“Mindfulness” means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

The MB-EAT program was developed by highly esteemed psychologists and researchers at Indiana State University and Duke University. We owe a special thanks to Jean Kristeller, Ph.D., and Brendan Hallett, Psy.D., at Indiana State University and Ruth Quillian-Wolever, Ph.D., Jennifer Davis, M.Ed., and Sasha Loring, MA, LCSW at Duke University for developing this program and their unconditional support for allowing the Mind Body Institute at Athens Regional Medical Center for implementing this program in Athens, Georgia. Ed Glauser, M.Ed., LPC and Mike Healy, Ed.D., have developed this website description of the MB-EAT program for your information. For all inquires please call (706) 475-7330 or email Ed Glauser, M.Ed., LPC at mindfuleg@aol.com.

Program Description

The Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT) program assists you in changing your relationship to eating, overeating, binge eating, and weight management. This program also addresses the challenge of living with obesity. By paying attention to what the body needs, such as when it is hungry and when it is satisfied, you learn to develop a more natural, balanced relationship with food. Develop your innate abilities to pay attention to what is happening with your emotions, thoughts, and body sensations and how they affect behavior. Learn to respond to emotional and physical “eating triggers” rather than reacting to them out of habit. This National Institute of Health funded program was developed by highly esteemed psychologists and researchers at Indiana State University, Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania.

The Nine Week Program
(Two follow-up sessions at one and three month intervals will reinforce positive changes)

The foundation of the MB-EAT program is training in mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness meditation trains the basic capacity to be aware, to direct attention to the present moment, and to suspend automatic reactions and negative self-judgment. This foundation makes it easier to bring mindfulness into everyday activities like eating, and to observe how triggers (such as feeling depressed) set off urges to eat even when we are not hungry. Meditations will first be used during relatively low stress periods and will grow with expanded confidence in higher stress periods. The MB-EAT program incorporates a number of mindfulness exercises with food, including hunger and satiety mediations, as well as meditations on forgiveness and connecting with our inner wisdom.
(Excerpts taken from “Know Your Hunger” by Jean L. Kristeller, Ph.D., Spirituality & Health, Issue: March/April 2005)
http://www.mibosoradio.com/know_your_hunger.htm

MB-EAT Instructions and Activities include:
-Guided Instruction in mindfulness practice
-Body scan
-Gentle yoga
-Becoming wiser about your body
-Identifying degrees of hunger and taste satiety
-Paying attention to the effects of different kinds of food
-Making better decisions about the amount and the quality of food
-Handouts, Workbook, Textbook and two audio-tapes
-Two follow-up sessions at one and three month intervals to reinforce positive changes

The program will be held at the Mind Body Institute on the Athens Regional Medical Center campus. Wear loose-fitting clothing that allows for stretching and relaxation.

Program Fee: $275(Includes handouts, workbook, textbook, cd and audio-tape)

Weekly Themes and Key Points
Week 1 – Introduction

Key Point: Mindfulness meditation may not be what you think it is. Exploring mindfulness practices and eating relationships yourself, non-judgmentally.

Week 2- Mini-Meditation and Mindful Eating

Key Points: The formal, sitting meditation is helpful to train the body to be mindful, but brief mini-meditations can be very useful throughout the day to refocus, relax, deal with stress, and become mindful.

A mini-meditation involves taking several deep, diaphragmatic breaths, letting go of any tension in the body, and becoming mindful of the body, the emotions, and the thoughts, in this moment. It can be done any time, whether alone or with others, sitting or standing. When alone, you can close your eyes. When with others, you can keep your eyes open and nobody will know you’re doing anything out of the ordinary. It is particularly useful to mini-meditate before eating or any time stress is noticed or anticipated. Doing so before meals helps cultivate mindfulness during eating.

Week 3- Binge Triggers

Key Point: Emotions consist of feelings, thoughts, and usually a set of reactions about how to cope with the emotion, such as avoiding the situation, becoming upset, looking for something else to do (such as eating) to distract oneself or soothe oneself, etc. One of the first steps in removing the power that emotions have over us is to be able to recognize that they are happening before we are overwhelmed by them or have already gotten into habitual patterns of reacting.

Week 4- Hunger Awareness

Key Points: Pay attention to the quality of the food while eating, rather than to the quantity of food, is one of our goals. Another goal is being present and aware while eating, rather than “zoning out”. Both of these goals may be more satisfying. While the type of food they eat is important to overall nutrition, it is possible to eat all foods in a more healthy and balanced way.

Week 5- Satiety – Sensory/Taste-Specific Satiety
(Becoming a Gourmet – not a “Glutton”)

Key Points: Yoga is a way of relating to the body, and that it is possible to start at any level.
There are two ways in which our bodies tell us that we have had enough – changes in the taste sensations in our mouths, which is called “taste-specific satiety” or satisfaction, and feelings of fullness. These are both ways in which our bodies tell us that we’ve had enough, but when we overeat, we are often disconnected from these important and natural physical signals. Only you – not someone else, not a diet book – can tell you when these signals are occurring.

