Eating Mindfully: How to End Mindless Eating and Enjoy a Balanced Relationship with Food

What would it be like to really savor your food? Instead of grabbing a quick snack on your way out the door or eating just to calm down at the end of a stressful day, isn’t it about time you let yourself truly appreciate a satisfying, nourishing meal?

In our modern society, weight concerns, obesity rates, and obsession with appearance have changed the way we look at food—and not necessarily for the better. If you have ever snacked when you weren’t hungry, have used guilt as a guide for your eating habits, or have cut calories even when you felt hungry, you have experienced “mindless” eating firsthand. This mindless approach to food is dangerous, and can have serious health and emotional consequences. But if you’ve been mindlessly eating all your life, it can be difficult to make a change. When it comes down to it, you must take a whole new approach to eating—but where do you begin? Practicing mindful eating habits may be just the thing to make that important change. In fact, it might just be the answer you’ve been searching for all these years.

The breakthrough approaches in Eating Mindfully, by Susan Albers, use mindfulness-based psychological practices to take charge of cravings so they can eat when they are hungry and stop when they feel full. Ten years after the release of the first edition, this book continues to help thousands of readers change the way they approach mealtime. So what’s changed? For starters, there is a new section that focuses on the “occasional mindless eater.” This second edition emphasizes that mindful eating isn’t only for those on a diet or for those who have severely problematic eating habits—it’s for everyone. In addition, this new edition features over 50 new tips for eating mindfully. Inside, you will learn how to be more aware of what you eat, get to know your fullness and hunger cues, and how to savor and appreciate every bite. You will also learn how mindlessness corrupts the way you eat, and how it can manifest in a number of different eating problems. No matter where you are in your journey toward mindful eating, this book will be an invaluable resource, and you will gain insight into how mindfulness can provide you with the skills needed to control the way you eat—leading to a healthier, happier life.

Susan Albers, PsyD, is a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic Family Health Center who specializes in eating issues, weight loss, body image concerns, and mindfulness. After obtaining masters and doctorate degrees from the University of Denver, Albers completed an internship at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN, and a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University. She conducts mindful eating workshops across the United States and internationally.

Albers is author of 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food; Eat, Drink, and Be Mindful; Mindful Eating 101, and But I Deserve This Chocolate! Her work has been featured in many media publications including O, the Oprah Magazine; Shape; Prevention; Vanity Fair; and the Wall Street Journal, and she blogs for the Huffington Post and Psychology Today. Albers has been a featured expert on many radio and television shows, including Dr. Oz and various programs on CNN and NPR.

A member of the Academy for Eating Disorders and the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals, she enjoys blogging, jogging, watching the Sundance Channel, and traveling. Visit Susan Albers online at www.eatingmindfully.com.

Foreword writer Lilian Cheung, DSc, RD, is a lecturer and director of health promotion and communication in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is a coinvestigator at the Harvard Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity, cocreator of the school-based program, Eat Well & Keep Moving, and founder and editorial director of The Nutrition Source website, www.thenutritionsource.org. Cheung is also coauthor of Be Healthy! It’s a Girl Thing, and Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life. www.savorthebook.com