EXCHANGE: ISU professor's book discusses mindful eating

The professor emerita of psychology at Indiana State University poured 35 years of research into the power of mindfulness and meditation, resulting in the book published by Perigee, a division of Penguin Random House.

Through mindful eating, a person learns to enjoy the tastes felt in the initial bites and then wrap up the cookie or pizza slice once the initial sensation of flavor fades.

Instead of willpower and self-deprivation, a person can savor dishes they crave, but in smaller amounts as they learn to sense the moment when their taste buds "habituate," or become tired of the flavor.

In a pair of studies in Terre Haute and North Carolina, participants discovered "they really didn't want that fourth bite," Kristeller said.

Kristeller, who has earned degrees at the University of Wisconsin and a doctorate at Yale, researched eating disorders in her post-doctoral training, and she came to ISU in 1991 after serving on the staff and faculty in behavioral medical services of Cambridge Hospital at Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Like millions of other people, she struggled with weight fluctuation in her teen and early college years.