Week 6 Satiety – Satiety/Stomach Fullness

Key Points: Note that individuals who are overweight and who are binge eaters tend to not rate themselves as full until they have eaten much more than do non-binge eaters. This is probably both out of habit and experience and because the stomach has “stretched”. Becoming aware and becoming used to smaller meals is an important part of changing patterns.

Week 7- Forgiveness of Self and Others
What would it mean to forgive yourself around issues with food? With your body? To forgive others?

Key Points: You may be beginning to see that change does not occur all at once, but is instead an on-going series of little steps, one step at a time. Change is not all-or-nothing, that having a bad day or a bad week does not mean that you’ve failed. You may have a way to go in developing a healthy relationship with eating and food. That’s the way change is supposed to work. It is a gradual, continual process that you will continue long after the group is over.

Week 8- Connecting to the Higher Self/Walking Meditation
What ways can we draw on our inner, wise, or spiritual self that will help with our relationship to eating?

Key Points: There is a universality of the contemplative experience as a way to access our wisdom, whether seen as inside of oneself or connected to a higher power; virtually every culture has developed a somewhat similar means to do so, such as prayer, chanting, etc.

Note any apprehension you may feel about the group ending soon. Remember that the group was never intended to cure you of binge eating or completely changing your relationship with food and eating in nine weeks. Rather, the group and this workshop provide you with a set of tools you can continue to use after the group ends. These tools are – meditating daily, eating mindfully, and talk/connecting with people you trust about difficult issues. These simple tools will help you gain control over your eating.

Week 9- Relapse Prevention and Continued Commitment
Resources and References – see resources and references at the end of this website entry

First Follow Up Session (One month after group concludes)

Second Follow Up Session (Three months after group concludes)

The MB-EAT Facilitator

Ed Glauser, M.Ed., N.C.C., LPC
Ed is a Licensed Professional Counselor and a National Certified Counselor and School Counselor. His special clinical interest is in incorporating a mindfulness-based approach to healing from depression, anxiety, eating issues, spiritual and religious questions, relationship difficulties, abuse, illness, disease, grief and loss as well as school related challenges and marriage and family issues. He counsels children, adolescents, adults, couples and families as well as clinical supervision to community and school counselors working towards licensure in his practice at Athens Associates for Counseling and Psychotherapy. Ed also provides counseling at the Mind Body Institute at Athens Regional Medical Center and is a School Counselor at Oglethorpe County Primary School. He has previously served as an elementary, high school and university-based counselor. Ed has also worked as a clinician with the Eating Disorders Recovery Center of Athens and offers counseling in Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training and Cognitive Therapy. Ed earned his master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling from The University of Georgia in 1991.

More from the instructor.

Resources

Mindfulness meditation and body scan tapes available at www.mindfulnesstapes.com

Healing Arts Center, Prince Ave. – mindfulness sitting Tuesdays from 7:00 – 8:30pm

Red Lotus Institute, 2080 Prince Ave. Athens, 706.549.2913

Southern Dharma Retreat Center -- http://www.main.nc.us/SDRC/

Insight Meditation Society, Barre, MA – http://www.dharma.org/ims.htm

OMEGA —Holistic Learning Centers Contact: http://www.eomega.org

Center for Mindfulness, Worcester, MA – Phone: 508.856.2656

http://www.deeshan.com (Meditation tips for the day)

References

Jeffrey Bland (1999). The 20-Day Rejuvenation Diet program. Lincolnwood, Illinois: NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group, Inc.

Joseph Goldstein (1976). The Experience of Insight: A Natural Unfolding. Santa Cruz, CA: Unity Press.

Mike Healy (2001). The Insight (Vipassana) Meditation Transformational Learning Process: A Phenomenological Study. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia.

Ronna Kabatznick (1998). The Zen of Eating: Ancient Answers to Modern Weight Problems. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc.

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. New York: Dell Publishing.

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1994). Wherever You Go There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York: Hyperion.

Jack Kornfield (1993). A Path With Heart. New York: Bantam Books.

Jack Kornfield (2000). After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. New York: Bantam Books.

Krishnamurti (1972). The Flight of the Eagle. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.

Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler (1998). The Art of Happiness. New York: Penguin Putnam.

Mary Rose O’Reilley (1998). Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. Portsmith, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.

Sharon Salzberg (1995). LovingKindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Boston, Shambhala Publications.

Saki Santorelli (1999). Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine. New York: Bell Tower.

Tribole, E. and Resch, E., (1995). Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Walther Willett (2001). Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating. New York: Free Press