Introductory Circle

“Reflect on planting new seeds in your diet and your life.” Donald Altman

• Why are we here? What does it mean, mindful eating, and why does it matter?
• What is mindfulness, and why do we use it in this program?
• What makes us eat the way we eat?
• Introduction of the concepts that run through the program: Inner Wisdom / Outer Wisdom, Principles and Purposes of Mindfulness Meditation
• Mindful Eating Practice: Raisin Meditation
• Awareness Practice: Awareness of Breath

Balance: Finding Your Own Way to Eating

”What you resist persists.” Eckhart Tolle

• What nutritional information do we need to know to balance our eating?
• First immersion into the outer wisdom aspects of nutrition: food labels, calories, serving sizes, mindful weighing.
• What kind of barriers do we face when meditating? How can we address them? How can we make space for it?
• What is a mini-meditation, and how do we do it?
• Mindful Eating Practice: Awareness of texture and fat in the food
• Awareness Practice: Mini-Meditation

Awakening Body Awareness 

“When hungry, I eat; when tired, I sleep. Fools laugh at me. The wise understand.”  Zen Master Rinzai

• Introduction to the cues of the body and how to listen to them
• How can I be more aware of the internal physical hunger signals?
• What is food doing to me? Understanding the distinction between physical feelings of hunger and other triggers for eating, especially emotional triggers.
• Learning a flexible way to work toward creating healthier food intake: Quality over Quantity
• Mindful Eating Practice:  Hunger Awareness
• Awareness Practice: Body awareness, body acceptance and appreciation

 The Joy of Eating Just Enough

”Seeing is deceiving. It’s eating that’s believing.”. James Thurber (in Altman, 5-31)

• Exploring the different ways our bodies let us know that we have eaten enough
• What is satiety? How can we identify it?
• Exploring the taste buds as the first feedback for satiety. 
• How flavour and texture can guide us in making food choices and deciding the amounts we eat?
• Council of Mindful Eaters: Making mindful eating easier
• The value of physical movement in finding balance
• Mindful Eating Practice: Taste Satiety meditation
• Awareness Practice: Healing Self-Touch

Stretching Awareness: Touching on feelings

“What is required is nothing special, simply that we start paying attention and wake up to things as they are. All else will follow.” Jon Kabat Zinn

• Deeper explorations on the body cues and learning to tune into the signals of fullness awareness and body satiety.
• How we are drawn to different foods, and how we make choices of what to eat?
• A deep dive into the complexity of eating both for physical hunger and for emotional reasons.
• What tools can we use to illuminate our path to eating out of hunger instead of emotions?
• Exploring the relationships between eating behaviors and the image we have of ourselves. How aware we are of our feelings of anger?
• Mindful Eating Practice: Fullness Awareness Meditation and Mindful Choice Meditation
• Awareness Practice: Forgiveness Meditation

Integrating Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom with Awareness

“You really can get to a point where you can feed yourself what you want, knowing that your body has the wisdom to balance it out.” Sunny Sea Gold.

• How use nutritional knowledge along with our own discernment capacities to heighten our abilities to make healthful choices?
• What is energy balance? How can I integrate this concept into my daily life when eating?
• Becoming a mindful eater: Guidelines for making food choices and calibrating these choices with our inner wisdom.
• Mindful Nutrition: Nutritional knowledge from modern nutrition and wisdom from ancient traditions
• An invitation to balance information and knowledge with our awareness of likes/dislikes as well as hunger and satiety levels. 
• Cultivating flexibility, self–acceptance, and balance to create new patterns for long-run and sustained results
• Mindful Eating Practice: Integrated Mindful Eating Meditation

Around the Table: Awareness when Eating with Others

“It is wonderful if we choose the right diet, what an extraordinarily small quantity would suffice.” Gandhi

• Can we eat mindfully when we go out with friends, eat at a party or have a working lunch?
• Which tools can we bring to social gatherings to keep our balance and level of awareness?
• Practicing mindful eating with the complexity of eating in a social situations
• Uncovering the powers of eating in silence and breaking the silence
• Virtual Potluck
• Mindful Eating Practice: Mindful Savoring Meditation
• Awareness Practice: Mindful Eating Meditation

What Am I Craving For?:

Building Emotional Awareness

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” Thich Nhat Hanh

• How can I address my experiences of craving?
• How can I identify and develop key points of intervention to interrupt our reactivity cycles?
• What these cravings are telling me?
• Deeper explorations to understand the experience of craving, emotional eating, and the concept of chaining.
• Understanding better our personal experience of stress, reactivity, and how it is entwined with overeating, mindless eating, and out-of-control eating.
• Reflection on how to best balance concerns about eating and weight with other important aspects of daily life by using the Values Exercise
• Mindful Eating Practice: Food craving Meditation, “my favourite food” exercise
• Awareness Practice: Eating triggers meditation and Personal Values practice

Moving Towards Balance

“We are how we eat …. and so much more!”. Jean Kristeller

• How do we creatively increase our physical movement? 
• What tools can support our intention to move more?
• How can we bring mindfulness to our experience of movement?
• Learning about the many different ways of moving our bodies
• An experience of chair yoga and mindful walking
• Mindful Movement Practice: Chair Yoga
• Awareness Practice: Mindful Walking

Closing Circle: Connecting to the Higher Self

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” Kahlil Gibran

• How can we engage our Higher Self and Spiritual Self in finding direction for eating mindfully?
• Integration of the learnings
• The change journey of moving from Mindless Eating to Whole-Hearted Eating
• Developing, sharing, and committing to our plans for the future
• Mindful Eating Practice: Enjoying a healthy snack exercise
• Awareness Practice: Wisdom Meditation