An Experiment in Eating with Presence . . .

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Isabelle Tierney, M.A.

© 2004 Isabelle Tierney. All rights reserved.

Do you ever eat a whole meal and not remember any of it?  Do you wonder who actually ate the food since it doesn’t feel like it was you?  While eating unconsciously happens occasionally to many, it happens often to those of us who struggle with overeating.  We consume large amounts of calories but cannot recall one bite of it, so absent are we to the actual act, so busy are we thinking about everything but the food we are sitting in front of.  We invariably end up overeating for we don’t allow the food to ever really satisfy us, nourish us, and give us the contact we really long for.  Can eating with presence, then, actually avail us to satisfaction? Can awareness for the food in front of us curb our impulses to overeat? I determined to find the answer to these questions by eating in total presence for a week.

What is presence and what does eating with presence look like? To be present means to have our attention fully and intensely in the Now.  In presence, we are not lost in thoughts, obsessed with the past or the future.  Rather we are aware of everything that is here now, whether it is a feeling, a thought, a sunrise, or soap bubbles on a plate being washed.  Eating with presence, then, means that we become aware of everything related to the act of eating, from the way the food looks to the way it tastes, to the way it feels as it enters the Body, and so on.  It even means becoming aware of the distractions that often arise as we eat, dropping them gently as soon as we notice that they take us away.

For my experiment, I set only one guideline for myself: I have to be present to myself and to my food at every meal.  I can eat anything I want, no deprivation required, as long as I can stay in contact with the act of eating.  It sounds simpler than any diet or food plan I have ever attempted, but, as I soon find out, it is much harder.

Day One: Breakfast. I usually start my day by eating my breakfast while reading the paper.  It is a favorite habit of mine, a habit that even screaming children or ringing phones won’t deter me from.  Today, though, my Inner Voice reminds me to stay present, so I put the paper down and sit across from my pancakes, feeling as though I am meeting a stranger for the first time.  To my surprise, I notice that I don’t want to be present with my food.  It feels uncomfortable being that intimate.  I want to do something else, give my eating only a small portion of my attention.  For someone who professes to love food as much as I do — I’m an overeater, for God’s sake! — I am stunned to find out how little I actually want to be with it.  I put the first bite in my mouth and concentrate on its taste, its texture, the way it feels in my mouth.  That lasts all of two seconds, and then I’m gone, off into my head, busily planning what I have to do today.  A few minutes later, I notice that half of my meal is gone, and I don’t remember any of it.  I bring my attention back.  This time, I try to simply name what I find, using words like chewy or buttery without an attachment to what those words mean to me.  I am surprised to find that each bite is different than the one before.  In one bite, my teeth connect to the crunchiness of the whole grains.  In another, my mouth gets coated with the sweet syrup.  The caramelly crust of the next bite melts on my tongue.  And I realize that I can actually feel the metallic coldness of the fork on my last bite.  I leave the table filled with gratitude for the surprising diversity of my simple experience.

Day One: Lunch. I forget about “Presence” and eat my lunch while talking with my kids AND reading the paper.  At one point, one of my daughters says: “Mom, what about eating with “Presence”? Didn’t you say you were going to do that?” I am amazed that she paid attention when spoke about this and irritated that she reminded me.  “I don’t want to play the stupid game of “presence”, I internally whine, “I want to have fun!” I lie and tell her that I never meant to practice presence at every meal.  I then proceed to eat without awareness, filling my Body with more food than it needed.

Day One: Dinner. I resolve to pay attention to only one sensation per bite.  I get overwhelmed when I have to notice the many sensations each bite can offer.  I try to stay present at least long enough to notice if a bite tastes crunchy or chocolaty, smooth or salty.  Eating this consciously slows me down.  I find myself wanting to eat less and less because each moment is so filling.
One of my bigger challenges lies in being present with myself at the family meals.  I’m either in contact with my husband and three children or with myself: I struggle with being present to both.  I experiment with putting the fork down when I’m in conversation with them and with being quiet when I’m eating, but it is not an easy rhythm to keep.  I find that I have a tendency to overeat a little when I’m around them.

Next few days.  I feel such gratitude when the phone rings in the middle of my conscious eating.  Alleluiah!  A distraction!  I am saved from the difficulty of presence! During one phone call, I actually try to sneak an unconscious bite but I end up choking and having to hang up.  Point taken.  I even use bird watching as an excuse not to be present to my food.  “Oh, look how cute the birds are bathing in the snow.  I wonder how come they don’t get cold.  Wait, do birds actually feel like we do? What if the mother dies? Do they feel sad?…” By the time my brilliant train of thought ends, I’ve eaten half my sandwich and I have no clue what it tasted like.  Okay, no more bird watching.

Little by little, though, I notice that I don’t overeat much any more.  In fact, I often leave some food on my plate, something I would have considered impossible not long ago.  I also find myself really picky, wanting only to eat good food, like the salmon sushi I had for lunch, whose perfect blend of fatty salmon and chewy rice filled my palate with joy.  And when I’m done with a meal, I notice that I neither pick at my children’s leftovers or nor finish the remains of the dinner pan.  I actually feel satisfied, even satiated when I eat with awareness.  Maybe it’s due to the simple fact that my physical body has the chance to tell me when it’s full, as many health experts tell us.  Maybe it’s because being present allows me to see each bite for what it is, without projecting onto it an abandoning mother that I need to inhale before she walks away or a miraculous substance meant to take away my suffering.  Maybe it’s because eating with presence lets me receive the food as a gift from Source, a gift of nurturance and abundance I can’t notice when I speedily gobble down a meal.  And maybe it’s because the sheer experience of being present while eating is an experience of contact and intimacy which satisfies the deepest levels of my soul.

Try it for a week. Maybe it will even help you figure out who’s been driving your car all along …

© 2004 Isabelle Tierney. All rights reserved.