MB-EAT or Mindful Eating Conscious Living (MECL) Which Program is Best for You or Your Population?

by Char Wilkins, LCSW

I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking what is the difference between the MB-EAT program and our Mindful Eating, Conscious Living (MECL) 5-day professional training at the Chapin Mill Retreat Center in Rochester, NY, August 4-9, 2012. I have the unique qualification of having taught both the MB-EAT program and the Mindful Eating, Conscious Living training which I co-teach with Jan Chozen Bays, MD, so I feel I can speak to some of the differences which may help you decide if our training is right for you.

Jan and I see mindfulness as the base from which we work- the heart of the work.  We recognize that many professionals have extensive skills in some areas but need help with mindful eating skills, so Jan and I created this training based on Jan’s book, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food. We have uniquely brought Jan’s deep understanding of mindfulness and meditation, her extensive work with distressed eating, and her medical background together with my individual and group therapeutic experience working with people with distressed eating patterns, MBSR and MBCT training, and meditation practice.

The professional training we offer is clearly based in a mindfulness approach that addresses thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and behaviors associated with distressed eating, and provides practical, doable exercises and simple meditations that you can weave into your individual work or into a group program. In our training we don’t teach about calories or how to lose weight, nor do we talk about dietary plans. This is different from most trainings. We do talk about quality of food, types of food the body must have, hunger and fullness, and many other related issues. We are focused on helping people change their relationship to food, eating and their bodies. We provide you with a six-session sample curriculum, yours to adapt to your needs, and CDs that contain meditations and exercises.

MB-EAT, Jean Kristeller’s research initiative, has illuminated some important points with a focus on weight loss, one of the techniques used being mindfulness. For some professionals difficulties arose in teaching a mindfulness approach while instructing patients to reduce calories, use pedometers and assess weight loss. Professionals got confused, and patients get confused. For some people this is not a problem.  The MB-EAT program is a very structured program for groups, and many clinicians told me that they were working one-on-one and wanted the flexibility to bring mindful eating to their individual patients. This is simply a different approach and very valuable for some populations.

Jan and I feel that your own personal experience of going through this hands-on training, doing the eating and mindfulness exercises, hearing your colleagues’ responses and questions, practicing meditation, and being in a supportive community will not only enhance your learning but give you confidence to teach mindful eating to your clients. In teaching mindful eating skills you will provide patients with skills for a lifetime which they can begin again and again if need be, without the “side effects” of yoyo dieting. Additionally, in becoming mindful it spills into all aspects of their life- it becomes a way of being, rather than constantly doing or trying another fad or diet.

I hope this is helpful and will help you choose the program that is best suited to you and the population you serve

Char Wilkins, LCSW is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist who specializes in working with women who have experienced childhood abuse and trauma, and those who suffer with depression, anxiety and disordered eating. She trains professionals in the application of mindfulness in psychotherapy, advanced MBCT skills, mindful eating, and was awarded teacher certification in MBSR by the Center for Mindfulness, UMass Medical School, Worcester, MA. Char serves on the Board of Directors for The Center for Mindful Eating and is the owner/director of the Center for Mindful Living, LLC in Connecticut.

Register to Learn about Mindful Eating, Conscious Living : MECL : A 5-day Professional Training

August 4-9, 2012 • Chapin Mill Retreat Center, New York

Led by experienced clinicians,
mindfulness teachers and retreat leaders,
Jan Chozen Bays, MD and Char Wilkins, LCSW

The training emphasizes experiential engagement in mindfulness meditation practices and mindful eating awareness exercises, so that the participant will be able to pass the benefit of these exercises on to clients and patients in a variety of settings. These practices and exercises are integral components of the six-session Mindful Eating program, designed by Bays and Wilkins, which provides the organizing structure for this training.

Relationships to food are complex and multi-dimensional. On the simple level, we all eat to survive. But for many individuals, families, and cultures, food is much more than simply a necessity. Food can be a key component of culture, heritage, and identity. What food and how much, for some people, is the hinge on which their self-esteem or health problems turn. Food, from ethnicity of dish to where the ingredients come from to what memories and meanings we attach to it, is a very personal topic.

