The Zen Diet Revolution (4 page)

Of course, the Zen Diet principles can help you cut down and replace the wine with something else – have one small glass, but follow it with something soft like sparkling water with a squeeze of lemon, or a lime and soda. If you like white wine, make it a spritzer. Chances are you aren’t even appreciating the wine you are drinking; I’ve seen friends who literally throw it back before refilling the glass. They buy the cheapest Chablis or Rioja and just guzzle to sedate themselves. If you genuinely love wine, get into good-quality ones and drink less; your liver and your waistline will thank you for it.

You really need to be honest with yourself and work out what is causing you to drink. We are under increasing pressure from all sides in modern life, whether it is financial, relationships, body image or the dreaded status anxiety. The media bombards us with images and information about how we ought to be or the kind of lifestyle we should be having. Often it is conflicting and contradictory, and as a society we are suffering from a restless discontent – we are shown endless pictures of supposedly perfect-looking ‘celebrities’ who earn ridiculous amounts of money for doing practically nothing and the subliminal messages are: ‘You want to be like this’, ‘You need all these things to be happy’, and, more depressingly, ‘Your way of life is nothing unless you are famous (even for five minutes as YouTube is testament to), drop-dead gorgeous or rich’. It doesn’t make us feel too good in the long run, and so we then view
our own life as less fulfilling, less glamorous, and the grass looks lush and green over on the other side. Alcohol is not a cure for misery or conflict, and when you begin to make those small, permanent changes, not only will you find that your attitude and self-esteem get better, but you will be less inclined to need other things to help prop you up.

So how do you quit the bad food habit? The best and most simple way is not to buy these kinds of foods – keep your cupboards and fridge free of temptation. Don’t be fooled into having a secret stash for emergencies because every day could easily become an emergency. To quell sugar cravings, have some quick but healthy ‘snacks’ available – you’d be surprised how delicious live natural yogurt mixed with a spoonful of apple puree and sprinkled with cinnamon can be. Or try one of the fabulous smoothies from the Zen Recipe section – a cup of semi-skimmed milk, a banana and a spoonful of organic cocoa is a perfect mix of healing protein, mood-soothing tryptophan (in the milk
and
banana) and a little bit of a lift from the cocoa. But you also need to get to the root of your emotions and try and fix those – what are you trying to cover up? Are you lonely, unhappy with your job/relationship/environment? If you can be honest enough with yourself to pinpoint the reason for your anxiety or stress, then you’re nearly there and can channel your energy into changing the things you
can
change, but also make changes to the way you deal with the things you can’t.

Here are some of the best foods to help beat the mood binge:

•   Anxious? Try foods rich in the B-complex vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, B12 and magnesium, such as whole grains, nuts, milk, broccoli/green leafy vegetables and turkey breast.

•   Can’t sleep or fancy a midnight snack? Keep tryptophanrich turkey breast, plain yogurt, milk, bananas and a few nuts handy.

•   Depressed mood? You will need a good mix of B-complex and magnesium-rich foods such as wholegrain cereals, nuts, beans, pork, beef, liver, seeds, fruits, pulses and avocados.

•   Having trouble concentrating? Again, the B-complex vitamin-rich foods are highly important, as listed under anxiety and depression. Vitamin B3 (also known as niacin, nicotinic acid and related to nicotanamide) and B1 (thiamine) are your new best friends and can be found in meat, offal, fish, pulses, whole grains and nuts. Both help with mental function and concentration.

•   Tired and irritable? It’s B vitamins and magnesium again, which can be found in the foods listed above; they really are the essential ‘good-mood foods’.

Tuck into a good mix of these foodstuffs along with other healthy ones and you will find that you may well be on the way to managing those emotional eating moments for good.

You may be familiar with the concept of ‘mindfulness’ as it has become something of a buzz word over the past few years. It is a mainstay of Buddhist practice, but is equally important in a non-spiritual or religious context. Mindfulness teaches us to live in the moment; it is a way of slowing down our thoughts and bodily processes by concentrating on exactly
what
is happening to us in the present. We often find ourselves a slave to the past and fearful of the future, both things that we only have a limited amount of control over, but which can cause us unnecessary stress and anxiety. Brooding over past hurts and fearful of the ‘what ifs’ to come can waste not only precious time but, crucially, your mental and physical energy. It is now being recognized that anxiety and repetitive intrusive thoughts can cause severe physical energy depletion.

This makes perfect sense when we understand how much energy we use up just on everyday brain power; our brain needs fuel as much as the rest of our body. If we suffer from debilitating anxiety or worry, then we are literally sucking up energy that should be used for the rest of our body, and this can have the knock-on effect of impairing our health. Conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME), autoimmune problems, diabetes, hormonal disturbances, weight gain and chronic pain can all be linked to episodes of prolonged or chronic stress and depressive
illness. In turn, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and lack of mobility can then result from ill health and we are caught in a vicious cycle. Repetitive mental chatter, anxiety or obsessive thoughts can be enormously distressing and tiring. For some people it is a daily battle and one that is not often recognized nor taken seriously by the medical profession. Rumination is a term that is given to those thoughts that continually churn through the brain; they are often illogical and cause intense misery to those who suffer from them.

People with anxiety are often told to ‘pull themselves together’ or to ‘get a grip’, but it is a serious psychological condition and needs attention. Often the sufferer has lost the ability to quieten the chatter because the neural pathways in the brain have adapted to the pattern of worry; the mind actually begins to ‘warn’ the person that there is ‘something wrong’ because the anxiety has caused not only a mental change but also physiological changes in response to the emotions generated by the worries. So symptoms such as a racing heart, sweating, nausea and the need to go to the toilet are often triggered by the thoughts, which then alert the mind to remember this awful and fearful experience – a catch-22 situation. By learning to live in the present using mindfulness techniques, we can not only begin to calm our chaotic minds, but also learn how to accept ourselves and our conditions and move into the future without fear. Recent studies into mindfulness as a method of helping with anxiety, depression and other mental and neurological disorders are showing very positive results.

