Dear Pavel,

I really appreciate your blogs on eating and mindfulness, but I need to ask you this question. Do you have eating problems, an eating disorder, anorexia or bulimia or are you simply a caring person who wants to help?

I have a wonderful therapist who has never had an eating disorder, exercises regularly and doesn’t eat between meals. My therapist admits she doesn’t understand eating disorders which is concordant with me.

The only time my eating has been under control is for the ten years I had the gastric lap band. I lost it due to erosion last year. I ate small portions and lost 150lbs. Mindfulness had nothing to do with it. I didn’t have to think about eating, I ate like a normal person. It was only when I lost the band the control was gone. This is why empirically and statistically the gastric lap band works and diets or mindful eating doesn’t work in the long term for people with severe eating problems. I kept the weight off for ten years. The physical restriction worked as nothing else did.

Compulsive over-eating is not as simple as mindfulness over bulky matter. I believe there are physiological reasons, not psychological ones that medical science has yet to discover in the battle against obesity. It’s not in the mind at all.

Regards Sonia Neale
Psych Central
Therapy Unplugged blogger