Susan Albers, PsyD, is a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic Family Health Center who specializes in eating issues, weight loss, body image concerns, and mindfulness. After obtaining masters and doctorate degrees from the University of Denver, Albers completed an internship at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN, and a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University. She conducts mindful eating workshops across the United States and internationally.
Albers is author of 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food; Eat, Drink, and Be Mindful; Mindful Eating 101, and But I Deserve This Chocolate! Her work has been featured in many media publications including O, the Oprah Magazine; Shape; Prevention; Vanity Fair; and the Wall Street Journal, and she blogs for the Huffington Post and Psychology Today. Albers has been a featured expert on many radio and television shows, including Dr. Oz and various programs on CNN and NPR.
A member of the Academy for Eating Disorders and the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals, she enjoys blogging, jogging, watching the Sundance Channel, and traveling. Visit Susan Albers online at www.eatingmindfully.com.
Foreword writer Lilian Cheung, DSc, RD, is a lecturer and director of health promotion and communication in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is a coinvestigator at the Harvard Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity, cocreator of the school-based program, Eat Well & Keep Moving, and founder and editorial director of The Nutrition Source website, www.thenutritionsource.org. Cheung is also coauthor of Be Healthy! Its a Girl Thing, and Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life www.savorthebook.com.
In this new edition of Eating Mindfully, Susan Albers gives more advice to those who truly care about what they eat. This book will help the consumer understand that the choices we make each day about what we buy have differing impacts on the world around us and on our own health. Hers is a reasoned voice in an environment where the fast food industry is still urging us to buy cheap food, not revealing the hidden costs. If you want to be healthy and care about a healthy planet, this is a book that will help you.
Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a United Nations Messenger of Peace
Albers guides you with compassion and great insight through a journey into your eating habits. How you eat will be transformed and your relationship with food will be revolutionized.
Margaret Floyd, NTP, author of Eat Naked
Eating Mindfully is a must-have book for people who want to deepen their mind-body connection through the experience of eating. It is chock-full of practical skill-building steps and written in a genuinely compassionate manner that will inspire you. Inner peace begins with compassion from within, not from perpetual food fights at the dinner table or within the battleground of your mind. This book will show you how to tap your innate ability to make peace with your eating. Eating Mindfully is a welcome respite.
Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD, coauthor of Intuitive Eating
This is a simple and powerful bookone that takes the reader on a journey within to find solutions to their own individual eating difficulties.
Denise Lamothe, PsyD, HHD, author of The Taming of the Chew
The practice of mindful eating is like going on an archeological dig through layers of symptoms to the truth underneath. Albers has given us an excellent map! Her book makes clear that problem eating can be a great teacher if only we stop to listen. I highly recommend this gentle, respectful, practical guide.
Lindsey Hall, author of Bulimia: A Guide to Recovery and Anorexia Nervosa: A Guide to Recovery
We eat to live, yet some of us lose perspective and control of our relationship with food. Albers, drawing upon the powerful integration of Eastern wisdom and Western science, guides us along a practical journey of mindfulness pointing to acceptance of our bodies and ourselves.
Thomas F. Cash, PhD, professor of psychology at Old Dominion University and author of The Body Image Workbook
Susan Albers explores crucial spiritual dimensions that are so often overlooked in our relationship with food. Readers will easily identify the habits that trap them in cycles of mindless dieting, bingeing, and chaotic eating and help them cultivate a compassionate relationship between mind, body, thoughts, and feelings.
Rita Freedman, PhD, author of Bodylove: Learning to Like Our Looks and Ourselves
Publishers Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright 2012 by Susan Albers
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Amy Shoup; Text design by Michele Waters-Kermes;
Acquired by Catharine Meyers; Edited by Marisa Solis
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Albers, Susan, Psy.D.
Eating mindfully : how to end mindless eating and enjoy a balanced relationship with food / Susan Albers ; foreword by Lilian Cheung. -- 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-60882-330-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60882-331-4 (pdf e-book) -- ISBN 978-1-60882-332-1 (epub)
1. Food habits--Psychological aspects. 2. Eating (Philosophy) 3. Awareness. I. Title.
TX357.A395 2012
641.013--dc23
2012003626
All Rights Reserved
This book is dedicated to my favorite dining companionsBrookie & Jack.
Authors Note
Shortly after I began working as a therapist, I became mindful of the enormous amount of suffering that hunger, weight, and eating issues cause. This book is my attempt to help prevent further suffering and to provide comfort to those already touched by it. For this reason, I dedicate this book to all those who are struggling to overcome mindless eating. I wish you the best on your journey to a mindful relationship with food.
Foreword
Food is essential to sustain our lives. Yet our relationship with food in the twenty-first century has become both complex and challenging.
Nutrition science has made major advances over the past thirty years, and we all know that what we choose to eat affects our health and that we can significantly reduce our risk of getting diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, and other debilitating diseases by making healthy food choices. Though nutrition advice in the media can be confusing at times, we are not lacking in science-based information on what to eat to maintain our health.
So, in the face of this broad understanding, the primary question becomes: why do so many people make food choices that can be damaging not only to the their physical health but also to their emotional well-being? The answer lies in our surroundings.
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