In Journalism 101, we learned the importance of the Five Ws (and one H) in gathering information. Answering the Ws (and H)–who, what, where, when, why (and how)–is considered essential in understanding the full story. What would happen if you applied them to your weight loss goals? Some Ws (and an H) to consider:

1. Who is it that wants to lose weight? Who is the “you” that’s dieting? Another way to ask this is, who are you, inside your body? The bottom line is, your body is a place for your soul to live. That’s it. Should it be comfortable, healthy, happy? Absolutely. But losing 10 pounds is not the call of your soul. It’s the call of your ego.

I once knew a woman who could light up a room just by walking through the door. Her eyes literally sparkled. When I spoke to her, her attention was so fully and completely on me, that it was as if no one had ever spoken before. I knew she would remember every word I said–and she did. She was so vibrant, deep, warm, compassionate, that it was a very long time before I noticed she was what some people might call “heavy.” Actually, I don’t think she ever noticed she was what some people would call heavy.

Likewise, I knew a woman who was wildly self-assured, sexy, vibrant, alive. She was in her mid 40s, tall, big boned; she weighed close to 185 pounds, and she literally turned heads walking down the street. Her secret: Inside, she loved herself, she was healthy and she felt good. That was enough for her. She knew who she really was, and that her body was comfortable, well-nourished–even if it wasn’t petite.

2. What would happen if you never lost weight? We set so many conditions on our love for ourselves. Unconsciously (or not) one of those conditions may be our weight. “I’ll feel better about myself when I’ve lost 20 pounds,” or “If I can just get rid of this last 5 pounds, I’ll be able to get on with my life.” As far as you know, this is the only life you have, and it’s happening right now. What would happen if you lived it right now, as you are, weighing what you do and wearing the size you wear? Can you love yourself anyway? Pause here, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and ask yourself that question. See what comes up. If the answer is “no,” it may be that learning how to love yourself is a bigger priority than losing 20 pounds.

3. Where do you want to be in ten years? Answer that question, and you’ll have a better sense of your reason for being here. Write down where you’ll be in terms of physical health, family, relationship, spiritual practices, career, home, travel–whatever comes up for you. Chances are really good that “I’ll be X pounds lighter” will come up on your list. That’s okay. Just recognize all the other things that are on your “where I’ll be” list.

How much time, mental energy and passion are you devoting to those aspects of your life, compared to counting calories and obeying the bathroom scale? Maybe you can see where weight loss falls on your list of dreams, goals and visions, and maybe you can assign it a different priority. Losing weight is not your life’s work. Your life’s work is to love, to serve, to be honest, to develop personal integrity, to be kind, to raise healthy children, to grow spiritually, to adore yourself. Which is not to say you can’t choose to shed some excess baggage. You’ll just do it with a sense of perspective.

4. When will it be okay? I once worked with a man who slaved tirelessly to lose 15 pounds. He exercised obsessively, starved himself, became a fanatic about supplements, drank diet soft drinks and coffee throughout the day to blunt his appetite, even took up smoking to blunt his appetite. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But here’s what’s really crazy: once he lost 15 pounds, he wanted to lose another 5. (I should pause here to tell you that the term “crazy” was his, not mine). He felt that being 5 pounds under his goal gave him a buffer, in case he gained a few pounds back.

I realized then that, no matter how much weight he lost, he wasn’t going to be satisfied. It would never be okay, because it wasn’t about his weight, or his body. It was about his sense of self; he was depressed and dissatisfied with his life, and no amount of weight loss was ever going to make that okay.

When will it be okay for you? Ask yourself that question, then listen softly and quietly for the answer. It might surprise you.

5. Why do you want to lose weight? Ask yourself with gut-level honesty: why do you want to lose weight? Is it because the doctor told you your weight was harming your health, or because that little red two-piece swimsuit went on sale at Neiman Marcus? Is it for your wife, your health, your ego, your high school reunion, your best friend’s wedding? Is it because you’ve decided the ten extra pounds around your middle no longer serves you, or because you still want to fit into the size 4 jeans you wore in your senior year of high school? Once you’re honest with yourself, you can decide just how important it is to you to lose weight and where it fits in the grand scheme of your life.

