Expansion of the god concept

A god concept can expand to fill the available space.
What am I saying?
Our god concept can define not just god,
but god's will for us, our way of thinking, of being,
of reacting to the various stimuli that we are faced with throughout life.

As I have stated,
my god is the sum of the natural forces that exist,
gravity, electromagnetic, and all those other physical and biological forces.
Science is largely a study of these forces,
and their products,
therefore I can say that the study of science is the study of god,
or at least study of my god.
We do not understand much, but we can observe,
and try to codify the forces,
becoming a written record of his laws of nature.

This matches with the stoics "live in accordance with nature",
and Socrates belief that "we cannot draw breath without god approving."
God and nature are one, forces and matter since E=mc².
How do I get to superscript with this stupid editor?
That is to say, energy is force over time,
so mass and force is related over time,
so time must also be part of god.
God is all the stuff we do not understand yet,
and perhaps even some of the stuff that we do understand.

The sense of wonder, at the expanse of space,
the detail and colour in flowers,
in greens of nature, in winter weather, in life,
at the industry of man,
the technology we have developed,
whatever,
should instil wonder and gratitude.
This can be our underlying feeling or emotion,
and all others just cover it,
so that when all the other emotions are gone,
we are returned to this wonder and gratitude.
That would make life nice, would it not?
Now how do we reset ourselves,
to spend any loose time in a state of wonder and gratitude?

But what do I know?
Be well, eat real food, breath deeply,
smile easily, and enjoy what life has to offer.



Daoish.

gratitude

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2egMSliB8DE

And abstinence is the most important thing in my life today without exception.

So my food plan, diet, or what ever I call it is the most important thing in my life today. Really.
Without my food program I would be headed for the grave or more likely, an incinerator. Quickly. You see, if I did not follow it, I would be diabetic. My blood glucose is being entirely controlled to normal range by my diet. I would fail the glucose challenge. A nice baked potato will double my numbers. The next morning I could expect a 7 to 8. No thanks. My low carb plan works.

Step 1 is backwards

For me, step one looks backwards, some of the time. My life was unmanageable by me, and eating gave me relief. I made a conscious decision, at the suggestion of my parents that if I ate, I would grow and not be picked on. But I took it to far, and that did not help. The reason I was being picked on by the other kids was because my parents were frugal eccentrics, not just poor, and would not buy us kids decent close, but rather mother dressed me in her sowing, which were not that great. It was not until I refused to go to school that father bought me close. We can deal with harassment in a number of ways. One way is avoiding contact. By then, I was grossly obese, and remained that way, likely due to the insulin/leptin effects.

That experience was a "defining moment", more like several years, that had a major impact on shaping my life, and shaped my personality. I did not associate with anyone more than necessary. That trained me to be "low human contact need". I did not need friends, and was better by my self than with others. Mind you, by grade three, I was an attacker, so nobody wanted to be around me anyway. That did not mellow out much until I read "How to win friends and influence others" when I was 19 or so.

Now that I understand the overfeed / insulin / leptin issue, the physical part of the overeating problem, and take the appropriate measures, as much as I can, it is possible to see the personality issues. These likely developed as defence. That is why it is so critical to give up overeating before the program can really work. But coming to have a concept of god is the next step. Once we have a concept of god, or in my case a definition of god (ignostic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism), we have something to lever off to obtain more motivation. We humans try to do right, and to follow the "will of natural laws" is going with the flow. Then we need to clean up the past and fix up old relationships that need to be fixed, and continue this into the future.

So you frugal minimalists, eccentrics, religious freaks, control freaks, fear mongers, irrationals, and the like, what effect is your life style having on your children? I survived (gratitude for), but how well? Some do not survive. Oh, well.

But what do I know? Be well, eat real food, breath deeply, smile easily, and enjoy what life has to offer.

So why do I want to use?

So why do I want to use food, why do I crave?

It was long my habit to use food as a stress or anxiety relief.
So having reduce the food greatly,
now what do I need to do to relieve those stresses and anxiety?

OA does not have a real answer beyond obsess about the program,
and use the social aspects of the program as relief.

It is the social portion that gives me stresses and anxiety.
Treat the cause of my anxiety with more of the cause?
Not a real solution, but a religious one, that is
hoping that god will provide an answer.

What is it about my exchanges with with people
that causes me so much grief and anxiety, agitation, dissatisfaction?
Nobody ever understands what I say,
oh well, it is better to understand than be understood.

So I know the solution to your problem is Epictetus,
and some things are within our power, and some things are not.

Just because someone expects us to control
that which is not within my power
does not mean that I have an issue,
but rather it means that your expectations are goofy.

Buddha, Dao, and the Stoic all agree. It is your problem, not mine.
So how, besides apathy, am I suppose to deal with your bullshit?

The Problem

The problem of giving up eating is that now we need to find a replacement method of dealing with the stress, anxiety, time related issue, or what ever the reason we were eating to start with. The real difficulty is figuring out the reason to start with. That is what is not being addressed in any of the programs, especially is the reason is stress refeed, an natural condition that exists after the stress has dissipated.

Some people use exercise. If exercise causes pain/discomfort/additional stress, it is not a suitable choice, it will not happen. There in is the crux of the problem, stop an effective method of treatment because of the side effect (weight gain) and not have a replacement for the effective method of treatment.

I will suggest that the real problem is life has become to stressful for the human genome, or at least some of the genome. There are those with no caring values, socio-paths, that do not have issues, and the Spock likes, but what about the remainder of humanoids with emotions?

Then there is apathy. http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy.html Apathy is the condition of just not caring. It can be behavioural. We just stop caring about something that is beyond our power to do something about and is unpleasant or distressing to us. It is common method of dealing. We are trapped and nobody else cares enough to do anything about it. One way is to develop apathy for whatever, ourselves. Now What, if we do not even care about ourselves ...

Oh well. Be well, breath deeply, smile easily, and enjoy what life has to offer. Daoish.

