thrown our way. Think about the judgments you had when you looked in the mirror and ate your meals. The Voice can strike at any time, and is usually more frequent that you can imagine. Think about the last 15 minutes or the last hour.

Here are some judgments I noticed:

1) Why am I eating noodles and ice cream for dinner? Is that really what I should be eating?

2) I won’t be able to put the words together to write a good summary of tonight’s retreat. Last week was a fluke, and I won’t possibly write as well this week.

3) I can’t type fast enough to take good notes of what Geneen is saying and I’ll miss the point.

4) My belly is going to be so out of shape once I have this baby. (Ouch, really, THE VOICE? Lay off, man!)

I stopped looking for judgments after that last doozy. Geneen warns that the voice is vicious. Yowza!

So to elaborate on the first step, we need to separate out The Voice from who we really are. We’re so identified with it, that we don’t realize there’s a “me” and an “it.” When we’re blended with it, we don’t get that it’s possible to separate from The Voice. We feel ashamed and like we can’t change and we can’t do it right, but that’s just The Voice talking.

Name it. Recognize it. Be aware of its existence. Whenever there is a good / bad / right / wrong, The Voice is present and directing your experience.

When you become aware of The Voice, you’ll see how compelling it is. If we tell it to shut up, then how will we know what to eat and what to do? We might think, “I need that voice! It knows what’s right and wrong.” We’ve been identified with The Voice for so long we can’t imagine the freedom and clarity and unbrokeness we would have without it, because we keep being commandeered by The Voice.

The Voice is tricky. Sometimes it seems like we’re simply asking, “What if I never get there?” But that’s just another way The Voice has of saying we can’t get there. The Voice is speaking to you and you’re asking the question from the small place of, “I can’t do it.”

If we believe The Voice, then there’s no chance at change.

Second Step: Disengage From The Voice
We wouldn’t let anyone in the world talk to us like The Voice does. We’re carrying on that ongoing conversation with such meanness, such vitriol. It’s crucial that we learn to stop it, and disengaging comes when you stop it from speaking to you.

Separate from it and tell The Voice to get lost. Tell it to stop. Here a few tactics.

Remember that The Voice is powerful and nasty, so you don’t need to be polite or gentle with it. You can shout at it, seethe at it, and tell it where to go. Address your voice the way it needs to be addressed; come at it with more force than it comes at you.

You can say something as simple as, “Go away! You are not my friend!” Or you can hurl obscenities at it at top volume. Roll your eyes at it and say, “There you go again,” or you can just ignore it. But whatever you do, you need to disarm it and shove it out of the way.

Disengaging from The Voice is a practice, and it’s not something you get immediately and completely. The Voice will continue to sneak up on you in your lifetime, but you’ll catch it sooner and disengage successfully if you keep working at it.

Carve a New Path
Our brains are plastic and it’s possible to change and create new pathways, habits and ways of being. However, changing requires discomfort. It’s easy to fall back into old patterns and habits, because we’ve already carved those paths and our brains automatically follow those grooves without thinking. Building new pathways requires commitment and effort.

This is why we need to decide anew each day that we’re going to carve a new path and ask our brains to help us do the work. If it sounds exhausting to take this on every day, remember that harboring old habits is exhausting in its own way. So either way you’re exhausted, and you might as well put your energy towards adapting to your positive new life.

So we need to create a new path and the beginning of creating a new path requires a willingness to tolerate discomfort. That’s why it’s important to remind ourselves why we keep doing our practices and asking what you want your life to be about. You’ve got to want your life back more than you want to be comfortable in any given moment.

Soon, this new way of living becomes habitual and effortless so that when you find yourself wanting to eat and you’re not hungry, you’ll ask yourself, “What’s going on? What am I feeling? Why am I thinking about turning to food for a reason other than hunger?”

Stay with yourself and notice how it feels to want to eat when you’re not hungry. This is how food allows us to get to know ourselves and what we really want.

