My Autobiography: David Balleza K(C)atague: The Practice and Benefits of Mindful Eating

Sunday, December 29, 2019

The Practice and Benefits of Mindful Eating

‘IT's the Season for Eating, Treats, Parties and Festivities

My Own creation of Leftover Turkey Casserole*

Mindful eating is the practice of eating with the express purpose of savoring every flavor, aroma, and texture of food, as usually accomplished through aesthetic appreciation of the food and slow, and contemplative ingestion.

I received the following E-mail from the Knights of Columbus as a member ( http://sacramento.kofc953.org/welcome/ ).I love to share it with you since it is very timely topic as .....

‘IT's the Season for Eating, Treats, Parties and Festivities

1. Take Charge of Your Eating

Do you feel you’re in control of your eating, or do you find yourself giving in to cravings and then feeling worse afterward? Emotional eating and food cravings are the top reasons people have trouble losing weight. Often cravings are for high sugar, high fat, and/or high sodium foods that can wreak havoc with your health. Try these tips to take charge of your eating and reduce food cravings:

Don’t shop at the grocery store when you’re hungry. Plan your meals in advance and shop from a list to reduce the temptation of impulse purchases.

•
Drink plenty of water. If you feel hungry, drink a glass of water first. Sometimes thirst can be mistaken for hunger.

Eat nutritious meals and snacks throughout the day. Avoid getting to the point when you’re so hungry you’re likely to binge-eat.

•
Get enough sleep. People who are chronically sleep-deprived are more likely to become overweight or obese due to hormone disruptions.

Learn ways to manage stress. Stress raises blood levels of cortisol, a hormone that can make people gain weight. Stress can also prompt emotional overeating, especially of unhealthy foods. Meditation, mindful eating, and exercise can help reduce stress.

2. The Benefits of Mindful Eating

As we prepare for a new year, many of us resolve to eat better and achieve or maintain a healthy weight. When you practice mindful eating, you’ll begin to make more deliberate choices about food and adopt healthier nutrition habits.

There are physical and emotional benefits of mindful eating, including:

Greater awareness of your personal triggers for mindless eating, such as feelings and emotions, social pressures, and certain foods. Are you eating when you’re not really hungry? When you start recognizing the emotional issues you have around food, you can choose healthier behaviors instead.

•
Increased enjoyment of meals. When you take the time to eat slowly and savor your food, you give your body the chance to register when you’re sated. You’ll learn to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full.

•
Practicing mindfulness can prevent eating binges. You’re less likely to overeat or eat unhealthy foods when you start to think of food as fuel for your body and begin to enjoy the taste of healthy food.

You become more aware of how the food you eat affects your mood and energy levels throughout the day.

You might even find that you eat less, but you enjoy food more and feel a greater sense of appreciation at each meal.

3. Using Mindfulness to Take Charge of Your Eating!

Changing your mindset towards food means paying close attention to your emotions and your body’s cues.

Do you ever find yourself mindlessly eating while you’re watching TV or reading, or are otherwise distracted? Research suggests that being hurried or not paying attention to a meal tends to make people eat more. Mindless eating can also be a response to feelings and emotions such as boredom, loneliness, sadness, and stress. During the holiday season, it can be especially difficult to maintain healthy eating habits.

Changing your mindset towards food means paying close attention to your emotions and your body’s cues. Are you eating because you’re hungry or because you’re feeling stressed? When you slow down and make eating an intentional act, you’ll make more conscious choices instead of operating on auto-pilot. You’ll become more aware of the triggers that make you want to eat or crave certain “comfort foods,” even though you might not be physically hungry.

4. Here are some tips to practice mindful eating:

--- Eat slowly while sitting down, with minimal distractions. Use your senses to savor the meal, noticing colors, smells, flavor, and texture.

--- Notice how the food makes you feel as you taste it, and how you feel throughout the day.

--- Pay attention to your body’s signals. It can take twenty minutes or so for your brain to register that you’re full.

--- When you have a food craving, especially for junk food, think about what emotions or needs are triggering the craving. For example, if you want to snack because you’re bored, take a walk or engage in some other activity instead.

Mindful eating takes practice, but over time you’ will become better at distinguishing between emotional and physical hunger, and make healthier food choices.

Merry Christmas to all our Brother Knights and their families.

Vivat Jesus

From our Health Services Program Director Br. Richard Westerfeld.

* Recipe for My Turkey Casserole:

https://myfavoritepinoydishes.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-own-version-of-left-over-turkey.html

Meanwhile, enjoy Kulas video of Pancit in Laylay, Marinduque just recently

https://www.facebook.com/becomingfilipino/videos/984770535243123/

No comments:

Highlights of My Professional Career

In my more than 40 years of professional career, I have experienced both working rank and file, as well as supervising the work of subordinates. I have worked in four private firms and the Federal Government, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where I retired. I enjoyed the challenges and difficulties of both types of job situations. This is the highlights of my work experience story.

My first job after completing my doctorate degree was a Chemist for Chemagro Corporation in Kansas City, Missouri. It was a subsidiary of Bayer Corporation, a German conglomerate. I worked for the analytical chemistry department comprised of about fifty people; half that number was either chemists or biologists. My specific task was to develop analytical methods for the detection of pesticide residues in plant and animal tissues. I worked on my own, similar to six other bench chemists, and we all reported to the same supervisor.

The firm sponsored my visa conversion from a student to a permanent resident, and I was able to legally work and reside in the United States with my family. The company generously took care of its employees. At the end of each successful year, everyone received a 13th month salary bonus. The employees and their families celebrated wonderful annual Christmas parties in a downtown Kansas City hotel, with dancing and free drinks for the whole night.