Long term abstinence

Long term abstinence is one of those popular subjects that needs frequent airing.
After all my years of listening, to this I will say:

1. rigorous honesty, as a necessary virtue, this should extend beyond food to our life in general. There is a major gap between rigorous honesty and expediency level, which many of us lived on (note past tense).
2. reverence for the program, and recovery
3. holding abstinence as sacred or as stewardship of the body.
    I was entrusted with this body to look after it. It also helps to have a clear but flexible definition(s) of abstinence, perhaps even overkill. No sugar, no ground grains, no omega 6 rich oils, no processed foods, three moderate meals per day at home plus a fruit or two if needed... generally, and as close as practical away from home, and long days. Aim for perhaps 90% or more, aka 19 of 21 meals per week, unless you are a 19 or 20 meals per week type.

4. one day at a time, frequent contact with indwelling god concept,
    AM, before and after each meal, PM, (stoic frequency, 8/day)
5. spiritual development, extending far beyond coming to believe,
    to the point that god is real as any object,

and here are some mps on this subject:

http://www.ceahow.org/sites/g/files/g74161/f/201311/SatODATtoLongTermAbstinence27Jul13.mp3

I do venture into other camps as reconnaissance, not as considering defection. This is from the hard ass bunch that split of OA, because OA would not follow them, but their program does work for some.

They were the tough love group at one time.

Be well, breath deeply, smile easily, and enjoy what life has to offer. Daoish, or Epicurean.

What am I (Philosophish)

What am I? is a question that comes up as a result of introspection. It need to be answered, much like what is god? The answer is personal, no right or wrong, but possible a correct on not quite correct answer.

I is singular. It cannot be divided. It is the essence of me. Tolle struggled with this in his "I cannot live with myself";  Dante struggled with reality in his "I think therefore I am"; Epictetus resolved it to his mind, that which he had control over. In this way his body became unimportant to him, desirable but not within his absolute control. Kiss your own mortal ass goodbye, and go with god's plan, the non-plan, fate, fortune, destiny, what happens happens. Make it the best we can, live with virtue and nature, but without concern for self.

It seems that, in the modern human thought, the body us included. Yet this leads to problems in the psyche. So the body is out, as is the physical brain, but the mind and consciousness are still in contention. But what is the mind; not the physical structure, not the chemical reactions, not the synapses firing, not memory's, but more intangible than that, the energy of thoughts, not just memory. Memory is diluted with time, and dilutes with more time. I is timeless, it is instantaneous energy, a biological force of some kind, with its own rules of conduct, rules of being. Being a biological force, and with god defined as the sum of all forces, it is a bit of god. Energy is force acting over time.

Just as the body has it's rules, the consciousness underlies language, it is awareness, but not a physical thing, but sit on top the physical cell structure. Is this the intent of the buddhist concept of no-self, the non-existence of self, that there is no physical self, just a concept, a soul, an energy, a no-self? It does what it does. Acceptance is required. Just as the body obeys a unknown set of rules for us to discover, the self does the same.

Be well, breath, smile, and enjoy what life offers. Daoish.

Sponsorship 2

The purpose of sponsorship is to help us through the program. This requires that we pass through a series of attitudes. First, we need to accept that willpower is not the solution to our problem. It may be part. As Harold said, "if we pray for potatoes, we must be willing to pick up the hoe." but more the other way; We must not will ourselves to eat, for any reason. We need to recognise that our life is not manageable by us, indeed, my unmanageable life likely lead to my overeating.

Second, we need to have a form of god concept, where god is real to us, as real as the table on which this computer sits. Subservient to that, I need to let go of my ego, surrender to following god's will for me, and develop some humility. The organism must adapt to it's environment, not just adapt it's environment. There are many things that I do not know how to deal with, and until I learn a method for each of those, I must accept surrender.

God is the sum of the forces that act in the world, and on me. This includes internal biological forces. It is those internal biological forces that drive me to eat, and these must be ignored. That is the problem, the forces are always there. Some are internally generated and it is these internally generated forces that we have some influence over, and some influence over my behaviours. It is the not answering the craving/ desire to eat behaviour that is required.

The cravings are generally present. That is much of my problem. Some people say the cravings go away. I say, not my experience. Some of the craving is physical, and these I definitely need to avoid, hence my low carb diet. It is likely hyperinsulinemia / insulin overshot / insulin resistance / one of those insulin issues, but the doctor does not want to do the insulin level test because "then what do we do?" Dumb asshole. Oh well.

One of the drivers to food is stress / anxiety / emotional issues / all similar. Now I know that other people think differently, and understanding how other think could provide a method of removing / eliminating those issues. The old stoics have been useful for many idea, and much is no longer a problem. "Who's problem is it?" also helps. Knowing that I must adapt to the environment also helps. Acceptance is the final or first alternative, but acceptance is a coping method, not a solution.

More to come

Sponsorship

What do I need from a sponsor? It is my "expectations" that I need to look at first.

This reminds me of a question from Kelsi's OA phone outreach script....   Do you want feedback or do you just want me to listen?

First the just listen part; I can write whatever in one of my blogs, that way it has been said, and someone may or could read it. Next, that also serves my heritage method of keeping my own council; no one ever comments much. Writing and editing gets rid of much garbage and sorts it out in my mind. That alone helps. This requires no sponsor involvement.

Now the feedback part: I cannot expect anything but "program", although other stuff may come. It is the "expect" that is the operative word here. Sponsors are just people who have overcome this problem, similar to the one I have. It may not even be the same problem. OA is "just" a management of the chronic problem method, it is not a real solution.

Compulsion, obsession, food addiction, binge eating, food addiction, hyperinsulinemia, emotion stress refeeding, conditioned hypereating, lack of food knowledge, lack of satiation response, lack of leptin or leptin blocking, etc. are all those defined terms that have solutions or requirements. Some day, there may be a real solution for the remainder of my problem. Yes, I do over analysis, but some of the solution is physical.