This Week’s Practices
1)      Living “as if”
Live as if you’re worth your own time, love and attention. Live like you like yourself. Live like you like your body.

This is a direct, day-to-day experience. Ask yourself, “How would I get up in the morning? How would I walk? How would I eat if I were living as if I liked myself and knew I was worth my own attention? What would I do?”

2)         Follow the Second Eating guideline:
Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.
Eat as if you’re worth your time and attention. You wouldn’t eat standing up, in the car, or tasting the food on your way from the stove to the table. You wouldn’t eat a meal in hiding before everyone else sits down so that you’re full when they get there.

Both of this week’s practices are related to The Voice. When we live like we like ourselves, The Voice will squawk and make itself known. To follow this week’s practices will require you to be aware of naming and disengaging from The Voice throughout the week.

Geneen says to remember that living close to yourself and the center of your own life is your birthright.

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WEEK ONE, ENDING THE WAR: This is a review of Geneen Roth’s Women, Food and God Online Retreat, which takes place over a 6-week period.

Fore more information, read:

• Introducing the Women, Food and God Online Retreat
• Beyond What’s Broken: Review of Women Food and God Online Retreat Week Two

Week One Course Overview
Geneen defines overeating as: Eating without regard for the body’s need for food. Eating when you’re not hungry.

That’s obviously something we all do. How many times have you had dessert when you aren’t hungry? Or filled up on appetizers, and then ate dinner anyway?

Geneen’s main point for this week is that intuitive eating is the way to go. Eat when you’re hungry. Don’t eat when you’re not. Sounds simple, right? Wait, there’s more.

The Meditation
Geneen had us do a meditation where we were to pay attention to the sensations of our bodies. She instructed us to “Feel your body, the support, what’s your body touching.” I immediately felt annoyed and anxious. I half listed to the meditation while I surfed the internet.

Then, within the meditation, Geneen explained that we’re prone to overeating because we’re unaware of our bodies. Geneen said that even though our bodies are the place we experience everything, we spend most of our time in our heads. Ironically, much of this above-the-neck time is spent judging ourselves from the neck down!

I realized the point of the meditation was because Geneen knows most people are out of touch with their bodies and don’t want to feel them, which is why so many people are overweight. When people pay attention to how they feel, they don’t consistently overeat unhealthy food. Point taken.

Four Principles
These principles all battle common misunderstandings and false beliefs. We tend to think that dieting will be our salvation, that we need to punish ourselves to get results, that we’re wrong and bad for overeating, and that we shouldn’t have to feel pain. These are incorrect ways of thinking. Geneen says:

Diets don’t work.
Geneen says that diets don’t work because they’re based on fear, deprivation, judgment and self-loathing, among other bad feelings. You may think you need to diet because you have the false belief that if you trust your appetite, then you’d “devour the universe.” The diet might work for a while, but you’ll eventually rebel from the constraint and blow the diet.

We don’t change from self-hatred or shame.
You don’t change because you hate yourself into it. “We think if we loathe ourselves enough, hate, shame, and punish enough, that we’ll become happy, loving people.” We can get the ball rolling on change by being curious about ourselves, but we need to drop the hate shtick.

We turn to food for good reasons.
This one is hard to get my head around. Geneen says that we turn to food because we believe, in the moment, that it’s somehow helping. We believe that based on the choices we have, overeating is something to do. And then the self-loathing kicks in. I’m on board with the self-loathing part, because I know I have other choices besides overeating.

Pain is part of life.
The most beautiful, rich and successful Hollywood movie star has pain in her life. It’s part of the human condition, and it’s okay to feel it. A lot of people are afraid to feel pain and turn to food to avoid it. But we’re going to feel pain anyway, whether we overeat or not. So ditch the sandwich and be with your pain, and then it will go away.

