Geneen Roth – Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker

There I was, in week 2. Here is what I’ve learned: conscious eating is hard. Applying those 7 principles is hard.

Regarding principle #3: It is very hard to not do another blessed thing when you are eating, ever. Plus, I totally miss reading while I’m eating if I am eating alone. Regarding principle #2: It also is hard for me to always sit down while eating. I sit down for 10 hours (plus commuting time) every day that I go to work, so I always stand while I am eating on my lunch breaks. Regarding principle #4: It’s not always possible to tell if it’s my body or my mind that wants the tiramisu.

I know now why author Geneen Roth gives workshops about how to eat consciously: I’m guessing that few, if any, people would stick with it if they didn’t have the structure imposed upon them by another (structure that they had to pay for; money motivates).

I briefly entertained the idea of applying the “80/20” rule to conscious eating, but decided that it sort of demeaned it. I mean, I could have lived with it if I eliminated numbers 2, 3 and 4….

So, bottom line is this: week 2 was a bust.

Women Food and God: an unexpected path to almost everything is written by Geneen Roth, who has written many books about compulsive eating and weight. She will be presenting a program at Kripalu in Lenox, MA this September. She has been on the Oprah show and some of her writings are on Oprah’s website as well. Her recent article is entitled: The Cupcake Dialogues….hello? I mean, it doesn’t even matter what she has to say really: she had me at “cupcake”. 🙂

She also offers a self-guided online retreat. This gave me an idea…why not try a self-guided- retreat, period? Seems like a (potentially) more cost-effective route (I say “potentially”, because if I really am eating everything I want, well, serving after serving of tiramisu can really add up!).

So, for August, I’m going to try to live by Geneen’s 7 guidelines for just one month: August. I wonder how it will turn out?