Mindfulness and savoring 76 As you might imagine, this often almost resulted in blood on the table( as well as the odd Fruit Loop that was quickly claimed and swallowed, sparking another conflict). So the way we ended up dealing with it was that we took eight bowls and we divided up the entire packet and each of us ate our two bowls of Fruit Loops while watching the others warily. Unfortunately we didn’ t come up with, or logistically weren’ t able to come up with, that kind of solution for most of the eating of the more delectable foods in our family – so I learned to eat quickly. And even though that was many years ago I still did it until that day when I became consciously aware of it as a problem. This is the first application of mindfulness when it comes to eating: we need to become mindful of how full we feel. I add a third question, although not as profound, to the two asked by the Zen masters: How hungry am I? In just the same way as thinking to ask the first two Zen questions as frequently as possible, we need to ask ourselves this third question frequently whenever we are around food. The exercise starts well before we start to eat. We need to notice how hungry we feel before the meal. Many of my clients when they do their eating awareness diary are surprised to see how often they eat to excess when they are not really hungry. Eating when we are not hungry is not a bad thing. We do not want to wait until we are overly hungry before we eat as this is the‘ Starvation’ of the Unholy Trinity, discussed in Chapter 4, that can lead to over-eating. Being aware that we are not hungry, though, informs our food selection, particularly our choice of portion size. Portion size is the next big issue in the psychology of weight loss. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the population of the USA is around 25 % fatter than the French and their average portions sizes are 25 % larger. If we have had a large lunch and we are tuned into how hungry we feel it is much easier to plan to have a light evening meal. Otherwise, out of habit, we may well launch into eating much more than our body needs. While America was supersizing, the French were perfecting the elegant presentation of the small portion ensuring it filled the eyes of the