Non-diet dietician Jenna Hollenstein’s new book Eat to Love paves a Buddhist path toward transforming our often troubled relationship with food and body. Lilly Greenblatt spoke with Hollenstein about how her revolutionary approach can guide us away from chronic dieting, food anxiety, and disordered eating with mindfulness and compassion.

In her practice, Hollenstein uses meditation and mindfulness techniques to help people overcome disordered eating, eating disorders, and chronic dieting. Eat to Love paves a Buddhist path to freedom from food anxiety, dieting, weight preoccupation, and disordered eating that artfully draws on the six paramitas (Buddhism’s “transcendent perfections”), lojong (mind training) slogans, and Buddhist meditation to change our relationship to food and body. The book serves as a guide to cultivating a compassionate view of our bodies and encourages us to trust their innate wisdom and basic goodness. I spoke with Hollenstein about Eat to Love, and the many ways Buddhism has transformed her own journey with disordered eating and practice as a dietician. 

In Eat to Love, you note that because Buddhism tells us all beings possess basic goodness, that logically extends to our physical bodies. And, as you say, if our body is basically good, that means all of our body — scars, stretch marks, cellulite. I’d never thought about the concept of basic goodness being applied to the physical body.

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