diet is a four letter word

Some eating philosophy and experience I shared with a friend, who just started a diet:

I aim to choose the most efficient foods to feed my body machine, and have food be about health and energy, not desire, lack, punishment, and comfort. I do insist on enjoying my food, though! Why would I overeat? Because I learned to crave food. In response to that, I learned to make choices to reduce cravings. When I want to treat myself I choose massage over pound cake.

Tricks that work for me:
First thing that goes in stomach in the morning: glass of water with lemon, seems to decrease my appetite especially for sweets and starches

Eating less salt, sugar, bread, pasta, alcohol, and caffiene, reduces food cravings (mine were sweets and salty starches)

eating 3 small meals with protein snacks in between (eat every 3-4 hours) keeps my mood and energy stable, I don't crave larger portions or un-nutritious foods. (Protein snacks: yogurt, smoked salmon, mozzarella, milk, tuna, chicken tender - SMALL portion!)

Eating less salt, caffeine, and sugar, reduces food cravings

Trader Joe's

• Almond butter (mix with soy sauce for peanut sauce for steamed veggies)
  
• canned protein shakes to keep in car for quick snacks, makes me burger-proof
• Smoked salmon in the fridge section (or the canned stuff is good on pasta, with peas)
• cheese: fresh mozzarella in liquid (rich and satisfying)
  
• Bread: the moist european style bread that is about 1/2 the size of a regular loaf. Great fiber content - don't eat more than one slice per day! Lovely toasted, and is filling.
• sparkling water (with lemon, or a little juice, is great soda substitute)
• soy milk (doesn't need to be fridgerated till opened)
• Guilty pleasure: tuna in olive oil
• lowfat greek yogurt - heaven if you love to eat sour cream with a spoon
• long european cucumber, eat the skin - free food!
• turkey/chicken sausages
• frozen chicken tenders or breasts (bake with lemon and onion, stir fry in peanut sauce)
  
• frozen fish and big fat sea scallops
• frozen fruit: mango slices, blueberries
• Almonds and macadamia nuts: good fat (peanuts=bad fat)
  
• olive oil
  

Health Food stores

• Dr. Braggs Amino Acids (use on salads)
• Miso (a soy soup base, good with bok choy (cabbage), green onions and tofu or shrimp)
• vitamins (I can give you info about good ones, if you like, for example, centrum makes the best one-a-day multivitamin)

Regular market:

• Berries and cantaloupe over bananas, apple and oranges (less sugar, more vitamins)
• Kale, cabbage and broccoli over squash, zucchini, eggplant or potatoes (more fiber and vitamins)
• Black, pinto, garbanzo beans over sauced beans
• Steam a whole trout with ginger, green onions and garlic
• No canned food, no frozen food, no premade salad dressings or sauces (tend to have too many additives)
• No crackers, ever!
• Kashi Go Lean cereal, or no cereal is even better
• Real Ice cream or none at all (eat a smaller portion: the point is for the body to feel good, not to get to eat more - lowfat foods excuse us to eat more, which reinforces craving cycles)
  

on Peak Experiences

An excerpt from "The Places that Scare You: A Guide to fearlessness in Difficult Times" by Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun:

The lord of mind* comes into play when we attempt to avoid uneasiness by seeking special states of mind. We can use drugs this way. We can use sports. We can use falling in love. We can use spiritual practices. There are many ways to obtain altered states of mind. These special states are addictive. It feels so good to break free from our mundane experience. We want more. For example, new meditators often expect that with training they can transcend the pain of ordinary life. It's disappointing, to say the least, to be told to touch down into the thick of things, to remain open and receptive to boredom as well as bliss.

Sometimes, out of the blue, people have amazing experiences. Recently a lawyer told me that while standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change an extraordinary thing occurred. Suddenly her body expanded until it felt as big as the entire universe. She felt instinctively that she and the universe were one. She had no doubt that this was actually true. She knew that she was not, as she'd previously assumed, separate from everything else.

Needless to say, her experience shook up her beliefs and made her question what we do with our lives, spending so much time trying to protect the illusion of our personal territory. She understood how this predicament leads to the wars and violence that are escalating all over the globe. The problem arose when she started hanging on to her experience, when she wanted it back. Ordinary perception was no longer satisfying: it left her feeling troubled and out of touch. She felt that if she couldn't stay in that altered state she'd just as soon be dead.

In the sixties I knew people who took LSD every day with the belief that they could maintain that high. Instead they fried their brains. I still know men and women who are addicted to falling in love. Like Don Juan, they can't bear it when that initial glow begins to wear off; they're always seeking someone new.

Even though peak experiences might show us the truth and inform us about why we are training, they are essentially no big deal. If we can't integrate them into the ups and downs of our lives, if we cling to them, they will hinder us. We can trust our experiences as valid, but then we have to move on and learn to get along with our neighbors. Then, even the most remarkable insights can begin to permeate our lives. As the twelfth-century Tibetan yogi Milarepa said when he heard of his student Gampopa's peak experiences, "They are neither good nor bad. Keep mediating." It isn't the special states themselves that are the problem, it's their addictive quality. Since it is inevitable that what goes up must come down, when we take refuge in the lord of the mind we are doomed to disappointment.

Each of us has a variety of habitual tactics for avoiding life as it is.

* lord of mind being one of three strategies of ego we use to keep our selves shielded from the fluid un-pin-downable world, and to provide ourselves with the illusion of security.