Inasmuch as I enjoyed and loved working for Chemagro for five years, I found a new job which offered a substantially higher pay. Due to my exemplary work performance, my supervisor preferred and lobbied for me to stay with the company. I had to turn him down because they could not match the package presented by my new employer. It was also a chance for me and my family to move and live in the US west coast, where the mild winter climate is bearable compared to the Midwest.

My next job was at the agricultural research division of Shell Development Company in Modesto, California. I was a Research Chemist, and again I worked individually, same as five other chemists who all reported to a supervisor. My specific duty was similar to my previous job. I worked for them for five years, until the company decided to get out of the pesticide business. They closed their research facility affecting the jobs of more than 200 employees.

My third industrial job was with the agricultural research division of Stauffer chemical company, located in Richmond, California. I was a Senior Research Chemist doing the same project as my two previous jobs. I worked for twelve continuous years for the company, with outstanding annual job performance. I became a Principal Research Chemist, the highest attainable non-supervisory position.

One day in 1986, my supervisor informed me that my job had been eliminated, and I had one day to vacate the facility. It was the most dreadful lay off experience in my life. I felt anger, sadness and humiliation to be dismissed from work with one day notice, after all the years of hard work invested for the company. This was an unforgettable incident and was the gloomiest point in my professional career.
The company terminated sixty research employees, who were upset of the bad news.

One of the chemists was distressed and expressed his outrageous anger by threatening the company and its workers. He told his supervisor of his intention to bomb and burn down the laboratory. He was immediately escorted by the security staff out of the building and into his car. He was informed to leave behind his personal belongings; they will be mailed to his residence. He was warned never to show up again near the company premises or risk getting arrested.

My supervisor was kind and allowed me to take my time to pack up my belongings. It took me two days to clear up my workplace, after toiling for a long period in the same jobsite. We were provided clerical help and office space, in preparation to look for another job, such as updating our resumes, and using the computer and copy machine. We were given six weeks of separation pay plus benefits.

Fortunately, with the help of a friend who is a Church parishioner, I found another job thirty days after leaving Stauffer chemical company. He hired me as a senior research chemist and as a group leader with two technicians to supervise. It was in the same field as my expertise in my previous three jobs spanning the last twenty one years. My new employer was Chevron Chemical Company, and which was located in the same area as my former employer.

This job gave me the introduction and basic knowledge of managing the work of subordinates. I worked for Chevron Company for four and a half years. The company decided to consolidate their research facilities in Texas, and lay off all its research employees. This time I had enough distress and agony from working, and eventually getting laid off from several private companies. To avoid going through any more miserable layoffs, I made a vow that I would never again work for a private company.

In my work experiences, there were noticeable and unavoidable jobsite occurrences. One can never miss the office romantic relationships between co-workers, both illicit and permitted. Though it was frowned upon, there was a boss and staff relationship, which was used as a ploy to get ahead in the company. Some relationships had chemistry, no pun intended, but some never worked out. Oftentimes, there was a sense of distrust among bench chemists for some workers who unjustly obtained preferred work assignments.

Some employees resorted to bribing superiors to get special privileges, such as being able to attend choice conferences and meetings in exciting venues or locations. Likewise, politics was always present at the worksites. It was during an era when various forms of harassment, equal opportunity and discrimination laws were not yet enforced in the workplace. Occasionally, an unexpected chemical explosion happens in a laboratory setting, where luckily no one got seriously hurt.

In the three private companies I worked for, I was able to publish scientific journals for some of the research studies and analytical methods which I developed for the respective companies of Chemagro, Shell Development and Stauffer.

After deciding and making a vow to avoid working in the private sector, I made my new goal which was either to work for the state of California, or the Federal government in Washington, D.C. Four months after I lost my job in Chevron, I was lucky and joyful to be hired by the Food and Drug Administration as a review chemist in the fall of 1990.

In 1994 I was promoted as an Expert Research Chemist with a GS-14 rating. My expertise was on Anti-malarial and Anti-parasitic drug products. In 1997, I was again deservingly promoted to Chemistry team leader, supervising the work of six Chemistry reviewers including five with doctorate degrees.

As team leader, I was responsible for prioritizing, assigning, and assuring the technical accuracy of all chemistry, manufacturing and control issues for all new drug applications submitted to the Division of Anti-Infective Drug Products, Center of New Drugs.

It was part of my responsibility to give advice, instruct and promote high morale and teamwork in my group. My work in the FDA is confidential, until the drug patent on the products I worked on has expired. There are manufacturing supplements that I have approved that are now open for the public in the Internet.

In 1998, I won the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Award. The citation reads, “For outstanding accomplishments in fostering the objectives of the EEO Program by hiring minorities and encouraging their professional growth while providing excellent leadership.” I have received numerous certificates of appreciation, awards in leadership and communications, commendation for teamwork and excellence in the accomplishment of the FDA mission. I have also received several letters of appreciation from private industry for my review work.

There are many good things working as rank and file while enjoying doing one’s job individually. It is a humbling, satisfying and productive experience, if one can work in harmony with one’s immediate supervisor. Working individually develops one’s skills in goal setting and scheduling. But in general, the financial rewards are less than a person who has supervisory responsibilities.

Managing the work of others has its challenges. Moreover, it develops one’s skill in handling and developing people, and the compensation rewards and benefits are better. Due to additional duties, responsibilities and leadership, supervisory work can be more stressful than working as a subordinate. However, supervisory jobs give one more personal growth and satisfaction, based on my personal experience. My work in FDA as a team leader managing the work of six scientists had been the happiest and rewarding work experience in my career in Chemistry. You might also like:

Sunday, December 29, 2019

The Practice and Benefits of Mindful Eating

No comments:

Post a Comment

Linkwithin

Write a Comment