40 Pounds – How I Lost Weight Through Mindfulness Meditation

By Chris Bailey

Every single person knows at least one thing they can do to become fitter and healthier.

They may not know everything they need to reach their goals, but they at least know one thing they can do to take a step in the right direction.

A few years ago, I weighed 40 pounds heavier than I do today, and I knew a ton of changes I could make to my body and mind to become healthier. But I didn’t make them. I had fallen into a set of bad habits and routines where I would eat a lot, mindlessly, and not move around much. Both my body and mind were starving for nourishment, but alas, I didn’t act in ways that would make me healthier.

But, back to that story in a second.

Relatedly, there is an old Buddhist parable about a donkey trapped in a well.

The story goes like this: one day, a stupid donkey was walking around on a farm and fell into a well that his farmer hadn’t covered up. But the story gets worse – the farmer knew the donkey was old, so he didn’t care much to rescue him – he just let him sit in the well. A few days later, the farmer decided that he didn’t really have a need for the well, either, so he decided to fill it in. Over the course of a day or two, he shoveled dirt into the well. It took him a while to fill the hole in, but he knew that he had to do it, not only because the well had no purpose, but also so more stupid donkeys wouldn’t fall into it.

Back to that in a second.

40 pounds ago I didn’t have as much dirt piled on me like the donkey did, but the dirt that I did have thrown my way seemed a lot heavier than it actually was, and I didn’t shake a grain of it off. It’s not that a specific event happened that helped shape who I was; it’s that I thought, felt, and acted like a teenager (because I was one). Turtling into my shell I mindlessly ate and ate, and packed on a healthy forty pounds in a short-ish period of time, which made me turtle even more.

Until I discovered mindfulness meditation.

But first, back to the parable.

It turned out that the donkey wasn’t so stupid after all!

The donkey was still alive (hanging on by a few threads), and with every shovelful of dirt the farmer threw into the well, the donkey shook it off. And he noticed that he was slowly rising up the well. The farmer would throw in a few more shovelfuls of dirt, and the donkey would shake that off, too. As more time passed, the donkey shook off more and more dirt, rose further and further up the well, until he had shaken off so much dirt that he walked right out of the well, much to the farmer’s astonishment.

As the donkey shook off all of the dirt that was thrown his way, he rose higher and higher until he was free.

For me, mindfulness and mindfulness meditation became practices that allowed me to identify the dirt that was being shoveled on me (both by other people and myself), and even more importantly, my practice showed me the path to shaking that dirt off.

That didn’t happen overnight, but after each mindfulness practice, I would become a tiny bit more aware of the intentions behind my actions, and eventually learned to mold my actions to fit the person I wanted to become. Mindfulness let me step back from my life to see my actions from 10,000 feet, which made it a lot easier to see the ‘bigger picture’ of who I was.

Observing not only my actions, but also the intent behind them, was the key to losing the weight I had put on through mindless eating.

It turned out I could enjoy food twice as much if I ate it twice as slow.

It turned out I could deal with my teenage issues head-on, instead of eating them away.

It turned out I could step back from who I was, and see my actions as my only true belongings.It turned out that I could shape who I would become, by being mindful of who I wanted to become.

I truly think that it isn’t until you step back from your actions, observe your intentions behind them, and see how they fit into the bigger picture of your life that you can make changes to yourself to become better. In my opinion, mindfulness is the key to observing the intentions behind your actions, as well as forming new habits and actions that are more aligned with the person you want to become.

As the Upajjhatthana Sutta teaching puts it, your actions are your only true belongings. You cannot escape the consequences of your actions, and your actions are the ground upon which you stand.

Today I stand 40 pounds lighter, and I wouldn’t be here without my mindfulness practice.

This post was written by Chris Bailey, a recent business school graduate. After he graduated in May, Chris was offered two full-time jobs, both of which he declined, to start A Year of Productivity. Two of his recent experiments for the project: meditating for 35 hours over seven days, and living in complete reclusion for 10 days. Chris practices mindfulness daily, and has a daily 30-minute Vipassana meditation practice.

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