Vegetarian Times: Timeless secrets for lasting weight loss

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Timeless secrets for lasting weight loss

Ronna Kabatznick

Let's put the matter on the table. It seems odd to be talking about weight loss and Buddhism. After all, the aim of Buddhism is to end suffering, to free oneself from the pain and sorrow of this world. If you've ever tried to lose or maintain weight or have known people in this situation, you know that the experience often brings profound suffering.

Overweight people are often made to feel like second-class citizens because of their body size. In the presence of appealing food, it's easy to feel powerless and anxious about your ability to limit what you eat. If you've experienced the vicious cycle of overeating, losing and regaining weight, you know that "misery" is another word to describe it. It's true, changing deeply rooted eating habits may not be on par with a life-threatening illness, but it is its own form of grief, suffering and anxiety.

The Buddha sought and found a path to peace and freedom in the midst of everyday life. He found that the solution to life's persistent problems, including weight-related ones, is available right now and can be summed up in two simple words: look within. The solution is always with you, available day and night. Needless to say, the Buddha didn't deal directly with the challenge of losing weight because 2,500 years ago in rural India, getting food was the problem -- not limiting it. Nevertheless, his teachings are timeless and are accessible to everyone. And don't worry, you don't need to become a monk or a nun to start making these changes. Millions of people from athletes to physicians are currently using skills and techniques developed by the Buddha.

The Buddha taught the transformative powers of mindfulness -- a simple practice that means paying attention to the here and now in a gentle, nonjudgmental way. He taught people how to become their own authorities. No one can be mindful for you. That's why the Buddha told his followers, "Don't believe me. Look and see for yourself. Peace and freedom are just as available to you as it is to me. But you must discover the truth for yourself."

The Buddha's first sermon after his Enlightenment was called, "The Four Noble Truths." He summed up his discoveries in these basic principles:

1. There is suffering. 2. The cause of suffering is attachment

to desire. 3. Suffering ends by letting go

of attachments. 4. Letting go happens by developing the

Noble Eight-Fold Path.

THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH:

THERE IS

SUFFERING

What Does Suffering, a term usually associated with disease, war or unrequited love, have to do with losing weight? The Buddha said that all experiences from the most delightful to the most painful, are transient, unreliable and unsatisfactory. They come and go. Nothing lasts and change is inevitable. This in itself can be painful.

The Buddha made a crucial distinction between the suffering you experience because of the inevitability of change and the suffering we create for ourselves because we want things to be different than they are. When you forget that everything changes, you set up a struggle that creates suffering. You're not accepting what's really going on -- you're struggling against. You want things to be different than they actually are. When there is a struggle, there's suffering.

Let's say you hate to go grocery shopping. The checkout lines are long, the items you want are rarely available and the aisles are narrow and crowded. All in all, it's a frustrating and maddening experience. Where is the suffering? It comes from your response to shopping, not from the experience of it. Shopping is just a series of actions involving pushing a shopping cart, pulling items from shelves, lifting things from bins, moving in certain directions, etc. You may not be able to choose whether or not to shop, but you can choose your reaction to it. The hate and frustration you feel are optional, not required.

This is a valuable lesson for weight loss. We tend to forget that things change, that we are not eternally overweight or eternally craving a cookie. These realities, however compelling, are fleeting. Moreover, while we cannot wish away or change these fleeting moments, we have complete and absolute control over how we respond to them. You can decide to respond to the craving by eating a cookie, or you can observe the urge as if it were on a movie screen. You can despair over the number on a scale or recognize that your body changes minute to minute over the course of your life. In this very profound sense, you create and shape your reality moment by moment.

THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH:

ATTACHMENT TO

DESIRE CAUSES

SUFFERING

The Buddha didn't just say "there is suffering" and leave it at that. He said suffering is caused by attachment to desire. See for yourself. When you like something, you want more- when you don't, you want less or none at all. The problem is not about the desire. Wanting things such as healthy food and a slender body are normal. Suffering comes from grasping and clinging to desires. If you believe you must be 130 pounds to be happy or if you're in love with coffee frozen yogurt and all that's available is strawberry, you suffer when these desires are not satisfied. The Buddha said grasping to desire creates a vicious cycle of wanting more and more (cookies, ice cream, vitamins, energy bars or whatever) or less and less (pounds, inches, cellulite, food additives, etc.). However, we fool ourselves. Fulfilling desires over and over again will never -- and can never -- provide the feelings of emotional fullness and satisfaction you long for. As long as you cling to desire as the solution to life's challenges, you'll always be frustrated and dissatisfied.