Now the main problem I have here is that my memory is going, not what it once was, oh well. So when I write and do what editing that I can, many things become more obvious. That forces searching my memory for answers first. I was trained to look up the answers in books. Many years of engineering, where all the historical methods can still be used when no modern methods are available has taught me a few things. OA, AA has many books, as does Hazelden, Smart, and the internet, any of which can provide a possible solutions. I was raised to be self-sufficient. That is my process, research then ask a sponsor.

There are those who's "process" or first reaction is to talk to a sponsor, I am not saying they are wrong, but that is not my way. I also note that my belief system does not require others to believe as I do.

I have developed a belief in a god definition that meets all the requirements and must be true. Most of the time, I have a concept of god's will for me. So what is my problem? Next post...

Virtue vs Sugar

Sugar and its components, taken separately, are evils. Sustained use causes obesity, diabetes, addiction, and other issues. That is a separate topic. Sugar, along with artificial sweeteners, cause a "need for sweetness" in our palate, which is one of the contributing factors to addiction. It causes a depletion in serotonin, the hope, happiness and optimism endorphin. Not good for many of us.

Now that we know that this evil chemical should not be within our food supply, how do we deal with drug dealers who push these noxious substances? Well one thing is to stay away from them. We boucot there producers in many forms. We can also express our disuse of those chemicals, even when some grannie "slaved over a hot stove" to produce them. "Sugar raises my blood glucose to dangerous levels and turns me into a real asshole.", and most stopped pushing.

Now how to deal with the sugar gifts? Throw it in the garbage. It is ethically wrong for me to give poison to other people, when I know it is a poison. That makes it ethically wrong, period. Refuse to take it, if I am out and it is pushed onto me. I have explain this to anyone who pushes it on me. Most only do it once.

It is the virtue of ethics that provides tranquility of not having to deal with issues repeatedly. But using ethics and virtues as a defence is an old stoic method. Oh well. Be well. Breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer is the minimum I need to do. Dao.    

Personality changes

Personality changes may be the desired undertaking, but along with examining our beliefs and values, our behaviours, our relationships, and our characteristics come some unexpected results. We need to accept that our thoughts, beliefs, values, behaviours, feelings, emotions, philosophy and the like are all tied together. Change one, and other things change. Now if we are trying to induce a personality change sufficient to bring about an end to the overeating, is there a down side.

Well maybe. When we start to pull that string, we do not know what will unravel. Our environment has been built up around us and our likes and dislikes, our ability and interests. These may change, and as a result our environment may also change or need to change. Environment here is used to describe things beyond out physical environment, it also must include our involvement with people, organisations, and identities. Yes, even our own identity can change.

In our youth we had a self concept or a personal identity. We modified it through education and we became young workers. Through jobs, careers, or callings we found ideally a mature identity. Now some of us need to rework this into a senior identity, along with additional recovery to keep the overeating in its's place. I am not fully recovered, few seldom are, but I have come a long way toward a much better life.

Coming to know what I beleive and know what I do not beleive has freed me from a lot of ideas that were just wrong. Knowing the boundary between myself and the world that I have no control over has freed me to study what I have control over, and to not care about what I have no control over. Now what I do as a result of this new found freedom in another issue.

Be well, breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.      

Link christian vs stoics; stoics 1, christians 0.http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/2013/12/05/features-stoicism-and-christianity-by-jules-evans/

Personality Change Reminder

The purpose of the program is to induce a personality change sufficient to bring about an end to overeating. It does not say anything about being a more pleasant personality, or better, or more personable, just sufficient to bring an end to the overeating.
Ref BB 569.

When we stop practicing the characteristic that contribute to the problem, like agreeing to consume sugar and acellular carbohydrate products (flours), seed oils (lubricants) , and other manufactured edible products, whether manufactured in a industrial or some grannies kitchen, we may step on others feelings. Oh well. They just want to pass out their form of love. Too bad. Those are simply not food to me. I will not consume them, regardless of what grannie thinks. (someones, not mine). Anyone pushing those do not have the best interest of me, or humanity in general, as their prime directive.

The prime directive is do not interfere with other species and cultures. I am of a no sugar, no acellular carbohydrate culture. These are not foods, but poisons, dose dependent poisons.

But what do I know? My belief system does not require that you beleive as I do. Be well, breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.  

Determination to Recover

One more essential of recovery emerged, and that is a determination to recover, no matter if it kills us in the process. It is that dogged determination that will get us through when the way becomes obscured, often through random noise and/or blind canyons, or those paths that lead nowhere or backwards to the old path, or to slippery slope, slip, slide, relapse through sliver to slice to slab to slob. It is bulldog determination that gets us past disappointments, setbacks, errors, misguided advise, emotional upsets, crushed expectations, thwarted desires, flat spots in our thinking and inaction, or overreaction.

The cause of overeating is often poor adjustment to life, resulting in a conditioned in habit, that first we must recognize, overcome the habit and then overcome the poor adjustment. That is not saying that the conditions that lead to poor adjustment do not still remain, or that there is a reasonable solution. Other factors, love (strongly liking) of food, unwilling to give up foods, conditioned hyper-eating, food addiction, eating disorders, chemical and behavioral addictions, and the like also play a role in overeating. Living in a food rich environment is one of the worst for us.

If we were concerned about something, and it was the inability to rationalize the solution with reality that was the problem, we can either rationalize the problem or just stop caring. When the PHD's cannot agree, what can us less trained underlings do? What is a proper diet? I do not know. Something like before man started to manufacture food for sure; before we started to control climate, to have year around fresh fruits, to concentrate flavors, and concentrate sugars.

It is bringing my will in line with reality that is the issue. Uninterested in doing anything is not a suitable attitude for retirement. Fully understanding the human weight regulation system is a noble undertaking with many potential pitfalls and wrong pathways, depending on where we start. Yet, we can say, without any doubt, that we like sugar better than satiation or satiety or hunger.