Use Your Relationship With Food to Discover How You Live
Now, I have to admit that when I read the book, I felt kind of, “eh” about this concept. What the heck does my relationship with food have to do with the rest of my life? I could see some parallels (I guess) but I didn’t really take the time to think it through and notice.

Last night when Geneen went on to say, and I’m half-quoting, half para-phrasing her here: The way we do anything is the way we do everything. The way you eat reflects the way you live.

A light bulb blazed in my head. I suddenly realized that my main beliefs about life – how I work, how I play, and how I eat – goes something like this:

There’s so much to do and so little time. There’s not enough time to do everything I want. I will find a way to make everything I do “productive” and useful and purposeful to use the short time I have well.

Even the way I eat (when I’m being “good”) – via planning and charts and shopping lists – is meant to maximize my nutrition intake, my convenience, my sense of frugality. And when I’m being “bad” I might think that I need to experience the bounty of the planet before I kick the bucket. I’m in Italy? I better eat gelato every single day for breakfast, because I’ll never be able to do that again! It amazed me to realize that this “productive” rule, this seize-the-day thinking permeates my life. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and I had an inkling that I live that way, but had never applied it to my relationship with food or realized how all-encompassing that feeling is.

Geneen says that once we have these realizations about how we approach life, we should question these beliefs. Oftentimes when we’re younger, we’re given instructions or we incorrectly infer commands on how we should behave. To dig deeper, what often gets jammed into those directives is the sense of, “Who I am isn’t good enough.” Or, “If I show myself, I’ll get punished.” These beliefs show up in our relationship with food. So it’s up to us now to realize that only we know what’s best for us, and as adults, it’s time to rearrange our thinking.

For those of you playing at home, take a minute for yourself. Draw a connection between how you eat and how you live. Do you see any parallels? How do these concepts work for you, and how might they hurt?

Ending the War: A Doorway
When Geneen talks about “ending the war,” she’s referring to the way we struggle with food and our bodies, the way we obsess and punish, that cycle of deprivation followed by overeating, followed by self-loathing and back to deprivation. She says that to break that cycle, we need to drop the struggle and stop trying to fix it.

To end the war, she says we should be curious about our relationship with food and ask what our relationship with food can teach us. When we’re interested in understanding our relationship with food, then food becomes the doorway to getting to know ourselves. She said when we look at how we eat, the amount, when we eat and what we eat, we can use it as a guide to learn more about ourselves and the center of our own life.

Right about here, I had another “Aha” moment:

Both in life & food, I am a planner. I am mercilessly ambitious. My goals are forceful and unyielding. Then in the moments that I veer from my plans, I sometimes scold myself for it. The end result is that I’m often overpromising to myself, over committing and setting myself up to miss my goals. I meet them part way – which is admirable since the bar is set so high – but there are times when I’m unreasonably disappointed in myself when I don’t conquer the world. I’m afraid if I set reasonable goals, I won’t be as successful.

[Maybe what would happen if I set reasonable goals is that I won’t be so hard on myself, and I won’t be as stressed out. Maybe. Just a thought.]

We Overeat When We Don’t Want to Feel
Geneen says that we gain weight because we don’t listen to ourselves. We binge when we don’t want to feel. We turn to food to medicate, because it’s a way to change the channel when you don’t want to listen to what’s happening.

Here I had another realization:

I tend to overeat at night, when I’m tired after a long day at work. At that point, I want to shrug off the yoke of responsibility and tune out after pressuring myself all day. I rarely plan ahead what I’m going to have for dinner.

But in life in general, I often spend time planning so far ahead for everything except what actually matters: the next step in my day. I will often plan out projects by the hour weeks in advance, not accounting for the unexpected. And I ignore the time that’s immediately in front of me, the very next thing I will do. Instead, my head is all the way down the road to the result that would come from all this future planning. The Next Step seems so middling even though it’s actually what matters the most.

Holy crap. Get out of my head, Geneen!

