In case you haven’t heard about it, controversy emerged this week about an ad for a Peloton bike, a fancy kind of indoor exercise bike. 

Titled “The Gift that Gives Back,” the ad shows a young, fit-looking mom going downstairs with her daughter on Christmas morning and being surprised to receive a Peloton bike from her husband. The wife shows excitement and starts using the bike regularly and recording her progress in videos. At the end, we see her saying how much her life has changed after a ye...

Do you ever find that you categorize yourself, or others that you meet, based on one thing about them? Maybe their weight, or gender, or culture – anything that might differ from the norm. 

Have you noticed if you do that, that suddenly you see everything that person does through that lens, as if they only have one story?

This is all too easy to do, but I didn’t think much about it until recently attending a workshop at my church. The workshop was to help us get beyond the biases that encourage u...

It’s difficult to be mindful when eating socially at the best of times, and the holidays make it that much harder. You’re surrounded by all these special foods you don’t usually have, and you’ve got many social events crammed into a short period. 

How do you stay mindful and not go overboard with eating during all these events? Here are 5 tips to help.

Tip 1: Have a Plan

Planning may not seem to relate to mindful eating, but as I’ve written before, it helps to have some kind of guide or intention...

I saw a cartoon recently that said, with the holidays approaching, “it’s almost time to put the ol’ scale into hibernation for the winter.”

It made me laugh, but it also got me thinking about how so many people go overboard with eating during the holidays and then try to recover in January with diets. Some of them might put the scale away, or some might weigh themselves and be depressed by what they see when they do this.

The problem is, focusing on weight isn’t the best measurement. Having a low...

If you’re like me, you might still be in shock that it’s November and that the holidays are coming up. Even though Thanksgiving is late this year, Christmas items are out in stores, holiday movies are playing, and people are making plans.

Those plans always seem to include food, which makes this a difficult time for mindful eating. To help get through it, I suggest planning to use the 3 Rs. These aren’t Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, but instead a slightly modified version.

Reduce, Reuse, and Refuse...

I’ve recently started watching Grey’s Anatomy (only a decade or so late), and in the episode “Enough is Enough,” a man goes into the hospital after having swallowed 10 doll heads (!). 

At one point, Meredith Grey asks him, “Why does eating doll heads fill you up? What's the satisfaction?”

She doesn’t get an answer, but it got me thinking about how we often eat things we don’t need because we’re looking for something to fill us up. Most of us don’t go to those lengths, but even when we don’t,...

In a recent Pickles comic, Opal commented that she loved October because it was the one time of year when you can buy a big bag of candy without feeling like people are judging you.

I laughed, but it also got me thinking. 

Do you also indulge in bulk candy buying while you can? If so, you’re not alone. Americans are expected to spend $2.6 billion on candy for the season, or about $25/person. Interestingly, candy corn is the top seller, but it’s followed by chocolate in the form of Snickers, Kit K...

“[If] you hold fear in front of you, it doesn’t dictate your behavior. But I think, because we’ve lost our capacity for pain and discomfort, we have transformed that pain into hatred and blame. It’s like it’s so much easier for people to cause pain than it is for them to feel their own pain.” 

– Brené Brown

That quote came from an interview Brené Brown did with Krista Tippett in an On Being podcast called Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart.

What I found fascinating in listening to the discussion...

Note: You can learn more about the Am I Hungry?® Mindful Eating Program at AmIHungry.com or on my website.

Listening to the kids in the documentary Fed Up was heartbreaking. 

Hearing them talk about trying to eat right and exercise and do all the things they’re “supposed” to do – and still not lose weight – brought me back to my first round at Weight Watchers. I remember doing a “Breakthrough Diet” for two weeks, and I thought it was guaranteed to make me lose weight.

Except I gained a little...

I’ve heard of slow food before, but I only recently came across the idea of slow thinking. This was a concept introduced in the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

I haven’t read the book, but after listening to an interview with Kahneman, and reading a little more about the concepts, I realized that to eat mindfully, you need to use slow thinking.

What’s the Difference Between Fast and Slow Thinking?

Kahneman separates our ways of thinking into two parts:

• System 1, or fast thinking...