Be well. Breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer. Ignore the remainder. Dao.  

Essentials of Recovery

Tuesday Dec 3, we will be having a group discussion meeting on the Essentials of Recovery, 7.30 at Tim Hortins, Ellerslie road and Parsons road.

Now to think about what is essential. To me, there is a realization that I need help, and the problem extends into life, and the causes of over consumption at the root level, anxiety, lack of direction in life. aka step 1.

There is a requirement to really beleive in a power outside of myself, even if that power is nature, and beleive strongly enough to say it is real.  There is the realization that nature will have its way, regardless. We can go along willingly or go along struggling. I have a choice, to follow "god's will" or to follow mine, or to bring my will inline with god's will and go peacefully into the unknown future. aka 2&3.

Reminds me of a story about a dog tied to a horse drawn cart.
The dog is obliged to go where ever the cart goes,
but he can go willingly or resisting.
We can chose within the length of our tether,
and we always live the consequences of our choice.
We have little choice in that.

And whether that cart go, there go I.

Vimalasara

Change our thinking; change us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TKR-IKtaCg

What can we expect from OA?

A newcomer asked what can they receive from OA?

The answer is not straightforward, but something like recovery. First they need to accept step 1 and step two, then step three and recovery can start.

But what does that mean. You need to recognise that you have a problem with food, and a living problem, namely that you are unable to follow or stay on a reasonable food program. Next you must come to beleive in a power outside yourself, even if that power is your human nature. You then must becoming willing to follow directions, that of the power outside yourself. Then you must do the work to follow the will of the power outside yourself.

Lets say that is a power we will call god. As an ignostic, I will define god as the natural forces of the universe, and of biology. I can chose to follow god's will or my own. Are cravings my will or god's? Mine? Ok, well what do I do?  If I beleive in this god, then I have little choice but to follow gods will. If I do not, then I can do as I please. It is that simple of choice; gods will or mine.

We obtain motivation by levering off our beliefs. If god is real, and we are willing to follow his will, then, logically, a reasonable food program should be followed.

God has become the sum of all natural forces acting on me. The evil persons suggesting that should eat are not "god's will" but the opposite, evil.

Which came first?

Which came first? The psychological issues or the obesity?

IF we remove the resultant, the problem still remains. I was likely driven to obesity through not being able to deal with life, anxieties, and all that other shit. So no wonder I struggle, I need to learn to deal rationally to an irrational situation.

Powerless over food does not mean helplessness. I have a choice. Eat or not eat toxic foods. Once I start, I have little realistic choice beyond eat until I can stop. It is not compulsion that drives me but my mind, the obsession.

But I do not need to start. That is the choice. But then I must learn to deal with the psychological problem, what ever that is that is driving me to the food or that I am using food to escape, avoid, or defer from.

Writing / talking is one solution for understanding / determining that problem / issue / situation that is bothering me. After determining it, then, I need a solution. Keeping in mind Stoic principles: it is not the situation, but my thinking that causes the problem; within who's control is it: life is what it is; Zeno's rules, etc. Now what is the rational response to an irrational situation? Not to eat anymore.
  

Processes of change

One of the processes of change is the space to express one's self, where it might be heard, or has that potential at least. It is part of dramatic relief and/or one of those other 9 or ten processes.

But there is a piece missing, that is a clear understanding of what change will look like, or what part of us is to actually change. This may take the form of a new self image, or a goal or concept. A new self image can be developed through effort to understand others and myself.

It is impossible for me to willingly change until I know what I want to change into, or at least what characteristics need to be changed to match god's will, or more precisely, my view of god's will. After we stop practicing our bad characteristics, (steps 5&6), some of us have space to practice some good ones.

Some of us have mental blocks in our leaky carbon based minds, resistance to some things, or extreme willingness to do other things. Our minds have been trained that way. I see defects in products, bad actors on the roads, things that could be better. Tetris effect. I see what I have been trained to look for. Trained by my father, by my education, my 40 years of work, and by life. Now I must learn to compartmentalize my life to see gratitude, beauty, compassion, joy, optimums, fortitude, wisdom, justice, and all those positive attitudes and allow those negative characteristics, critical observation, failures, risky behaviors and the like to sit unused during my social times.

Nature promises us biological parents, not good parents, or even present parents, just biological parents. My father tried to motivate by moving the goal posts, carrot but no taste. And criticism and ridicule, and condemnation, and comparison where I always came up short. That was his issues, and had to leave. Such was life. I see those characteristics in myself, and have tried to not practice them. The new self must employ better treatment of others.

Enough already. All I really need do is breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.

Deprivation vs Willingness

It was quite common for me to feel deprived when offered sweet tasting poisons when I was on a diet, and in the early days of the program. Today I understand that there are many poisons; manufactured edible products, sugar, wheat, chocolate, some dairy products. From these I now abstain.  From many other food products, I must practice moderation, and moderation is not an OA term, but it is reality.

The big change is in the spirit, the willingness to follow a food program for today. It is a daily reset. Just for today. The daily reset allows me to live without a feeling of deprivation. This is helped along with the realization that food companies produce addicting edible products, which are not good for us, low grade poisons, but are just addicting to increase sales. Poison is in the doseage, but the addictive characteristic of the food makes it poison. Just look at the stats of the US, 35% of the population obese.

It is in the cleaning and clarifying of the beliefs that recovery came to me.

The contra is also true; those who want to lose weight, but are unwilling to give sugar, chocolate, flour; their bodys way, obeying the laws of the universe, always has its way. There is a solution when we recognise the body is subservient to the spirit, and the mind a servant of the body, contrary to popular opinion. The spirit here, is the knowledge/faith - beliefs - values - habit - conditioned - unconscious part of the physical brain.  

There is a effect, known as Pygmalion Effect, in which leader of a group of people can influence the production by his attitude. We can learn to induce this effect in ourselves, for our own benefit, by influencing our own attitudes, values, beliefs and opinions. This is one of the many things that OA can provide.

