Plant Sterols

A year ago or so, my doctor wanted me to try to increase the plant sterols in my diet, to reduce LDLs and increase HDLs. The nutritionist that David talked to wants him to do the same. I had tried a yogurt thing that contains plant sterols, but there was something mucilaginous about them that triggered my gag reflex. I'm not going to eat anything that makes me gag. Completely contradicts the principles of conscious eating, where we eat what we want to and don't eat something if we don't want it in any way. I had also tried plant sterols in the form of pills, a nutritional supplement. It's just a lot of pills to take in a day, and I wasn't very good at doing it.

The nutritionist David talked to wanted him to eat a butter or margarine substitute that has plant sterols in it. We decided last weekend to try that, and I have been experimenting with it this week. There are two products -- one you can cook with and one that has less saturated fat. We'll experiment with both, but for now we tried Promise Activ Light, the one you can't cook with.

I'm finding it difficult to use because I think it makes my stomach somewhat fussy, and so I'm having a little more trouble than usual deciding if I'm hungry and if I've had enough. I do go through phases when it is easier and then harder to tell these things, and so I'm not positive the problem is the margarine. I have decided not to think of it as a substitute but as a thing that can be used to spread on bread, added to broccoli or cauliflower or squash. It's not very good as butter, but it's not bad as a kind of sauce or spread. If I want butter, then I'm going to have butter and eat it consciously so that I eat it only as long as it is satisfying. But if I don't care, then I'll have Activ, at least for now, to see how things go.

The Activ package says to eat about one and a half teaspoons in the morning and in the evening, a total of a tablespoon a day, and that is a lot. My stomach doesn't want that much of it, though my mouth is all right with it. So I'm trying to pay attention to my stomach.

Today, to try to figure out what is me having trouble paying attention and what is the spread, I decided to do an eating meditation, and not do anything except eat and drink when I was eating and drinking. I made a mark on a card for every bite or swallow, so that each one was deliberate and distinct.

I noticed the food or tea, which I was drinking at that time, as it came to my mouth -- its smell and appearance. I noticed it in my mouth, in my throat as I swallowed, in my esophagus as it moved through my chest, and into my stomach. I ate less of it than I had been, and I think it is not possible to eat as much as they say by eating this way. But I felt a lot more comfortable today, and not too full, and so I was eating too much of the margarine, even though I was eating the amount they said you should eat.

It was a relief to eat so absolutely consciously today. I felt a lot more centered and happy with my body. It's hard to do, though, honestly, so I didn't keep it up all day long. I will try again tomorrow and try to go longer.

Some topics for next time:

• A friend who is reading this blog has been thinking about sweets and how we learn to eat big quantities of these things and we don't learn to pay close enough attention for a smaller amount to be satisfying.
• The same friend is thinking about how eating in a healthy way is hard for people who don't find it fun and who don't see a connection between what they eat, how they feel, and their health. And I would add how they eat.
• David is counting calories, which does not seem to make him dissatisfied with his body, which is interesting. I'm not much help for him on counting calories, since I have forgotten a lot of that kind of information.
• Hunger is the bedrock. If I wait to eat until I'm actually hungry and I pay very close attention to how my stomach feels once the hunger begins to fade, then it is so easy to know what to do.
• It is difficult to write this blog every day or even every other day because I don't feel I'm good enough at conscious eating to have new things to say each time. Also, it is challenging to speak in public like this about eating and about the times I am not perfectly or even sufficiently conscious.