Joy Abrams prepares her meals in a feng shui-inspired kitchen and
eats them in a feng shui-inspired dining room.
The kitchen of her east Phoenix home is uncluttered and brightly
lighted, with a round wooden table topped by pastel green
placemats and flowers. The dining room has a mirrored wall,
plants, terra cotta pots and an oval table with candles, a round
silver serving dish and blue-and-white teacups atop it. And Abrams
is slim, lissome and full of energy.
But don't create a healthful eating environment like hers and
simply expect to sit back and watch the pounds melt away.
"Feng shui is just one aspect of dieting," says Abrams,
owner of AAA Feng Shui. "It's not magic - you have to do your
part to make it work."
For people eager to enhance their low-carb, low-fat, gym-centric
approaches to weight management, however, the ancient Chinese
discipline may be another seed worth planting.
Feng shui, translated literally as "wind-water" and
pronounced "fung shway," is known primarily for its
interior-design applications. Those same applications may boost
the efforts of dieters.
"Since our surroundings influence how we act, interact and
react, the spaces where we dine can transmit messages to either
aid or sabotage our eating patterns," says Nancilee Wydra,
author of
101 Ways Feng Shui Can Change Your Life
(McGraw-Hill, 2002, $14.95 paperback) and founder of the
Florida-based Feng Shui Institute of America. "Feng shui
principles include the knowledge of how spaces can slow you down,
help you not be in a 'not thinking' zone or lend support to an
elevated self-esteem. All three factors contribute to healthy
eating."
In her home's eating spaces, Abrams is careful to balance the five
elements of feng shui - earth, metal, water, wood and fire, as
well as yin (alkaline) foods with yang (acid) foods.
"When you have these elements in balance," she says,
"you're upping your chi, or energy, and you're not
overeating. It's all about how you resonate with your space. If
you feel good, you won't gorge yourself."
Abrams likens the process to creating a satisfying dinner party
that encourages guests to linger.
"The water element (represented in part by the colors blue
and black) will slow you down when you eat," she says.
"To accomplish this, you might use blue napkins or a blue
centerpiece."
On the other hand, a dining room with red features, representing
fire, says "get up and go." It might motivate those who
feel heavy and lethargic to start exercising.
Barbara Taylor, executive director of the Feng Shui Institute
International and owner of Inspired by Design in Morris County,
N.J., recommends red walls in the exercise room for the same
reason.
Taylor, who will present a teleseminar on feng shui and weight
loss Thursday (details at
www.fengshui-ii.org/education.htm),
starts by examining why a person overeats or avoids exercise.
"For instance, a lot of people eat for emotional
reasons," she says. "So we look at the elements that
would help reduce stress. When you think of the water element, you
think of 'going with the flow,' of its calming, soothing
properties."
In the dining room, that may translate into a small fountain or
fish tank and blue tableware.
"During the Depression," Taylor says, "restaurant
owners found that diners would eat less if the food was served on
a blue plate. That's how the term 'blue plate special'
began."
Feng shui-like principles still are seen in restaurants, and
adapting them for home use can improve eating habits, David
Rothschild says. He was an instructor in the culinary-arts program
at Metro Tech High School in Phoenix for 15 years before founding
EATiQuette, a wait-staff and dining-etiquette training program.
Look at what many successful restaurants offer, he says, whether
they call it feng shui or simply good management: foods that are
fresh and in season, round or oval tables balanced with place
settings lined up directly across from each other, quiet music to
aid digestion. In other words, a harmony that stimulates peaceful
feelings and relaxed conversation.
"Conversation at the table slows down the pace,"
Rothschild says. "It makes you pause between bites. Good
hosts - and good moms and dads, too - encourage that."
Pyramid feng shui, which Taylor practices, deals, as restaurants
do, not only with visual influences but with smell and sound.
So while lively salsa music may move diners to push away from the
table and go for a walk (and free up restaurant space for more
customers), free-flowing New Age music and Gregorian chants foster
slowing down and savoring a meal, she says.
Add the soothing scent of chamomile or rose oil to the dining area
for an even more satisfying experience, and you may notice that
the quality of the conversation and the taste of the food matter
more than the amount eaten.
Feng shui dieting is not a matter of denial, after all. Think of
it instead, Taylor says, as "increasing consciousness and
taking responsibility."
Reach the reporter at (602) 444-8120.