Keep coming back. Breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer.

Who Cares?

What is the ultimate requirement of recovery?

1. a belief that we can recover
2. a belief that life is worth recovering
3. a belief in a power outside of ourselves, at least knowing what we believe
4. a belief that following a food program is part of recovery 
5. the willingness to follow a reasonable food program
6. a suitable food program 

How much we clean up the past and relationships, how much we change and learn is all irrelevant to our food issue recovery, in my opinion. We can hid in meetings also, but, the science is clear to me:

In my case, unmanageable life, insane parental expectations and matching self driven expectations, produced uncontrollable stressors contributed to the first stress refeeding with carbohydrates, which resulted in conditioned overeating, an unconscious physiological response. This resulted in a desire to eat when faced with any stressors and the availability of food, and that turned into obsession. Nothing to do with compulsion. So why would I say I am a compulsive overeater?

We know that high insulin from eating carbohydrates blocks leptin signaling, blocks satiation and satiety signaling. That is the physiological fact as one of the roots of this issue. Obsession is the unconscious mind trying to "solve the problem as it always has". It is changing that method of solution that is at the heart of the problem. We can do this by changing our belief system, and giving our brain something else to obsess about.

Today, in the meeting, I saw four strong unyielding personalities in action. Perseverance, yes but stubborn holding on, not so good, but we all need to change but to what?

But who cares and what do I know. Breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.

Any opinions?

God 2.0

My concept of god/ no god has changed again. It has become real but non-traditional. Traditional gods are still unreal concepts to me.

If a god existed, the identity would have created all matter and all forces that exist. Although we know that there is nothing that created it, the forces still exist. It is the sum of the forces that could be considered to be god, we cannot see them, yet we know they exist. It is the forces that makes matter solid. That allows one to knock on a table and be able to say that my god is as real as this table.

Zeon 2. states: the unity of all; all gods, all substances, all virtues, all mankind, into a Cosmopolis.

Is this what he meant?  We are all part of god? What about our thoughs?

This concept is definitely a power outside of myself that is real, and I can beleive in, for I know it is real. It is incapable of doing anything but what the forces have always done. Of course, the law that describe the forces all apply. Grass still grows, cows still make milk, bacteria convert that to cheese, wool still grows and provides us warmth. OK, stoics enough.

God is still powerless to act, except as it always has and will, through natural occurrences. So what is prayer, other than self expression. But one of the 10 processes of change is self expression. Is that what it is all about? The continual change of self to fit the world. Insulin still blocks leptin signaling, and I need to compensate for that with low carb; I need to keep busy as well to avoid the obsession. Is recovery that simple and exhausting?

For recovery we need a food plan, a god, and the willingness to follow god's will, which should include the food plan and a balanced life. But god wills or permits anything.

But what do I know? Breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.  Comments, ideas, anyone?

Expectations

Expectations are something we place on ourselves, although many of us try to live up to our understanding of the expectations of others. It may be our understanding that is out to lunch, or will be presented as such if/when problems arise in business. No one else will take responsibility for our actions, even when we are given wrong directions it seems. Oh well, that is life.

All situations can be divided into three groups of responsibility, mine, others, and god, for the lack of another name. It is only that which is in my control, namely my judgements, opinions and some violations that I have control over. I have influence over others, but without "control" am I responsible. In the real world, other people seem to think so, but they have their own part to play.  Responsibility without control, OK. In the real world, we have responsibility without absolute control. That seems unjust, and is unjust, but it is what we are forced into due to social contract.

When we were few people, big spaces, and less mechanization, it may have been reasonable, but now with people everywhere, crowded, congested space is it reasonable? Is this why the social contract is breaking down? Is this why the concept of social contract is so foreign to many? Mind you, anyone coming from the third world needs to learn about the concept of social contract. It need to talked about with respect to traffic a bit more.

Expectations that other will drive in a legal manner is reasonable, I think, but the reality is that they do not, and as such, I must drive defensively, and watch out for idiots and learn to deal with aggressives, bumper sitters, road slugs, and all those others. Of course, they must know what legal and respectful driving is. But the world has about 17% sociopaths and psychopaths, a 17 percent saints, so 2/3 of the world are between these outlying groups. Such is modern life.

There are too those that will not accept any responsibility, even when it is clearly theirs by our social contract and totally within their control. Integrity is one of those items, which is under constant erosion. Integrity has costs; relative to less integrity. But loss of integrity also cost to us, so there needs to a cost benefit analysis both ways, cost and benefits with high integrity, and with low integrity. consider also the time frame of each cost and benefit.

Enough already. What do I know? The minimum action required for a good life is to breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer.    

Necessities

The necessities of recovery are, a suitable food program, a belief in a "god" to lever motivation and confidence off, that same confidence and motivation, a knowledge of "gods will" and the ability to bring our will into line with "gods"

Now as a nontheist, I recognise that "god" is just a handle for whatever we believe. Some force of physics created matter, and this universe, and what ever that is is my "god". This makes "god" real. We study the real world to understand and create rules that describe small aspects of the physical world. I can say I have been trying to understand "god's ways" all my life, but never considered engineering to be "god's ways", but using the term for the sum of all, all matter, all processes, all biology, makes us part of god, but we have free thought, as long as we go along with god's will for us. But this is what Zeno said.

Without evil and destruction there would be no insurance industry, without sickness there would be no medicine, (except statins). We need these thing to struggle against, (as a Bridge over the River Kawi), we need work. The new evil is obesity in it many forms and causes.

When we have a god that we know is right, that is know beyond just believe, we can easily have confidence and commitment to do the right thing, which we can term god's will. It is easy to do what we believe is right. That is one of the essential concepts behind the steps.

