Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food

Here is an accessible and encouraging exploration of how and why to apply the Zen art of mindfulness to transform our “issues” with food. Whether we are overweight (as are two-thirds of American adults today) or suffer from an eating disorder, learning to eat mindfully can liberate us from the suffering we experience with food. Practiced for centuries in the Zen tradition, mindful eating is an approach that involves bringing ones full attention to the process of eatingbecoming fully present to the tastes, smells, thoughts, and feelings that arise during a meal. Preliminary research funded by the National Institutes of Health indicates that mindfulness is effective in treating eating disorders.

Dr. Bays, a physician and Zen teacher, offers a wonderfully clear presentation of what mindfulness is and how it can help us create a healthier relationship with food. In Mindful Eating she shows us how to rediscover the simple act of eating, thereby gaining control of our eating problems from the inside out. Along the way she reviews the relevant research, offers medical information, and presents numerous practical exercises drawn from her workshops. Through mindful eating we not only overcome our issues with food, but we can reawaken our sense of pleasure and satisfaction. This book shows us how.

Mindful Eating also includes a 70-minute audio CD containing guided exercises read by the author.

Practiced for centuries in the Zen tradition, mindful eating is an approach that involves bringing one's full attention to the process of eating--becoming fully present to the tastes, smells, thoughts, and feelings that arise during a meal. Dr. Bays offers a wonderfully clear presentation of what mindfulness is and how it can help to create a healthier relationship with food.

Anyone whos tried to lose weight through sheer will power knows how difficult, if not impossible, it can be. In this practical and paradigm-shifting book, Dr. Jean Kristeller presents a new alternative--a program for weight loss based on her successful Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training Program. Instead of frustration, depravation, backsliding, guilt, and a lack of results, The Joy of Half a Cookie provides simple, proven ways to lose weight and keep it off, using what we now know about the power of the mind.

The first book to bring mindfulness to the dieting space in a truly accessible and mainstream way, The Joy of Half a Cookie will show readers how to lose weight while:

• ditching willpower, guilt, and cravings
• loving every bite, including favorite and previously “forbidden” foods
• tapping into the bodys satiety signals

Written for anyone who wants to lose weight – not just the mediation and yoga crowd – this accessible book delivers a proven way to find peace of mind and a healthier relationship with food, for life.

Jean Kristeller, Ph.D. is professor emeritus of psychology at Indiana State University and the creator of the NIH-funded Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT). Self, Redbook, NPRs “The Salt,” The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, and many other outlets interview her regularly and cover her research. 

Alisa Bowman is a professional writer and ghostwriter who has penned more than 30 titles, including seven NY Times bestsellers. Bowman has appeared on Today, The CBS Early Show, FOX, and Discovery Health.