By learning to embrace the moment, you will learn which things are important and which can be released. By no means does mindfulness allow you to shirk your responsibilities or evade your fears; instead, it teaches you to be aware of what is real and important, helping release you from your shackles to the past and your fears for the future. Every day lived in a mindful way creates more time for you to experience the ‘now’ and focus on being inspired for your next moment. If you no longer live in the past, nor try and anticipate what is to come, then you are truly a master of your own destiny, and each day becomes an amazing experience of discovery and inspiration.

As you have now seen, the Zen Diet is far more than just a diet. A perfect way to complement your dietary changes is to use an ancient technique for calming the mind and making every morsel (whether of food or life) count! Following is an exercise you can try to really experience the concept of mindfulness or living in the moment; this meditation was inspired by one devised by Professor Mark Williams in his superb book
Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world
. You can use any item of food to experiment with, especially one with a lot of texture, taste and fragrance. Here, I am using chocolate as the example, not only because it is a favourite of mine, but because it has such a universally deeply satisfying taste, feel and smell:

Choose your favourite chocolate (dark is best for taste and for your health) and place it unwrapped in front of you.

Look at the packaging, see how it enfolds the chocolate; read the blurb, look at the design as if you are seeing it for the first time.

Slowly unwrap the chocolate, remove the outer wrapper and then take off the foil – what does it feel like, what does it sound like? Register every little rustle and crinkle as you uncover the chocolate.

Lay it before you and really look at the chocolate – the colour, the shape – and then inhale the scent.

Reach out and pick it up; break off a piece, all the time being completely aware of what you are doing, what you are seeing, what you are feeling and what you smell.

You are now going to move the piece of chocolate from in front of you into your mouth. Be aware of your movement, the arm lifting to bring the chocolate to your mouth.

Place the chocolate onto your tongue and leave it there for a few seconds to just melt and taste it. Note every sensation – feel the slow melt of the chocolate, the change of taste from a mere hint to a melting moment of smooth chocolatey-ness! Nice?

Mmm, have you forgotten everything in the world except that chocolate for a few blissful moments? That’s mindfulness!

Apply this principle to every waking moment; be aware of the world around you in a way that allows you to be a part of everything, but also enables you to slow down and savour your environment. Just as with all the advice in this book, make mindfulness a small but permanent change. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t immediately make every moment count – these things take time and if you suffer from a whirlwind mind, it will take time to calm down. But like everything else, the more you do it, the more it will become a great habit. Start by making your morning cup of tea or coffee a ‘mindful moment’ – savour every sip, feel the warmth of the cup in your hands and allow yourself a minute or two of pure ‘in the moment’ calm. Then gradually add a few more mindful moments and particularly one at the end of the day when you need to unwind. You will soon realize that every moment is becoming a mindful one.

When you are mindful, you begin to appreciate the little and big things in life, but only allow yourself to react to those things that are beneficial to you or those you love. Living in the moment is a gift, for then we truly connect with what is happening with our body and mind; we can make the time to deal with anything simply and directly.

Mindful living also has a knock-on effect for your personal and professional life – you will be more focused, more attuned to those around you and more open to new experiences without fear. Your life will feel more in control, you will be more relaxed and able to appreciate what is happening around you without being distracted
or trying to do ten things at once. Mindfulness makes little things like enjoying a cup of tea or watching a sunset into a truly satisfying and beautiful experience; in this crazy world, a moment of stillness can be the perfect balm on a frazzled mind.

One example of how mindfulness in meditation form can work towards weight loss was demonstrated by a team led by Dr Carey Morewedge from the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. It showed that by doing a short meditation before eating, a reduction in the amount of food eaten was evident. The study wanted to see if people tended to eat less of a food if they imagined the eating process repeatedly before they actually ate the food. In fact, they soon found that the more food a person ‘ate’ in his imagination, the less food was subsequently consumed. In the study, participants were asked to imagine the process of eating M&Ms, including emptying the sweets into a bowl, picking them up and putting them in their mouth. They were then instructed to eat the actual sweets. Those who imagined eating 30 M&Ms ate considerably fewer real sweets than those who imagined eating only 3. Because the study only used examples of two types of food, eaten one at a time, it is unsure if the process would work to help lower the consumption of a variety of foods in, say, a main meal. But it did appear that it was a matter of habituation and awareness that prompted the person to eat less after visualizing eating a large amount of the food beforehand.

It does show that by being aware of what you are eating
and by using visualization techniques to enhance that awareness, that the mind is a powerful ally in your goal to eat less and more healthily.

One particular way of using your mind to aid your change in habits is to use auto-suggestion, a powerful system whereby you use a word or phrase in repetition. Autosuggestion is totally different from affirmations (which use an ambiguous phrase such as ‘I love myself’), as a perfectly chosen word or mantra is used: one that is directly linked to either what you want to achieve or to help shift a deep-seated problem or habit. It could be seen as a form of self-hypnosis because the changes occur on a deep subconscious level; not only is the mind calmed by the repetitive nature of the practice, but you are instructing your unconscious mind to do something directly. This, combined with the repetition, causes a change in your thinking and possibly in your neural pathways.

The word or phrase you choose is repeated anywhere up to 500 times in a sitting, and is often aided by using a string of beads to help count the repetitions. This technique is not new and has been used for thousands of years as mantras or in the form of prayers. The use of beads is also familiar to many: the mala or prayer beads used by Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus and of course the rosary favoured by Roman Catholics.