Decisions, decisions

Food selection and appetite control is only one aspect of weight loss. The bigger part for philosophy, or to the ignorant people, willpower.
It is understanding, for some of us, it is a series of decisions, one way lies death or a fate even worse, the other way lies health or at least more healthy than the other way. The decision is the easy part, doing is not so easy.

We need to examine our will, not what we think, but what we actually do. Therein lies the problem, these are often different. We want to be rational and eat Paleoish, but then somebody is pushing some kind of "treat" or as I like to refer to it as bate, which I know contains sugar, a deadly substance. That raises a craving, a urge to have a taste, or similar feeling. Now what? We have two mutually exclusive bits of will. Cognitive dissonance what?

What I need is skills to develop more will power and carry a big stick.    

My short term wants do not match with my long term 'needs'.
My needs must govern for long term life.
I need to align my short term impulsive desires with long term needs.
How does one crush our short term impulsive desires?

Blood Glucose, the balancing act

We have two ways to balance blood glucose. From the high side, insulin, produces by the pancreas, lowers blood glucose. From the low side, the liver, through glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis raises blood sugar. As an engineer, it is obvious to me that if the pancreas is worn out, the obvious choice is to manage from the low side, via not eating carbohydrates. QED.

Cost/Benefit analysis

Since I referred, in a comment, to Cost - Benefit analysis as a motivational tool, I better do a bit of a post on the subject.

Cost can also be taken as a disadvantage. Doing it both was refers to looking at both doing and not doing, which provides a 2x2 matrix. In addition, we need to look at short term (st) and long term (lt) effects, and also altruistic (o) verses self interest (s).  Long term should be weighted higher for weight control items, as is often the case for any decision.

For this example lets consider overeating to be anything beyond 3 moderate meals each day and eating sugar, processed foods, acellular carbohydrates, grains, omega 6 oils, anything containing exorphins, endocannabinoids, hormones or other flavour enhancers.

Consider Overeating
Benefit	Cost Disadvantage
relief of urge to eat (st)s	Obesity (lt)s
	High blood pressure, medication (lt)s
	High blood glucose, medication (lt)s
	Diabetes, insulin, foot amputation, blindness (lt)s
	Slow painful death (worse than death) (lt)s
	death (lt)s
$ (st)o - junk food companies	$  (st,lt) s
Not Overeating
Benefit	Cost  Disadvantage
Health (lt)s	Learning about food, motivation, learning about controlling cravings and urges, learning in general about life, philosophical sorting of my beliefs and discarding bad beliefs, replacing with better concepts.
save $, praise self for not overeating (st)s	help put junk food companies out of business (lt)o
	Do I care about junk food companies? NO.

This is crude, but enough to give the idea. Sometimes we need to hit ourselves with a big stick. But what do I know.

Obesity Comorbidity

Does obesity, addiction, and personality issues occur more often together than in the remainder of the population?

There is research that suggests that addiction, at least those seeking help at overcoming addiction, have a high frequency of personality issues (compulsive/obsessive, low impulse control, social isolation, short term objectives, poor decision making, etc). There is no clear, consistent definition for personality issues, but it seems that there is a conscience that there is commonly an personality issue, of some kind, with people with addiction. In a way, that might even be expected. Our society is brutal toward people with any personality issue, non-conforming, individualist tendency. It is to be expected therefore, that those individuals would be more likely to seek relief with substances and behaviours that allow some temporary ego boost or relief from the abuse.

As we all function on many levels, thought, beliefs level, feeling, emotional, urge level, and behavioural level. It is only the behaviour level that has a direct impact on others (speaking, communicating is a behaviour), it would be behaviour that everyone seeks to change, without understanding what gives rise to the behaviours. It is these lifestyle changes that must fostered and occur for recovery.

Motivation, coping with urges, management of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, must come before a satisfying life, but without a satisfying and tranquil life, how can anyone hope to achieve these?

Keep up the abuse folks, and you can be assured of a sick society for a long time to come, along with the accompanying employment. Food addiction is real. 

Added later:
from http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.ca/2013/05/just-in-haste-sorry-for-missed-typos.html


"The take home message is very simple. If you have severe metabolic problems the answer is not simply carbohydrate restriction. It also involves protein limitation, to adequate but not gluconeogenic levels. Low carb, adequate protein, high fat. With the emphasis on the fat."

Ah yes, it is not just carb creep (Atkins) but also protein creep.