Once we have a god in place, we need to come to know his will, and bring our will into line with his. We need to sort his responsibility and as " shoemaker, stick to our own last". Epictetus defines our responsibility, our opinions, accents, judgements, desires, violations, impulses, aversions, and our mental faculties in general. Likely we can include choices, our intentions, violations, speech, and livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration, possible knowledge. These are ours, all else is up to others or god.

But what do I know. Breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.  

Morning Prayer, the handle

http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/2013/11/16/morning-meditation-routine-new-video-for-stoicweek-2013/

What is Prayer? The word is a handle for a concept, and that concept is.....

Hyperpalatable - addictive

Definition::                          : the ability of a food to stimulate an intense desire for more.

What word best fits this definition?

This is essentially the definition of both hyperpalatable and addictive food. So we know how to make hyperpalatable, and hence we know what is chemically addictive, not just a "trigger" food. Not only is it a food but also an amount of normal palatable carbohydrate.


Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome are the result of chemical addiction to processed foods. Until you all understand and accept that, the problem will continue. It is not just industry that produces processed foods. Grannies, good cooks, and food addicts all have the capacity.

We have the capacity, in the modern kitchen, to produce hyperpalatable foods. These are the problem. Just take flour, and flavor, sugar, seed oil. Or a bit of protein, carbohydrate, or fat or any vector, add wheat flour, sugar, flavors, fats, and what do we have? Hyperpalatable food.
The definition of hyperpalatable are foods that stimulate the desire for more... which is the definition of addictive foods.

This video is worth the watch for the processes:
http://www.dietdoctor.com/robert-lustigs-new-talk-sugar?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=robert-lustigs-new-talk-sugar  

But what do I know. Breath, smile and enjoy what life offers. Dao.

Moderation, the suckers game

Moderation of poison eating is not logical. Neither is consuming of some of the foods that drive us to eat more, overeat. It is chemical, eat and want more. Eat these processed food and have an intense desire, craving, grasping for more. This is the definition of powerlessness as in step 1. It is not logical to eat these, if we are trying to not overeat. It seems all those preaching moderation for food addicts, or other forms of conditioned hypereating, emotional stress relief eating (stress refeed) have food production backed funding. How about that?

So I went looking if the same holds true in the alcoholic world and guess what? It is, the moderation rehabilitation seem to be partly funded by the alcohol industry.

So what about weight watchers? owned by kraft? It works, as long as one is able to stay on the program. As our weight goes down, the amount of fat available for release becomes in short supply. Visceral fat is released 1.5 times faster than subcutaneous fat, and what happens when it is gone? The diet no longer satisfies, and we will overeat. It is high insulin producing diet, so soon you will abandon and be overeating, having entered the carbohydrate - high insulin - fat storage - leptin deficient due to insulin displacement - premature hunger - cycle. After you gain some visceral fat, you can again go back on the diet, and lose the visceral fat, but of course, each cycle yoyo will go higher, because the subcutaneous is not coming off as fast. Visceral results faster from fructose while subcutaneous requires more insulin and glucose. Kraft built customers, both gaining and losing.

And who owns Jenny Craig?

The simple solution is real food only, Primal, Paleo, LCHF, Low-carb Paleo, 19th Century Peasant, Real Food Plan, PHD, Mediterranean, or whatever.  No processed foods, sugars, flours, seed oils.

Added later:

Obesity is the result of chemical addiction to processed foods. Until you all understand and accept that, the problem will continue.
It is not just industry that produces processed foods. Grannies, good cooks, and food addicts all have the capacity.

We have the capacity, in the modern kitchen, to produce hyperpalatable foods. These are the problem. Just take flour, and flavor, sugar, seed oil. Or a bit of protein or fat, add wheat flour, sugar, flavors, fats, and what do we have? Hyperpalatable food.
The definition of hyperpalatable are foods that stimulate the desire for more... which is the definition of addictive foods.

But what do I know? Breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.

The processes of change

The processes of change are lumped into 10 categories, yet looking back on my changes, it is not obvious how some of the major items fit into the ten processes, yet on the other hand, I do not see how anything would not fit. The list is so general that it is difficult to go from the list to figuring out the required action. The list is as follows:

Consciousness Raising

Dramatic Relief

Environmental Reevaluation

Social Liberation

Self-Reevaluation

Stimulus Control

Helping Relationships

Counter Conditioning

Reinforcement Management

Self-liberation

I think that I need to describe all the things in my life that have changed.

Life Balance

SMART have a tool -- Life Balance

In my life today, I do not have enough that I must do, to keep me out of trouble. I have spare time on my hands. It is not that I have nothing to do; rather, there is nothing that I want to do with the urgency to compel action. Such is my semi-retirement.

Lack of the sense of urgency of action is something less than boredom, and a new... well relative rare feeling to experience in such volume. It is not boredom; for boredom is lack of interest in the world; or that feeling of this same old pile of shit one more time feeling. That "same old shit" feeling, or the "here we go again", that I would get when, once again, landscaping drained water to a house with water problems, or the big trees adjacent to a foundation sucking out the water from high plastic clays. Yet that has elements of both boredom, "repetition fatigue", and lack of urgency.

On the 2x2 decision matrix, importance on the ordinate and urgency on the abscissa, it is not important and not urgent, that useless quaterent, that could be labeled "next" or "get on with life", yet there is nothing that I would like to do. This is a dangerous place. As George Eastman put it (in his suicide note), "my work here is done. The company is in good hands, and all my ideas have been explored"(or something like that).

There is many thing wrong with this world that are beyond my influence, but what can I do? Scream, beg or plead? It falls on deaf ears, on ears who do not give a damn, on the wage slaves, on the committed to a concept, even when the concept is wrong. It is difficult to convince a man of something when his paycheck depends on him not understanding a simple concept. 

One of the processes required in change, (5 stages, 10 processes), is the opportunity to vent, and these blogs provide such a place.

What do I know? Breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.

Small Meetings

First, my own recovery, maintaining my recovery, and my spiritual/philosophical development is of primary importance, not supporting OA, or a meeting that is not helping. OA is not high on my list of priorities. Unless OA is helping me, I will not care about your meeting and/or program. This must be the starting point.