Let's say, for example, that you're dying to try the latest trendy vegetarian restaurant. It's taken you weeks to get a reservation. You finally get there. Maybe you loved the meal, or maybe you hated it. So what? How long does either feeling last? Craving any experience, including a good meal or losing weight, will never bring you the happiness you're looking for. In fact, the more you crave, the more you suffer. You then move on to the next experience (a new cookbook, exercise video, etc.) you think holds the key to your happiness.

THE THIRD NOBLE TRUTH:

SUFFERING ENDS

BY LETTING GO OF

ATTACHMENTS

Peace with yourself, your eating habits and your body comes from hanging your relationship to desire. Instead of grasping at pleasure and pushing away pain, you have the option of being mindful -- seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. When you pay attention to the here and now, you focus on what's true and real. By practicing mindfulness, you help loosen the bond between attachment and desire because you are seeing the reality of your situation without the distorting prisms of habit, judgment and emotion.

Then there's a choice. Do you really want a second helping of pasta, or can you feel this urge within your body and see how it comes and goes or gets stronger or weaker? Do you want to tell someone off, or can you just be in the heat of anger without acting it out? Must you always beat yourself up when you overeat or can you watch those self-hating feelings come and go like the weather or clouds in the sky? When you look within, you have the opportunity to choose your reaction instead of acting out automatic patterns and habits that don't serve you well.

Experiences that tend to undermine healthy eating habits such as frustration, loneliness, hunger and stress can be accepted for what they are instead of what you want them to be. For example, it may be psychologically easier to pretend that your loneliness is actually hunger. Realizing that you're lonely and figuring out what, if anything, you can do about it, is infinitely more difficult than reaching for a piece of chocolate. Ultimately, however, recognizing what is true is the most effective way to peace of mind, even when what you find is unpleasant. With practice, you will find that you can survive what is uncomfortable, difficult or unpleasant simply by recognizing their reality.

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH:

DEVELOPING THE

EIGHT-FOLD PATH

LEADS TO PEACE

AND THE END

OF SUFFERING

The Noble Eight-Fold Path is your road-map to change. These are the qualities that the Buddha said are important to cultivate in order to realize peace and freedom with anything and anyone. They encourage you to investigate what's going on right now with great care and sensitivity. This Path asks you to use all of your senses -- tasting, hearing, touching, smelling and seeing -- to experience life thoroughly as it presents itself from moment to moment. These qualities include understanding, thoughts, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

Here are some ways you can be more mindful of food and eating in your everyday life:

* List all the ways you suffer because 1) the way things are and 2) your reaction to the way things are. The first list might include statements such as "my body needs fewer calories as I get older" and "my family eats differently than I do; there are too many food temptations around me." The second list might include statements such as "I feel betrayed by my body" or "I hate it that my family insists on having foods in the house that they know I can't resist."

* Pay attention to your food attachments. What can't you live without? What foods do you hate? Which holiday and family traditions include certain food requirements? Must there always be chocolate on Valentine's Day or cake on your birthday?

* Observe your reactions rather than act them out. When there's the impulse to eat something you know you're going to regret later, imagine that you're watching this experience unfold as a movie. Instead of giving in to the impulse to act, keep watching the movie. Allow the initial impulse to get stronger or weaker, knowing it will change if you wait it out. Just like in a movie, the next scene always appears until the movie ends. Remind yourself, "Everything changes."

* Monitor your speech. For one week, refrain from saying anything critical about food, your body, a restaurant meal, your long-term prospects for losing weight and keeping it off. Is this easy or difficult? What are you most tempted to be critical of -- yourself, specific kinds of food, restaurants or other people? Do you notice the critical speech of others more or less when you're not speaking critically yourself?

* Look for three new qualities each time you eat. Notice the colors, shapes and sizes of food before you begin eating. Pay attention to how things taste such as sweet or sour and even how they sound as you chew and swallow.

* Practice appreciation. Instead of telling yourself how tired you are of the same old pasta dish or the food at the local diner, take time to acknowledge some of the lives and elements that are contained in every single bite of food you eat -- from the farmers who planted the seeds, to the worms who turned the soil, to the rain and sun and people like the clerks who stock your natural food store's shelves or the truck drivers who deliver your favorite whole grain bread.

* Give back. Food abundance is a privilege you can share. Save the money you might spend on a week's worth of soft drinks or muffins. Then buy and donate fresh food to the hungry. Work in a local food giveaway program or volunteer at the community food bank. Remind yourself daily that the ability to choose what you eat is the gateway to helping those who can't.

Ronna Kabatznick is the author of the forthcoming The Zen of Eating: Ancient Answers To Modern Weight Problems to be published by Perigee Books in the spring of 1998.