6. How will shedding pounds serve the world? We’ve already touched on how it will serve you. Now, take it to a deeper level: how will losing weight make a difference in the world around you? Perhaps being lighter and slimmer will boost your health, and make you feel more confident, inspired, energetic and passionate; in turn, that will positively affect your children, your mate, your co-workers. There’s no right answer here; it’s just about being aware and exploring possibilities, and perhaps understanding how your own personal goals fit into the grand scheme of life.

If you’re eating, out of your mind–and in your body–is the best place to be.

Think about your last meal. Were you actually there? Were you at the table, tasting your food, smelling its aroma, feeling its texture as you chewed and swallowed? Or were you in your mind, mentally lining up the next thing on your to-do list, composing an email, fretting over an argument with your spouse, or counting calories and grams of fat? Any time you’re doing anything but focusing on your food during meals, you’re in your mind. And even though the entire act of chewing, swallowing, digesting and assimilating food occurs in the physical being, we’re rarely around when it happens.

What does it mean to be “in your body,” and why is it so hard to do? I have spent much of my life in a formal meditation practice that teaches us to be present, embodied and in the moment, and sometimes it’s still hard. Sometimes, being in the body just isn’t as interesting as being in the mind. It’s quieter in the body. There’s less noise, no drama. The mind, however, is much more flashy; it’s cunning, clever and persuasive, and tells a fabulous tale.

We also feel like we’re more in control in the mind. We can spin our take on situations, weave stories that makes us feel comfortable and safe. And, if you have a body that was ridiculed, neglected, mishandled or otherwise harmed in childhood, in your body is a hard place to be. If your early physical sensations were unpleasant or painful, getting the hell  out of your body made way more sense than sticking around to feel.  When that happens, it can take time to come back.

Especially to the soft, squishy, most vulnerable middle of it–the belly. But when it comes to eating, that’s where the action’s at. Many traditional spiritual practices emphasize the hara, the area three fingers’ width below the navel, that’s often described as the energetic center of the self. No accident that it’s also the digestive center of the body.

But we don’t hang around in our soft, squishy centers, or the body in general. We spend most of our lives in our minds; we crash around in our arms and legs, then fling our torsos into bed at the end of the day, with little experience of what those body parts have felt through the day.

How do you get back in your body? If you’ve spent years fleeing from it at the first sign of trouble, it’s just a matter of creating a new habit. Some simple practices can help:

1.    Check in with your belly before you eat. Every single time. What does it feel like? A cursory glance will reveal only the most superficial of sensations–hungry, full–leaving the more interesting experiences buried deeper. Maybe your belly feels grateful, or lonely, or troubled. Take five full minutes before each meal to just sit quietly and sense what’s happening in your belly. Place your hand on the area below your navel, let your belly soften (even though that’s horrible and scary in our modern culture) and direct your attention to your breath. Your mind may quickly start jumping up and down, demanding to tell its story. Notice it, don’t react or respond, and keep guiding your breath back to your belly.

2. Eat with your senses. Look at your food before you put it in your mouth. Smell it; if appropriate, touch it. Become completely enchanted with the food on your plate. In most contemplative spiritual practices, eating is a sacred art. And when you think about it, the act of receiving sustenance from the Earth, and transforming it into flesh, bone, muscle and cells, really is pretty miraculous.

3. Meet your body. What does your whole body–every single part–feel like? Try this exercise: lying down comfortably, do a whole body scan. Starting with your feet, and working your way up, pay careful attention to each part of your body–the big and obvious parts, but also the parts that go unnoticed. What do your elbows and earlobes feel like? The spaces between your toes? The very center of your stomach, inside the actual organ? Focusing on the tiny bits helps get you out of a mental description of what your body feels like, and into a sensory experience. And you might be surprised to find that there are parts of your body you never even noticed.

4. Experiment with being in your body through movement. Thinking about your body doesn’t create embodiment. It’s purely experiential. Movement needn’t be elaborate or showy. Stretch your arms slowly overhead. Extend your legs. Arch, then flex, your spine, and see how quickly you come back to your physical being and its sensations.

5. Check in with your body throughout the day. Make it a regular habit to pause every hour or so, and do a quick scan of your physical self, from the part in your hair to the skin on the soles of your feet. In time, the habit of being in your body will come naturally and frequently. When I first started this practice in my early 30s, in the midst of a riot of mental noise, I was shocked to find that I spent well over half my life in my mind, while my body remained uninhabited. Now, it’s second nature, but it took years of practice.

The next time you eat, do it from your body. Be really, truly present, and notice how different the act of nourishment may seem.