Study and practice in the mental health and healthcare fields of the clinical use of mindful eating techniques is growing exponentially. And with that growth comes the demand for quality professional training to utilize these practices. In response to the need, the UCSD Center for Mindfulness offers Mindful Eating, Conscious Living: A 5-day Professional Training.

The intersection of mindfulness, eating and our relationship to food is the focus of this professional training. Inherent within that juncture are the thoughts, emotions and physical sensations that impact how we relate to food and our body in skillful and unskillful ways. By bringing awareness to and through the senses we can become more mindful of how, when, where, what, and why we eat. Participants will explore the joys and sorrows held in eating and food, the disconnects and communions, and the aversions and desires – all of which can be opportunities that facilitate moving toward a healthier relationship with food, emotions and the physical body.

This 5-day training is steeped in mindfulness practice: sitting meditation, mindful movement, mindful walking, body meditations, times of silence, and a half-day retreat. Far from single mindedness, the 5-day experience offers a multi-faceted approach to mindful eating. The program draws from Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), current research, and the combined 26 years of experience of Jan Chozen Bays, MD and Char Wilkins, LCSW, in working with a wide range of people with distressed eating patterns. The six-session Mindful Eating program, designed by Bays and Wilkins, provides the organizing structure for MECL.

Participants will learn to engage in and deliver a number of eating awareness practices as well as deepen their own mindfulness meditation and mindful eating practices and understand the impact and importance of these personal practices in the successful delivery of the curriculum. Participants will walk away with a deeper understanding of themselves and their patterns and the tangible skills to bring the self-reflection and meditations they themselves experiences to their clients. After completing the training attendees will be equipped to facilitate the Mindful Eating program, as well as adapt the program curriculum to the needs of their population. Attendees will receive a copy of Jan Chozen Bays’ book, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food; two CDs with meditations and mindful eating exercises, the Mindful Eating curriculum, and relevant handouts.

This intensive, experiential program is intended for clinicians in mental health or healthcare fields and clinicians-in-training in these fields wishing to incorporate mindful eating and mindfulness-related practices into their clinical practice and/or into group work in which eating, food, and body are components. Therapists and counselors who do not specialize in eating-related disorders will also find this training useful as a way to understand, through the lens of mindfulness, the unique opportunity that eating and food provide as gateways to self-awareness and understanding for those who experience anxiety, depression, abuse, stress, and/or illness.

In honor of the significant contributions made by dietitians in sharing the work of mindfulness and mindful eating, the UCSD Center for Mindfulness is pleased to offer two $250 scholarships to attend the Mindful Eating, Conscious Living 5-Day Professional Training on August 4-9, 2012. The scholarships are available to dietitians and dietitians-in-training who need financial assistance in order to attend.

Continuing education credits:

AMA: This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™.

APA: (Full attendance is required) The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

BBS: Course meets the qualifications for 29.0 hours of continuing education credit for MFTs and/or LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. (UC San Diego Provider Number PCE 683)

CDR: Commission of Dietetic Registration (Registered Dieticians)

Early-Bird Registration Fee: $895 + Room & Board

Please click here for information on our next local 4-week San Diego Group Mindful Eating Conscious Living Program starting April 12, 2012 6-7:30 PM.

Mindful Parenting: Resilient Children: Parenting in a Rapidly Changing World

M. Lee Freedman, MD, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, is a Co-Founder of, Mindfulness Toronto and Founder of, Mindful Families and Schools. We warmly welcome her as our newest guest author. Dr. Freedman will be presenting Mindful Parents: Resilient Children: Teaching Mindful Parenting Practice through Group and Individual Psychotherapy at our Bridging the Hearts & Minds of Youth Conference. This workshop will describe a multi-dimensional model of therapeutic intervention in which mindful parenting practices are taught in individual, family and/or group therapy through direct practice experience, conceptual teaching, and within a therapeutic relationship that embodies mindful interaction

Families today live in a society that is rapidly changing, increasingly demanding, faster moving, overly stimulating, increasingly unpredictable, and financially insecure. In the midst of this, stress-related symptoms and conditions in adults and children alike have become common, and cross all socioeconomic lines. There is an increasing need for both children and parents to develop stress management skills, and cultivate qualities of resilience in order to thrive in our current culture, and to prevent illness.

