Monday, April 29, 2013

Summarizing important life philosophical points

I'm off on a tangent for a bit.

What we think is not important, it is what we do as a result of our beliefs that is important.

This implies that a philosophy is equivalent to a spiritual approach to the weight problem.  Watching our ideas, our impressions and living a delay tape in our head are equal concepts.

Some things are up to us and some things are not. So we can divide all internal issues into three groups, what we have control over, what we have influence over, and that which is beyond control or influence. Externally, we can influence a few things, and control nothing. We are responsible for our opinions, desires, impulse and aversions. Some will argue that we have no control over some of these, but some translations of Epictetus say responsibility, not control. We are responsible for our actions for sure. Desires and impulses can be redirected, where the control is poor.

So we can redirect the desire for additional food. We have a choice: live in the addiction/compulsion or live in recovery.  

Friday, April 26, 2013

Negative toward recovery

In the past few days I have encountered a number of people that were negative toward what I have needed to do for recovery from obesity. Having a excessive appetite is an undesirable biological trait, in this time in the world, but I cannot look on it as a bad. Looking back over the bit of family history that I have, it is obvious that it likely biological, as I come from a long line of people who became heavy at some point in there lives. Oh well, we need to play the hand we are dealt.

Most modern diet people do not deal with calories, likely due to it being sloppy measurement, and fear of the science behind it. They do not deal with food absorption rate, satiation, satiety, or the human drive to eat. They do not address environment, culture, economy, lifestyle or available fresh foods. They avoid the philosophical and psychological factors effecting dieting. Most fear a feeling of deprivation, as a result of elimination of food groups, without understanding that food groups are artificial concepts, and the deprivation is a psychological/philosophical  item that can be displaced with a bit of knowledge and practice.

Oh well, shit happens. Negative people happen, and should be just walked away from. But what do I know? 

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Excessive Appetite

The problem is excessive appetite. Obesity (now overweight) is the result.

The cause is largely chemical and in some part natural, perhaps even a natural excessive appetite.

Until we are ( I am ) willing to permanently give up the food that drives the chemical appetite, the issue will remain.

I must also be:
1) willing to give up sgo6eeh. ( see header)

2) willing to do 3 small moderate whole food meals each day.

3) willing to give up all "contributing" behaviors or factors; be they environmental, cultural, social, emotional...

Monday, April 22, 2013

Appetite Control

What is clearly known about appetite control?

A web search yields lots of yap, very little information. Same old shit, controlled with water, ice, fibre...

It is psychological developed, why not psychological / philosophically controlled?

from http://www.erlanson-albertsson.se/Actaped05.pdf

Appetite regulation is governed by hunger and satiety
signals released according to our state of energy
balance: hunger signals in response to fasting, and
satiety signals in response to feeding. Hunger signals
drive us to seek and eat food, whereas satiety signals
induce a state of non-stress and rest. There are two
problems with appetite regulation today. One is the
highly tasty food that overrides satiety signals and
triggers the reward system. The second is a lack of
physical activity, which makes overeating easier.


The problem is appetite control. The result of failure to control appetite is obesity. Appetite is a desire. How does one control ones desires, aversion, expectations, delusions and the like? How about that, folks. I know where I have seen that answered. It is one of the few things we have power over, our beliefs, values and ethics.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

What causes the drive to eat?

What causes the drive to eat? Appetite?

Ultimately, the drive to eat must be hard wired into us, so what if it is just a bit too strong? We can look at insulin all you want, and knowing high insulin causes glucose storage, but if no carbs leaves us hungry, what is the real issue? Low carb is part of the solution, but what is the remainder?

Now I know that low carb should work, according to the whole low carb community, but what is the solution when it does not?

Thursday, April 18, 2013

What is essential?

added later Fat Chance http://cravingsugar.net/fat-chance-beating-odds-sugar-book-review.php

What is essential in life, for life, or should it be of life?

