Mindful Eating/Lessons/18

Day 18: The Bliss Point Foods (Sugar, Salt, & Fat)

Primary Learning Goals:

•  Review bliss point foods as essentail to sruvival, powerfully rewarding, habit makers
•  Review why and how they were developed by the food industry
•  Know the epidemiologic facts and consequences of bliss point foods
•  Survey/Review Food "Uses": Illness, Comfort, Reward, Bonding,
•  Review "Terror Management" as a sales strategy and coping with food response

Primary Learning Objectives:

• Campers generate lists of the food “USE” groups, and favorite bliss point foods.
• Campers list ways and occaisions for using bliss point foods in their families
• Consider alternatives to mindless overuse, of bliss point foods

Workshop Plan/Procedures:

• Watch video in learning circle
• Review bliss point foods in evolution, business, and government roles of health and industry.
• Campers list their uses of blisspoint foods, e.g.,
  • for: “Food for Illness”, Comfort Foods,” “Craved Foods,”Bonding, and “Feared/“Disliked Foods.”
• Survey in circle, in turn, the campers categories.

Introduction Motivation or Hook:

• Some people think that sugar is the new smoking!
• 1 in 3 kids are expected to have type II diabetes in 40 years, none were diagnosed with it in 1980.
• Have you seen "Fed Up"... changing what you eat could keep you out of the hospital.
• Paper, pencil for the group
• Literature:
  • Mindful Eating, J.C. Bays P83
  •  The Will Power Instinct (book) by Kelly McGonigal

Extensions and Explorations (Blog/Homework):

• Watch the documetary "Fed Up" at home.
• Journal/Reflect on a time you tried to control your craving a bliss point food.

Open Ended Questions:

• What can you do to help your family be healthy?
• What foods are healthier choices for some of your family's typical bliss point foods?
• What kinds of skills can help you stay healthy?

Assessment and evaluation of learning:

• Rate this session on a 10-point scale
  • Students rate content, from 1 (worst) to 10 (best):
  • Campers rate fun, from 1 (worst) to 10 (best):
  • Campers rate usefulness, from 1 (worst) to 10 (best):

Resources:

• Exercises on page 83 of Mindful Eating (book) by Jan Chozen Bays
•  Exercise on page 40 of The Willpower Instinct (book) by Kelly McGonigal

Nutritional Bite

• Vitamins and minerals in foods help give you energy and make you stronger. They are found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein foods and dairy products.

Mindful Bit:

• Slowing the breath for 1-2 minutes increaes your will power reserve.
•  One study found that 20-minutes of mindful training a day decreased cravings.

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Week 1, June 29-July 2	1	2	3	4
Week 2, July 6-10	5	6	7	8	9
Week 3, July 13-17	10	11	12	13	14
Week 4, July 20-24	15	16	17	18	19
Week 5, July 27-31	20	21	22	23	24
Week 6, August 3, 4, 5	25	26	27