What is normal?

http://gardengirlkp.blogspot.ca/2014/11/the-stairs-vs-elevator-from-weighty.html got me thinking about the changes that I have made in my life during this recovery process. First what is normal? Most of the people that I know that have lost a great deal of weight, 1/3 of there original body mass, go back out and regain it and more. I did that 7 or 8 time in my first 55 years of obesity. That is normal, according to Dr. Sharma. OK. Those who have lost and are keeping it off are not therfore normal.

Half the people are of below average intelligence. That is the numeral normal. But when we speak of normal behavior, how do we define that? Are speaking of expected behavior? Are we speaking of the individual or of the population? Normality is seen as good while abnormality is seen as bad, within a population. But hold on now, 1/3 of the population is obese, 1/3 overweight, so are we talking good vs bad, or by number?

What has changed in my recovery is the way that I think. It has put me at odds with the extended family, society, and their food pushing obeseogenic ways. It has made me aware of the bullshit in our modern society, Hollywood concepts of reality, of how people live, and has instilled a passion for deeper understanding of the obese human psyche, and it's change to the recovered human psyche. In that passion lies the true nature of recovery. It may be just the passion that makes the difference. I see all these doctors talking about the problem, but none, well few, talk about the change in thinking required for recovery. It is that change in psyche that is the switch in the mind that get thrown to go into recovery. How to throw that switch is the key, the hidden secret, that is recovery.

For me, that switch is passion, desire, motivation, to do the next right thing, regardless of what I may feel like. It may be in defining a purpose in life, a change in priorities, a reason to get up in the morning and do the work of a human this day. Others may have that already, but that feeling of purpose is not (was not) present each day that I am not in recovery.

I have seen the abyss, the empty and meaningless center of  the human psyche, and realized that first layer over the empty and meaningless life is purpose or meaning, be that unconscious or conscious.  What that purpose is is irrelevant, whether it be to fatten the people you care about, and thereby shorten there lives, or to struggle against the food and nutrition ignorance, or the expansion of the understanding of the human psyche, and in particular, this humans psyche.

We have a health industry that does not care about nutrition, and a food industry that does not care about health. (quote from somewhere) Each in fact do better financially if they work against what should be part of there respective industries. We are each alone in a fight for our lives, whether we realize that or not. We also have a recovery industry in which each group is stuck in there own process, treating what ever part they treat. They sell the processes, not recovery. Each works for there own special group of victim, client. We are self selecting through recovery, it works if we recover, or it helps. Some do not recover, and they must go elsewhere or not recover. It is their choice.

IMO there are about 8 groups of causes of overeating. Each group has similar characteristics, and similar solutions. I suffer from all 8 groups. These groups I have currently labeled:

1. willful overeating, 
2. excessive desire, 
3. habit and conditioning, 
4. spiritual disease ( lack of right knowledge),  
5. physical issues, 
6. environment and temptation, 
7. maladaptive behaviors (eating disorders, stress, boredom, frustration, indecision), and 
8. food addictions.

But then, what do I know?