Knowing vs Doing

It is one thing to know what should be done, then there is the doing. We know that motivation lies in between. And overcoming obstacles, objections, changing habits.

Changing habits of any kind is process in it's self. Prochaska and Diclemente say there are six stages: precontempation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination. In permanent change, it is desirable to remain in the changed stage. 

There is yet another issue; change or suspension of a behavior. In the past there has been change, but that change has not been enough to completely remove the issue. I am still addicted to wheat, as the addiction never leaves. There are traces everywhere, and occasionally a deliberate cookie/butter tart/ fruit cake/ etc, which ought not be eaten but the will is weak and flesh is strong, pulling... So that is suspension of behavior, not actual change.

One meal a day, or skipping meals makes sense, from actual practice. I quickly become habituated, and the hunger is less then, but the hunger is always present. Having identified a wrong thought, or eidos, one that says I should eat when I am hungry, I can work on removing that thought, or replacing it with the behavior to only eat on schedule, but the schedule is also leaving me with a ongoing low hunger. One of the common causes of low hunger is a stress re-feed issue; stress causes adrenaline and cortisol release, which drives glucose release... and then is followed by hunger. I question the stress of life that I experienced daily growing up under that pair of control freaks. That is likely why I found QC environment to be so free of stress. It was not, but it was less than I grew up under. Oh well.

Knowing what to do is tough; there is so much miss information and wrong information; all with some logic and story. It is just choose one and go with it, or is there some try it and see how it goes method of choosing. It is all to difficult. The other way is to choose, not on what is right, but by what we can do. Base the plan on my previous and current doings, bad grammar and all. That brings doing, knowing, and planing closer together.  Oh well, it is only for a few years anyway at most and then I will be dead... Life is so impermanent. As are governments, thankfully.

So is it change or suspension of behavior that I seek; It seems to me that change should be easier in the doing and more or less permanent. In the past I know that I take on diets like a job, something to just be done. That is obviously, well maybe, just suspension of behavior. After it was over, the weight just came back, but slower... so there was some changes, longer term. Or was the doing just a habit that operated like an environmental control... no food, no eating. Is it the doing that establishes the habit, or is it the change in thinking, ideas, eidos, concepts, attitude, or knowledge that separates change from suspension of behaviors, and thus effects a change in the knowing/doing situation.

Socrates or one of this elk said that man does not knowing do wrong, but some of us drop into an automatic mode when eating, where thinking is mostly bypassed. It is that mode that allows us to operate equipment efficiently, or for some to type fast... there is no thinking, just doing. That is the way I am when eating. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

Fatal Attraction.

Not Yet Fatal Attraction... to food. It has not yet killed me, but it is making life miserable.So is the attraction to food something we can escape from?

Is free will, morality, and choice real or a illusion? Sam Harris thinks free will is not what we think it is. The Stoics realized that free will was not entirely free, it was only for the things up to us. So if food addiction is real, as it seems to be, how does one escape the grasp? Religion seems to have a partial answer, but religion is based on lies, so those who are susceptible to lies have an out. But what about those of us who reject religion, and try to rely on reality?

Some things are up to me and some are not. OK. But how does one resits the ongoing desire to eat in the presence of food? That is the reality.

Plato had his concept of knowledge. There is the object, our opinion of the object, and that is a low form of knowledge. There are concepts, eidos, that we learn about, that are eternal, unchanging, and real. There is also fiction, that masquerade as concepts; no these are concepts, just not real ones. Gods are just fiction concepts. It is part of thinking, all handling concepts, eidos, some of which are real and some which are not. Simple. It is all eidos or concepts. Oh well. Where does this leave us.

Free will and will power are just concepts, eidos. Each person has various amounts and that varies on the subject. Food, I have little free will to choose, for I was trained at an early age, second nature, epigenetic, what ever. Memory and understanding are two separate facilities, which are overrun by habit, also a separate facility. That is the problem, so what is the fix?

Dangerous Foods

From the view of a person trying to eat less, there are dangerous foods. These are foods that make us more hungry after we eat them than we were before. We should also include high calorie low nutrition foods as well.

Let me first say that this effect may not be universal, and it is not rational. But I can assure you that the effect is real for some of us. It has been suggested that it is an insulin generation issue, but for me this is also true of some fats, proteins, meats, and other assorted foods. Most foods as a mater of fact.

Food is intended to reduce hunger, or so reason suggests. So when it does not?