Kids at home: what are you avoiding when you overeat?

How Do You Want to Live?
Geneen asks, “How do we want to live, what do we want our lives to be marked by? Do we want, ‘She was thin,’ marked on our graves?’” (Um, maybe?) “We lose weight knowing it’s not going to do what we want it to do.”

Essentially, we can’t take our bodies with us. You’d think we can, with all the obsessive energy we spend on them. And of course, we need them now to feel good and to function, but once we’re dead, all that time spent hating our guts was just a waste of time.

So Geneen asks, “HOW DO YOU WANT TO LIVE? It knocks at the door of our hearts – the longing for change, for the life we know is possible that we’re not quite living. To have that life, to be fully yourself, we have to ask ourselves, ‘What do I want my life to be? How do I want my days to be defined?’ … I want that life I know is possible.”

Discomfort: My Favorite Part
I’m not a masochist, but this part of the lecture was refreshing to me. Geneen basically said that living the life you want isn’t magic. It’s hard work. It’s uncomfortable. I find that comforting, because I know she’s not blowing smoke up our butts.

Geneen goes on to say that living the life we want, “requires a degree of willingness to tolerate discomfort…. Learning how to do anything new requires discomfort. You gotta to be willing to be uncomfortable. That’s a prerequisite.”

She makes it clear though that we’re not exchanging a life of comfort for discomfort, because – wait for it — YOU ARE ALREADY UNCOMFORTABLE! Gee, how’s that for a revelation. So she’s basically saying we can be uncomfortable with the status quo, or we can be uncomfortable pursuing the life we want, so we might as well go for it. Learning what our body wants and stopping once we’ve had enough are new skills that require effort, and yes, being uncomfortable, until we get the hang of them.

Next, Geneen states my motto: “It takes effort to be effortless.” Sounds like the whole concept of Swell Easy Living. For life to be easy and swell, there are things we need to do.  So let’s get crackin’.

This Week’s Practices
Geneen gave us two practices for the week.

1) Follow the first of her eating guidelines: Eat When You’re Hungry

That’s it. Don’t eat when you aren’t hungry, eat when you are hungry and stop eating when you’ve had enough. Do just that much, and follow through on it.

Easier said then done, because sometimes we eat to fill emptiness or loneliness or boredom (or whatever.) Geneen wants us to ask ourselves, “What’s so bad or scary about the emptiness? What does it feel like?” Sometimes we feel the beginning of a feeling and we think, “RUH ROH!” We want to avoid that discomfort. Be willing to be uncomfortable and know there are times you won’t feel like refraining from eating. Do it anyway.

If there are times that you decide to eat even though you’re not hungry, Geneen says to be curious and notice what happens, but she warns that insight alone won’t lead to change; it’s our actions that make a difference. Change happens in baby steps so to take on a practice like, “Eat when you’re hungry,” start out doing it once a day. If it feels like too much, then do it every other day. But you need to start somewhere.

Geneen instructs to check into your body when you wake up, and again before you eat. Since the aim of this guideline is to eat only when hungry, you need to learn what hunger feels like to you and rate it on scale of 1 – 10. A one means you’re hungry, 10 is stuffed and 5 is comfortable; 4 or below you’re hungry, 5 or above you’re not.

Geneen cautions that mouth hunger does NOT mean body hunger. Your mouth can salivate and still want food when we’re full. She says to focus on the belly and abdomen area and notice if it’s growling, feels empty or spacey. Really determine what it feels like (not what your head wants it to feel like) and rate your hunger on the scale of 1 – 10.

2) Be Astonished
Each day, notice what you already have — not what’s wrong or what needs to be changed. Think about the abundance that’s in your world already.

Geneen says that the retreat is a two-part process. We have to address the part that’s keeping us from being ourselves and having the life we want. We also have to notice what we already have and ways we already are who we want to be. We can’t only focus on the obstacles. We also need to appreciate where we already are and what we’ve got. For every day you wake up, notice what you already have.