Mindfulness-based programs have been used increasingly in the health care system in the management of stress-related conditions. Extensive research has shown the many health and psychological benefits of practicing mindful awareness. Neuroscience research are showing the positive effects on the functioning and structure of the brain of regularly practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness-based programs have more recently been developed for children, teens, parents and teachers and are increasingly being used as a preventative as well as a treatment intervention.

The practice of living mindfully involves the practice of deliberately paying attention and living as many of the moments of our lives as possible with caring and intentional non-judgmental awareness.

The practice of parenting is often accompanied by multiple stressors. Under stress, we tend to spend more of our waking hours functioning mindlessly, reacting in a habitual way, often ineffectively and contrary to our values. Mindful living is about being fully awake and aware of what is going on, rather than reacting unconsciously according to predetermined habits, patterns, and judgements.

Practicing mindful awareness while parenting enables us to actually see our thoughts, feelings and body sensations more clearly, and with acceptance and self-compassion, as we interact with our children. This further allows us to see our children more clearly. It helps us to be aware of what is really happening here and now, without getting caught up in judgments, ruminations, prior expectations, or worries about the future. This gives us a choice to respond to what is happening in the moment more calmly, empathically, compassionately, effectively, and more in keeping with our values, rather than reacting unconsciously, automatically and driven by our emotional state.

The practice of self-compassion is integral to mindful parenting, as we are more present to our children when we are not caught up in self-judgment. Self-judgment tends to result in exhausting our vital emotional energy either by defending ourselves, or in denial of our feelings and thoughts as they truly are, rendering us unaware of what we may unconsciously be passing on or projecting on to our children. The opportunity to effectively respond to our thoughts and feelings wisely, and act with the best interest of our children in mind, is lost if we are not able to accept and clearly see our thoughts and feelings with an attitude of curiosity and compassion.

Mindful parenting is not a collection of techniques of how-to- dos and what-to-dos. Rather it is a practice of a way to be with our children, that is seeing and accepting of ourselves, and our children as they are now, responding effectively, and encouraging of their further growth in a healthy, safe, peaceful, and fulfilled way. Parenting tasks such as teaching, guiding, disciplining, limit-setting, nurturing, and providing a safe and healthy environment, among others, continue to play a central role of parenting in the context of a mindful relationship in which the child feels heard, respected, seen and accepted. When a child’s behaviour needs to be addressed for moral, safety or health reasons, this need could be responded to with clarity, calm, compassion and wisdom.

The practice of mindful parenting is not conditional on the emotional states or stress levels of ourselves or our children, nor does it depend on external circumstances. Whatever is going on in ourselves, our children and the world around us is the actual subject of mindful awareness, and therefore an opportunity to practice.

Listening in an attentive way is a valuable and practical expression of our love for our child, and understanding our child’s perspective is an effective tool of communication. This often requires slowing down. Unfortunately, it can feel like we are going against the cultural grain to value or to learn how to slow down, pay attention, single-task, delay gratification, and be kind and compassionate to ourselves and to others. For many of us, it seems more culturally congruent to show our love for our children by doing as much as we can as fast as we can to provide them with all of the experiences and opportunities we think they need to thrive in this rapidly changing society.

In reality, we just do not know. The world is changing quickly. This uncertainty leads to some parents feeling powerless, and less confident in their parenting, deferring to the “experts” and well-intended “enriching” activities and stimulation in an attempt to prepare their children for an uncertain future in this competitive and stressful culture. Ironically, this may lead to insufficient time and energy for the most valuable, (and cost-effective) resource parents have to offer their children to enhance their resilience in preparation for their future: regular unstructured, “unproductive” time with a mindfully present and attuned adult. Optimally, a child’s life would have a fluid balance between productive, active “learning time”, and rest and unstructured “play time”. In either case our mindful presence and the mindful presence of their teachers and other significant adults in their lives would enhance any experience.

Mindful parenting becomes especially important with the challenges of raising a child with biological vulnerabilities such as symptoms consistent with diagnoses of attention deficit disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, autistic spectrum disorder, and learning exceptionalities, and under stressful circumstances such as chronic illness of a family member, divorce, exposure to domestic or neughbourhood violence, and poverty, to name a few.