You must have recovery before you can spread it, and with food/weight issues, time is required. I have eaten meals with some of these "compulsive", claiming to be in recovery, but if they are in recovery... what were they before?

Secondly, I am a man, so my opinion instantly meet opposition from some of the ladies. I just let it slide, since I know my recovery, and trying to change one of  those control freaks |(wild emotional personalities) is beyond my pay grade or place.

Small meetings are one issue, but how is the recovery of the core group? Weak meeting with no recovery, meeting run by a 450 pound control freaks, meetings with no recovery, meetings with just dumping, meetings without a space (space is not open), meetings with no format, and in a noisy environment... Any meeting of this sort are just a waste of time. Do not expect even a long timer to keep coming back?

I have a choice of  six OA meetings, FA in Recovery and SMART to choose from. In addition, TOPs. There is also HOW, FAA, OA+, and all those others online. The program must garner market share or it will die.When there is a control freak in the group, we will live within her "permitted" activities, topics, and meeting formats. There is no other reasonable choice.

Meetings that follow very tight formats are ok some of the time, but I have learned much more in coffee before and after than I ever learned in the meetings. Meetings that just follow a 12 and 12 format
study are fine the first few times, but then?

The best meetings are the storey meetings, where the topic is usually not one of the routine topics, steps, or traditions. But then along comes control freak and.........

The easy way to solve a meeting problem is to stop attending. That is happens a lot. Meetings need to stay fairly small to develop recovery in depth. Also, no rational person will go up against a problem personality who wants to keep coming, and does not recognise that they are the problem personality.

My solution is his blog circle you have just entered. You may become part, just join and read, start you own, whatever.

But what do I know. My tranquility is paramount to me.

Is it all palatability?

As noted in my other blog, I have been exploring palatability.
http://philosophyofweightmanagement.blogspot.ca/2013/11/palatability.html

We meet a food or eating cue.

This is where our desires meets food. If our desire is greater than our rules and will to resist, eating will occur.

This is based on our ability to taste, and our desire to consume more after tasting, priming, or just a cue. But this is a individual sense, and the desire that sense creates. I knew a fellow who did not like ice cream, another who, even the smell of chocolate, would react in a negative fashion. They were both normal (BMI < 25 likely 20ish). Is it our ability to taste and then to desire that causes the problem?

There are spaces between the cue - - priming - - thinking - - desire - - and eating. Within these spaces is our ability to react, our ability to walk away, our ability to not consume hyperpalatable foods. Food chemistry may be in control, and it is just food chemistry.

We then produce or consume a {pick one or more} { dopamine, serotonin, endorphin, opioid, stimulus, relaxant}, we like it and want more, or not, and if available, we may go into the loop - feed back cycle, hypereating---, call it what ever. Conditioned hypereating, learned overeating pattern, compulsive overeating, but my problem is more of obsession that compulsion.

Where in the cycle gets started gives us the various disorders. Oh well, that is just my thoughts.

Spiritual / philosophical development is one answer, development of tranquility. Is there a quicker answer? The public want the quick solution, perhaps a spray to kill the taste buds.

Understanding Overeating

OA's invitation to you says the cause is not important. That is crap. It is crucial to long term recovery. But not if you are a compulsive overeater. If you happen to be a food addict(chemical), obsession driven person with a food fixation, someone with a eating disorder, and emotional eater (stress, anxiety, boredom), a conditioned hypereater, or any of the myriad of other defined overeating conditions, or some combination, is OA for you?

Many of these conditions require some kind of community, to socialize in, that partly understands overeating to some extent, for recovery. OA can be such a place, but occasionally you (I) will find an individual who is insistent on the general and non understanding found in much of the literature. By non understanding I mean the attitude that OA as it stands is right, and science has not progressed in fifty years. We know this may be wrong, but it is the attitude of many of those in OA.

Perhaps it is time to start a fraternity of the obese and exobese that does not have the high washout rate of OA, and actually treats the real problem. The washout rate includes those who come for a look, but never stick around long enough to figure out the program, and what it has to offer. Many do not get any benefit, but then there are those who come for years, and never get much benefit also.

Or it it all just a issue with food chemistry?

Our first priority must be our own recovery, and then our maintenance, and then carrying the message, after we have received the benefits of the message.

The objective of this fraternity would need to be similar to that of OA but less dogmatic, less cultie, less clickie, more science, less religion, more understanding, and less about promise of a lifetime of meetings, and more about real recovery.

This is a open call to see if anyone else is interested in such an adventure. If you are, please respond. Just click on the "comment"s below and lets get a discussion going.

I am thinking that the first step should be a "book of tools: definitions, explanations of terms, ideas, concepts, descriptions, and solutions we have tried for each "what we have learned". "  I am not sure where it should go, but we need to start where we all are.  

For Today

for today, be pleased with ourselves.
http://www.radicalhappiness.com/all-blog-articles/414-be-pleased

Our parents taught us well.
To be self sufficient,
to figure things out on our own,
to keep the family secret.
Never admit when we are in the wrong.
Blame someone else.

To bad all these thing stopped us
from getting the proper help,
when we needed it.

Food addiction, conditioned hypereating,
has two parts, the food, and related chemistry
and the habit.
We need to correct both to over come,
and be satisfied at where we are at today, for today.

Recovery is one piece at a time,
living in the now, without fear or hope
of the future; beyond what is within our power.

Breath, smile, enjoy the wonders of life,
and  be satisfied with today. Dao ish.

Exile

A few of the old stoics were exiled. As one said, where ever I go, I find people happily and willing living. So why not I? And so he became the happy exile, living and prospering on some Mediterranean island.

