"Done with Dieting" Reviewed on elephantjournal.com

In the words of my favorite food writer, MFK Fisher,

“People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do? The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that one cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it…and the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied…and it is all one.”

There’s more to food than what we put into our mouths, our relationship with each bite connecting us all the way back to the farm workers and seed patenting companies, and tangled up in the hunger for security and satisfaction. Food is one of the simplest needs in the world, and also, somehow, one of the most confusing. It’s no wonder we talk and write and think about it so much.

You’ll probably be relieved to hear that “Done with Dieting” is a non-diet. It’s during these winter months when relentless commercials for Jenny Craig and the Bownaster-Flex, coupled with inescapable facebook thumbnails peddling the “Celebrity Diet” start to feel abrasive. Who are these people to tell me how I should eat, or look, anyway?

Read the full review on elephantjournal.com

Multitasking: Special Skill or Recipe for Disaster?

Question: In Day 13 of Done with Dieting, Kate and the teacher discuss how the need to control and micromanage situations can get in the way of our capacity to experience life as effortless and "in the flow." What about multi-tasking? I've always been proud of my capacity to juggle many balls in the air at once. But now I wonder how that "skill" may be affecting my life. I'm always so stressed! And I often find myself indulging in sweets or pouring myself a glass of wine as soon as I get home, as a way to unwind.

From Maureen: It's no wonder. People tout the ability to multi-task as though it’s a talent, a characteristic of superior minds, but there’s a vast difference between focusing on one important thing—such as bringing up healthy, well-rounded children—which encompasses many tasks, all of which you must do extraordinarily well, one thing at a time, and multi-tasking, which often looks more like chaos in motion. For instance, talking on the phone while filing your nails, drinking a cup of coffee, eating a donut, and checking email all at the same time. (It may be revelatory to notice: do you eat more donuts or snacks at your current job than you did when multi-tasking wasn't such a part of your routine?)

When I was younger, I worked in restaurants. I prided myself on being so good at juggling multiple meals, tables and customers. Of course, looking back, I see I hated those jobs. Funny that I felt so accomplished but so, so stressed. At the busiest of times, it was as if my ability to appreciate the present moment and feel joy had completely disappeared. I barely even knew where I was. The hours just flew by as I worked in auto-pilot, completely missing the opportunity to genuinely relate to my customers and lovingly serve them food.

Take a moment of silence and consider these questions, without judging yourself for the answers. Are you living your life in auto-pilot? When was the last time that you drove your car without also listening to music at the same time? Or rode the subway without reading a book? Or ate a meal without watching television, talking on the phone, or flipping through a magazine? Are you really aware of where you are, and what you’re doing?

"Only that day dawns to which we are awake."
~ Henry David Thoreau

Soul-Full Eating Recipe Center

Share the Love!

Do you have a favorite recipe that symbolizes love to you? Share it with our visitors and you just may find your recipe/story in an upcoming issue of Soul-Full Eating Magazine or the upcoming Soul-Full Eating recipe book.

Here’s the idea… give us your recipe along with a short story or explanation illustrating why it represents any, or all, elements of our Soul-Full Eating axiom: Eat with love, what’s grown with love, prepared with love and served with love.

Perhaps you remember yourself as a child pushing a chair up to the counter so you could stand on it in order to help your grandmother prepare her blueprint for other-worldly tapioca pudding, or you recall setting this particular dish on the table amidst candles and holly during the holidays to the oohs and ahhhs of typically hard-to-impress guests, or perhaps a cherry pie, made for the first time with cherries from a backyard tree. Think bliss, elation, euphoria…whatever makes this dish love-ly to you will delight and gift us all.

Use the form in the link below to submit your recipe and Soul-Full story to us and we’ll let you know when it posts.
http://www.soul-fulleating.com/soul-support/soul-full-recipes/

Is this program similar to others, like the Body Ecology Diet

Question from D.D.: Is this program similar to others, like the Body Ecology Diet?

Answer from Maureen Whitehouse:

I am not familiar with the Body Ecology Diet - but I just looked it up online. It looks like a wonderful diet to address symptoms of ailments, etc. and to establish overall health and wellness.

My Done with Dieting "non-diet" program is of a different genre entirely... one that I think doesn't really exist yet in the diet realm. It is a viable and powerful path to awakening consciousness.

The program uses an allegorical approach. Via the story of the main character, Kate, and her struggle with weight issues and food, the reader sees their own path illuminated and the vivid illustration of their own journey to awakening.

Done with Dieting addresses the real cause of any unhealthy experience or addiction - including compulsive eating or being overweight - which is lack of presence and self-love.

This "non-diet" is the preliminary healing that needs to take place before any other viable diet, such as the Body Ecology Diet can be useful, or the information imparted in my first book, Soul-Full Eating, can be utilized to the fullest.

Unlike other approaches in which the dieter counts, weighs and measures externals and gives their inner authority away to an "expert," in this program the participants realize, via the content of the story, the "points to ponder" and hands-on experiential exercises that we must first feel, know and love the Soul - our own all-wise, all knowing Inner Authority, in order to have a truly whole and healthy relationship to our bodies.

What is an E-Course

What is an E-Course?
An E-Course is a Course that is done over the Internet. It can be done in your own home and at the time that works best for you. All you need to participate in this E-Course is a working email address and access to the Internet.