The reliable presence of an adult who is attuned to the child, who is willing and able to consider the perspective of the child, who cares unconditionally about the child, and who is able to regulate their own emotions and attention in order to clearly see and respond wisely to whatever is happening, is extremely valuable to the optimal emotional, social, physical and cognitive development, and success of the child.

Recent findings in neuroscience research suggest that parenting our children mindfully provides them with a sense of security which fortifies their health and wellness, enhances their abilities to learn to their full potential in and out of school, potentiates their ability to regulate their emotions and attention and to make good decisions, fosters resilience in the face of any curve balls that life throws their way, and enables them to thrive in this fast-paced and uncertain world.

Parenting mindfully also deepens the relationship between parent and child, and provides parents with a more comfortable and joyful experience of raising their children.

Mindful parenting is a practice which is simple, but not easy, and most definitely worth the effort.

M. Lee Freedman, MD, CM FRCP(C)

Bridging the Hearts & Minds of Youth: February Conference on Mindfulness with Youth in San Diego

Mindfulness, as a powerful and important means of cultivating health, well-being and equanimity, is nowhere more important than in our work with the young people of our society. Alongside the explosive and transformative growth of mindfulness-based programs for adults, there is a particularly heartening and vibrant effort to bring mindfulness to youth of all ages, in a plethora of settings and formats designed to have a significant impact on the lives and futures of literally millions of young people around the world.

To support and grow this important movement, the UCSD Center for Mindfulness has teamed with Stressed Teens to organize and present a first of its kind conference on February 4 and 5, 2012 entitled Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth: Mindfulness in Clinical Practice, Education and Research . The intention of this conference is to bring together a number of key thought leaders in the field of mindfulness, both those engaged in bringing it to youth and those whose influence extends well beyond that one area, with the hope that the synergy created by such a gathering will provide further impetus to a growing and important field.

Keynote speakers, breakout sessions and half-day workshops will form the structure of this gathering, but the intention is to create an overall atmosphere of connection, collaboration, encouragement, support and innovation that will inspire attendees to continue or begin the work of teaching mindfulness to the young people with whom they work. A full description of the conference is available on the UCSD Center for Mindfulness Professional Training website, but a  few highlights include:

Rick Hanson, author of The Buddha’s Brain and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time will be presenting a public talk on Friday evening, February 3 entitled “Taking in the Good: Helping Children Build Inner Strength and Happiness” and then will provide a keynote address on Saturday at the conference itself with the intriguing title “Managing the Caveman Brain in the 21st Century”.

Psychologist and well-known mindfulness researcher Amishi Jha will be offering her insights in another keynote address, entitled “From Dazed and Distracted to Attentive and Calm: What the Neuroscience of Mindfulness Reveals”. Dr. Jha will be joining the other keynote presenters, Susan Kaiser Greenland, Pamela Siegle and Chip Wood on a discussion panel on Saturday as well.

Three post-conference half-day workshops will be offered on Sunday, February 5, allowing attendees to deepen their understanding and training in working with mindfulness and youth. Workshops include one by conference co-organizer Gina Biegel, developer of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Teens (MBSR-T); another by Randy Semple, who has adapted Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for children, and a wonderful session on “Nurturing Your Self in Your Work With Youth” offered by mindfulness teacher and holistic physician, Amy Saltzman.

These are just a few of the highlights of this inaugural conference that promises to be literally packed with interesting and engaging speakers, presentations and experiences. Co-organizers Steven Hickman, Director of the UCSD Center for Mindfulness and Gina Biegel, founder of Stressed Teens, hope that this will become an annual event that makes a significant contribution to the field of mindfulness with youth. If you are an educator, therapist, physician, or just a concerned and engaged parent looking to explore how you might integrate mindfulness in your work with youth, you may want to consider joining this impressive lineup of presenters in San Diego at the Catamaran Resort Hotel on February 4 and 5, 2012. Space is limited, register early and receive a $50 Early Bird Discount.

UCSD CFM on NBC San Diego!

Click here to see the UCSD CFM featured on NBC San Diego.

This feature includes scenes of Dr. Rochelle Voth leading one of our MBSR classes, several participant interviews, and benefits of meditation described by, CFM Director, Dr. Steven Hickman.