I’m going to mark my “to do” items in my calendar right now, although I am refraining from making myself a Hunger Scale Chart. Baby steps.

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For more information, read:

• WEEK ONE, ENDING THE WAR: a review of the first installment of Geneen Roth’s 6-week Women, Food and God Online Retreat.
• WEEK TWO, BEYOND WHAT’S BROKEN: a review of the second installment.

The Problem
A lot of people, I daresay most Americans and a growing number around the globe, have a problem with overeating. Personally, I have that very typical issue of being all-business during the workweek, followed by trashing all my hard work with dieting helter-skelter on the weekends and any time we eat out.

Most women (and more men than will admit it) battle over losing and gaining the same poundage year after year. Geneen Roth, author of Women, Food and God claims, and I don’t disagree, that this Sisyphean task is a distraction from feelings we don’t feel like feeling.

She says there are areas of our lives and corners of our brain that we want to be distracted from, and the cycle of dieting and overeating is a good escape. By the way, she says “dieting” could also be compulsive spending, alcoholism, or any number of behaviors and addictions that people take on to divert themselves.

The Solution?
Since I think the issue of overeating is a hugely important one for so many of us, I can’t quite let go of Geneen Roth and her highly-praised book. My main criticism of the book is that it’s all very floaty and pretty language, but once I put that book down and walk away, I’m going to keep behaving the way I’ve been behaving.

I watched Geneen on Oprah last week, hoping to catch another shred of information or a new concept that would help me grab onto her instruction in a more concrete way, but her appearance did nothing but make me even more curious about how her teachings work for people. I did some googling following the show, and I discovered that Geneen is holding a six-week online seminar to help us “end the war with food,” and to “eat when we’re hungry and to stop when we’re not.” From Geneen Roth’s web site:

In this “Women Food and God” Online-Retreat, you have a unique opportunity to study with and be inspired by Geneen Roth LIVE in the comfort of your home. And even if you can’t attend one or more of the live sessions, you’ll have unrestricted access to listen to the recordings of this transformational Online-Retreat whenever you want.

Since my complaint about the book was that it’s too hard to put into practice by myself, I think that this “online retreat” might address that issue and help put what I’ve learned from the book into existence in my every day eating habits. The retreat runs from May 25, 2010 until June 29th, and takes place for an hour each week followed by 30 minutes of Q&A.

So What Do You Get Out of This?
Each week, I will give a short summary of that week’s teaching, let you know what I’m learning and what challenges I experience. I would love for you to read along with my journey, and you might get a few tips or tricks from my weekly reviews.

An easy way to get alerted to a posting is to subscribe to email updates in the top-right box below my photo. I promise NO SPAM EVER. Just post notifications, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Do It With Me!
To take it one step further, I think it would be über-cool if you would come to the party and join her seminar and we can discuss here what you’ve learned as well. Since so many of us have goals and challenges related to fitness and eating, invite your friends, sisters and mothers that share the same goals and concerns. [There's a 2-for-1 registration discount, so you have a good reason to invite a buddy.] Maybe we can all put overeating behind us.

I will invite you to share what you learn on your own blogs or in the comments, which could help us develop more well-rounded coverage of the retreat by sharing our expertise and experiences. Or just lurk and read, it’s your choice. 

Read WEEK ONE, ENDING THE WAR: a review of the first installment of Geneen Roth’s 6-week Women, Food and God Online Retreat.

Update! I am reviewing Geneen Roth’s weekly Women Food & God online retreat. Follow along with my journey and pick up some tips, tricks and reinforcement to end overeating!

Watch the video if you dare — it’s my first dorky-yet-earnest attempt at a video for Swell Easy Living. I promise I’ll get better at this as I go along. I’ll also get huger as I go along, as I still have 3 months of pregnancy left to go. So enjoy, even if it’s just so you can feel better about yourself.