Well, reading the Stoics, I realized, very little. All else is what we have been taught to believe is, or likely was, important. Growing up in poverty, and being happy, contented, screwed up my thinking for a greed based society that I lived in as an adult. I now know that it was the philosophy of the new testament that caused the issues. Put is it just concepts, noting more. That is an easy fix, even if it is too late for me.

I am starting to think that all people should study philosophy as a high school subject. There is danger in that for the government. Some of those same people would drop out of the greed based economy of today, and go live alternative lifestyles. Other would recognise the opportunity to rape, gouge, pillage, and plunder the people, and become rich, just as some do today. But this would all be done knowingly, not unconsciously, or accidentally.

On average, everyone in a bar becomes a millionaire, when Bill Gates walks in.

So is it ethical to work for a large food company, a drug company, a junk food company, McD for example. I have come to believe these should be treated as Buddha said of "Poison Merchants".

But what do I know.  

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Teachibility

In order to change I need to be teachable. What does that entail as far as an attitude adjustment in myself?

In order to learn one must be teachable, that is to say able and willing to learn. The material must not contradict that which I know now. But how do I know that which I know is correct, or should it just be over written in this leaky organic computer brain of mine. As an ageing adult, some thing need to be unlearned, but what is the ultimate test? Try it, and if it works, it is likely right.

As an ageing adult, I have long had the habit of not listening to much of the crap that comes to my ears and eyes, as it is garbage. Such is the modern age, but now I need to become teachable in some areas again.

But what if I know as much as the instructor is now teaching, and what she is saying is actually wrong? I know a bit about food, mathematics, testing, logic. Of course, success could be just one concept away, but how do we tell?

Teachable moments come with total surrender, total failure, total loss, letting go. Absence of resistance to an idea, passion for the subject, and enthusiasm is necessary for retention. Oh well, shit happens, and what do I actually know?

Friday, April 12, 2013

Processed food digestion rate.

We humans typically have a digestive system that is capable of delivering much more energy that we currently need. That is one of the root causes of our obesity grief. Add to that the issue of our desire to eat good tasting food, a basic survival drive, that has over grown its need in our current environment. Cooking aid digestion. So does grinding. There in lies the basic problem. We digest food to fast and get hungry to quick. Now we need to learn to live with the problem.

We can see immediately a number of promising options. Raw food. No processed foods, especially carbohydrate. Paleo template food plans. No sugar, grains, omega 6 oils. Add the removal of taste enhancing exorphins, at the like, and the problem becomes much smaller. Now all that remains is to do it. But what do I know.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

rehash

I have been struggling maintaining and losing relosing this last 10 kgs for two years or more. It is time to rehash this entire obesity / overeating problem, one more time.

In engineering there are processes of looking at a problem to find solutions. There are two general solutions, remove the cause, and repair the damage or reconstruct so that the original cause is no longer able to do the damage it was originally doing. The "third" solution is some combination of the two. There is also a "zero" solution, that is do nothing, and ignore the problem.

The zero solution, in obesity, is to do nothing and watch the problem grow, aka, gain weight. This is not acceptable to me.

Remove the causes is difficult for the causes are multiple, and there are many contributing factors. Hunger, and the biological directive to eat are the two that can be ignored short term, but not long term. Then there is the psychological or emotional causes, the spiritual or philosophical causes, the socialenvironmental, physical addiction, chemical addiction, and behavioural addictions. We have come a long way down this path with Taubes, Lustig, Davis, Paleo in general, all the others.

Modification of the self, through gut modification, although is possible, is an extreme  and I do not think it deals with the real unknown problem, something psychological, philosophical, or physical that is still unknown to me, and drive me to the food. I have been listening to experts and trying things, but to no avail. It is impossible to live with this drive to eat, and not eat. I think the experts are missing something.

Learning to live with the problem, in such a way, that it is not a problem, can be done, but that too is a stop gap method, but at least it does work.

Studying the cause and elimination them, one at a time has been helpful, and I do better when I as so busy that I do not have time to eat, but how long can I tread water? Is there another way to learn to live with the problem and not have the problem effect me?