Anti Research

http://michaelprager.com/weight-control-registry-james-hill-advertising-exercise-big-food

There is no point in beating dead horses, or idiots. They do not do wrong intentionally, only out of ignorance. They need practical education, not ridicule. It is human nature to do right, according to one of those old Philosophical Greeks or Romans Stoics.  But there are also those that do wrong knowingly for the money, more money, the prostitutes. Once we see the solution, how simple it really is, what can we say, Duh. 

The government, the medical industries, food industry, and the like are just irrelevant in my recovery. They no longer produce real food, and are in the business of research. Real information, and a solution to the problem puts them out of business. Therein lies the problem.

The answer is dealing with food compulsion, temptation impulse and addiction for the subset that has those problems, eating about 3 moderate meals each day containing no processed foods, sugars, acellular carbohydrates, appetite stimulus, or other nasty chemicals. The size of meals must be reduced in size to do the energy balance thing.

This does not include any organization  just the philosophy, attitude, and willingness to follow the prescription. There is the hard part, selling it to ourselves.

Note: never saddling dead horses, is the way to remember the correct way to put on a cable clamp; the saddle goes on the live line. 

Added later:

http://chriskresser.com/the-roundup-edition-5

The governments and organisations are a group of inadequately trained idiots trying to do a impossible job, to provide a one size fits all recommendation, when the "need" is normally distributed.

No recommendation is therefore logical... without a statement of the water throughput and of carbohydrate of the individual. Someone drinking a gallon of water a day due to perspiration, and an office worker need different recommendations.  High carbohydrate diets also modify the kidney sodium re-uptake. Any meaningful salt recommendation must look at total chloride intake as well.  

Compulsion

Can compulsions drive overeating? Yes. A I see it, I have four problems.
1.) Compulsive eating, hell, compulsive person.
2.) Addiction to sugar, acellular carbohydrates, omega 6 oils, exorphins, endocannabinoids, and likely hormones.
3.) Temptation, or low impulse control, but with desire attached after sight.
4.) Ageing, and slower metabolism, lower level of activity and interest with age.

How can I live free of all these issues? not possible. Learn to manage as best I can. But there is nowhere that teaches these skills. I guess I will just need to search out "solutions" where I can.

Treatment for the compulsion - Schwartz, OA, plus abandon all compulsions; abandon all eating beyond 301, moderate meals, -- tea drinking, -- Fisherman's Friend sucking due to tea drinking,----agitation of the peace, contentment, serenity, tranquillity in any form.

Treatment for addiction, No sgo6eeh, as far as possible.

Temptation is a tough one. Oriel, the garden snail leaves slime on the wife's poisonous foods. I do not know.

Ageing is just cut back eating to stopping as soon as I can, I guess.

Are these all just learned behaviours? if so, they can be unlearned. But there is none other than the "school of life", Alain de Botton. 

references for my personal understanding, just because I want need a list somewhere:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_control_disorder

McDonald's

I was sitting in McDonalds today sucking a tea and reading Irvine, and big couple walked by, both struggling to walk, both sucking sugar water. I doubt if either one realized how much they are addicted to the stuff. Addicted, using drugs and not seeing or caring about there condition, only the next fix is important.

It struck me that Coke and McD's both sell sugar water and preach CICO. But it is not just the sugar in sugar water, but also the exorphins that are in the flavouring that drives consumption. It is the exorphins in diet versions that drive appetite, show in the rat studies. It is the carbonate that must be neutralization by available calcium that contributes to bone density loss.

These organizations feed the uninformed, and it is our duty as exobese to state the facts; sugar, wheat, omega 6 oils, exorphins, acellular carbohydrate, endocannabinoids are essentially slow acting poisons. These companies are just merchants of slow death, and should be treated as such. I will continue to drink tea at McD's, but I also know that these companies are evil. Keep your enemies close.

Appetite- the cause of overeating

It occurs to me that this is not a eating disorder as much as a appetite disorder. It is an excessive appetite that drives overeating. So is there any treatment? still no. So what now?

The Stoics suggest that it is pleasure that drives appetites in general, and these can give rise to what we would call addiction now. This sure sounds like addiction...

From Irvine...

Homer... Pleasure hatches no single plot but all kinds of plots, and aims to undo men through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, with food too, and drink and carnal lust, tempting the walking and the sleeping alike. Pleasure, with a stroke of her wand, coolly drives her victums into a sort of sty and pens him up, and now from that time forth the man goes on living as a pig or a wolf.

Diogenes.... The most important battle any person has to fight is the battle against pleasure, she uses no open forces but deceives and casts a spell with baneful drugs.

Marcus... twitching puppetwise at every pull of self-interest... ...resist the murmurs of the flesh.

Epictetus suggests that we... be pleased and will praise yourself for not eating it.

The Stoics advise to simplify our diet.

But what do I know.