Women, Food & God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything is a book that could help you stop overeating.

Roth’s ethereal language can make the concepts hard to grasp in practical terms. If you want a tool to reinforce what you’ve learned after reading the book, try downloading Geneen Roth’s MP3s. Be forewarned, I don’t recommend listening to the MP3s unless you’ve read the book, and it can be an expensive proposition to purchase each track at almost $14 a piece.

Catch Author Geneen Roth on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 12, 2010.

Update!Geneen Roth will be back on The Oprah Winfrey Show on July 12, 2010.

To read reviews of Geneen Roth’s weekly Women Food & God online retreat, come back see what I learn between May 25 and June 29 and what might work for you.

There was a glorious time in my life when I went out for a double date every Thursday night with the husband and our friends Heather and Todd. My toughest decisions on those nights were questions like, “Pizza or chicken fingers and fries?” and “Will one bottle of wine be enough, or do we have time for a second?” Needless to say, those nights were my absolute dieting downfall. That wasn’t just a cheat night, every Thursday was like a bacchanalian rite. In retrospect, eating those kinds of foods on a weekly basis and with a mindset of “abundance is better” tainted my perspective on my eating habits altogether. If it was okay to do that on Thursday, then most other eating habits appeared to be “dieting” in comparison.

When I finally decided to get serious about losing weight, I decided that my Thursday night fare needed to become lighter. I knew that breaking a habit that was so ingrained was going to be tough, and so I needed a plan before I arrived at the restaurant. I looked at the menu online before going out, and I chose a green salad with grilled chicken. I mentally limited the number of glasses of wine I would have to one or two.

We all know that planning what we’re going to do ahead of time doesn’t guarantee that we’ll stick to our plan. When everyone around you is eating French fries, the idea of a salad can suddenly seem cruel and Spartan. So your success cannot hinge completely on your ability to fully follow through on your pre-game decision. There has to be a component of post-game analysis where you look to see what you did right. It’s of course helpful to see where you went wrong so that you can do better next time, but giving yourself credit for your dieting successes is just as valuable.

The first time I went out on a Thursday night and succeeded with my plan of eating a salad while scorning the fried and cheesy options, I went home and actually wrote down my success. I was so pleased with myself, I needed to memorialize the event. Dr. Judith Beck, PhD, author of The Complete Beck Diet for Life writes, “Successful dieters continually put the focus on what they are doing right. They prove to themselves that they really can take control and exert self-discipline.”

The following Thursday, I read my success tale back to myself to boost my confidence before going to the restaurant. I knew it was going to be difficult to repeat my success, but reminding myself that I did it once and recalling how proud I felt enabled me to make the same choice again. As the weeks went on, I’d developed a new habit and I came to truly enjoy the salad I ordered. I liked how it made me feel nourished instead of stuffed and regretful, and the taste became more delicious to me than a plate of fried, processed chicken.

In his book The Success Principles, Jack Canfield says, “If you assume in favor of yourself and act as if it is possible, then you will do the things that are necessary to bring about the result. If you believe it is impossible, you will not do what is necessary, and you will not produce the result. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

As Canfield’s book demonstrates, the idea that thinking positively leads to success doesn’t exclusively apply to dieting. However, with dieting specifically it’s common for people to constantly berate themselves for their failures rather than celebrate the times they resist cravings.  If you focus on the times that you cheat on your diet, you’ll get trapped in the mindset that you’re weak and you have no willpower. Then guess what will cross your mind the next time you’re presented with a big hunk of cake? That you can’t possibly resist it with your lack of self-control.

Conversely, if you think fondly of the time you ate the broccoli instead of going for the mayo-slathered potato salad, you’re more likely to make a virtuous decision again when you’re faced with a test of your will. You’ll know that you can make the right choice because you’ve done it before. Next time you’re faced with a dieting challenge, think positively to get thinner.