So why do I not want to live on this "restricted" diet, that my people lived on for centuries? It is a mater of attitude. It is all about what I thing about the situation, not the situation. Yes, I have some form of conditioned hypereating, stress relief eating, conditioned into a general reaction, hyperinsulinemia and glucose beginning rapidly stored, or possible food addiction, or behavioural addiction, or a eating habit, emotional eating, or an eating disorder. But I can live nicely on low carb, which many people happily live on.

Essentially, this "restricted" diet does not let me eat low grade poisons, or possible addictive foods. See Grain Brain, or Wheat Belly, or The End of Overeating for more details. So why do I struggle with wanting to eat some banned foods?

Well one of the issues is they are in the cupboard, the refrigerator, and in dishes around the house. The wife does not have this problem and insists on having it around, just to temp me and torcher me. Now what is the solution to that. I have tried talking but that has made it worse. I am thinking a shot of bug spray. Any other ideas?

Breath, smile, and enjoy the wonders of life. Dao.

or just be pleased http://www.radicalhappiness.com/all-blog-articles/414-be-pleased

To OA or Not to OA

To OA or Not to OA, that is the question.

OA does provide a community
of people who struggle with there weight,
but few recover in the program.
It provides a gathering place,
spiritual interested people,
but little actual that I have found helpful.

There are few men that come in,
and the literature does is
not current with the science of recovery.
It attempts to drum into the heads
the same old god message,
without understanding why it helps.

It does provide community,
but so many rules,
and so it is becoming self strangling.
The other issue is it is predominantly
female. High emotional females.
Why do I keep coming back?    

Satiation is elusive

Satiation is a elusive thing,
a weak signal.

Desires easily overpower it,
drowning out that quiet signal.

Desire is terminal,
emotional, hedonic,
the strongest of motivations,
much louder, more signal than the quiet
signal of satiation.

So how does one,
consistently, keep listening?

God's Will

What is god's will in reality?

Suppose that we need
to follow human nature,
as Zeno said.

So god's will is to follow nature.
Now all we need to do is
to follow the bodies lead.
But what cause the body to want to overeat.
Conditioned hypereating, according to Kessler.
So what does this have to do with overeating?

And we are doing exactly
what our bodies are programed
to do when we eat highly palatable food.

So the solution,
low palatable food only
small portions, no snacks.
Satiation should increase.
Stopping automatically should happen,
put down the fork,
and through everything out,
or give it to hound.

Rewrite the steps to suit

When new people come to the program,
they frequently try to rewrite the steps
to suit them,
without understanding the effect of the steps,
as they are.
Here is one more attempt.

http://aaagnostica.org/2013/10/20/the-proactive-twelve-steps/

My response is as follows:

Your step one is, as far as I am concerned, out to lunch.

I am a non-theist, inside OA, so I know nothing.
To me step one is admitting defeat,
and accepting that I need help,
not just with food choices
but with other areas of life.
This forces a teachable attitude,
and humility and need to listen
and understand.
This is the foundation for growth,
the search for knowledge,
wisdom and serenity.

When I came in,
I was a troubled person,
deep in ignorance, distrust,
self-sufficiency, greed of modern culture
and without any peace.
I was troubled physically and mentally.
I am now at peace with the world.
My belief system does not require
that you beleive as I do.
You can believe what ever you like.
Thank you for letting me vent.
Keep up the good effort.

I did not see the purpose in
going beyond that point,
as I have no clue as to
the purpose of his steps are.

Dividing Self and Group

Tradition 1 states :
Our common welfare should come first;
personal recovery depends upon OA unity.

Placing the group welfare
above our own welfare,
I think not. That is what
can be suggested from this step.
When we are newbies in the program,
depending on the program is fine,
but at some point,
we need to be able to stand
without the group effect of the program.
But as long as you need it,
fine, live tradition one.

We need to develop a full life,
not a different dependence.
At some point many of us make a decision;
life in the fellowship vs life outside,
all the while practicing what we have learned.

At that point we are no longer dependent
on the program, we have a fully developed
belief system to depend on.

But that was the point of view
at the time of writing,
that OA was the only way,
but it is not, now.
OA is a good way to offer
to teach others, to spread our
message, even when our message
exceeds what OA has to offer.

OA may need to get current
with the research or it will die out,
or become one more alternative method
in total recovery system.

My loyalty lies with me, not the group.

What is god?

I was asked what I considered to be god
the other day and did not provide a clear answer.
The word god is a handle that is attached
to nebulous concepts of mythical objects
that have had numerous and diverse properties.
My beliefs change over time and
the study of science and philosophy.

The old Roman had a concept of logos,
a list of rules to live by, and that became
a belief system, and a value system,
which is a large part of any religion.

The issue with codifying is it becomes rigid,
and word a such dull pointers to a concept.
It is easy to go from
the concept to words,
but less easy to word to the concept.
Many groups of words
can describe one concept,
and remind us of other concepts.
And yet to a different person or time or situation
remind us of something different.

Consider step three,-- Made a decision
to turn our will and our lives,
over to the care of god, as we understood him.

This may imply there is only one gods,
and we each have a different understandings,
or there are many gods,
but then we have missed
what may be the important part
or not.

Turning out lives over to something
outside of ourselves
relieves us of all responsibility
for the past and the future.
It separates what we have control over
from that we do not have control over;
the future.
This relieves of anxiety and responsibility,
something that much of society
tries to place on us, which we cannot control
and therefore cannot have responsibility for.

There is much crap which
society suggest is up to us,
and yet on examination,
is beyond our control.

Science and Philosophy has become my god.
Science clarifies this much,
and admits we do not know everything,
and some of what we know is wrong.

Science tells us that when we consume food
we may like it, dislike it, or be neutral.
If we like it, our bodies may scream for more.
If we allow a positive response,
which we may have control over,
the screaming gets louder,
and we may lose the power of easy choice.

That is the issue of conditioned hypereating,
aka food addiction, behavioral addiction,
hyperinsulinemia, and perhaps
eating disorders.

Conditioned Hypereating

Conditioned Hypereating

This is a wonderful term to
describe all forms of overeating.

The implication that it is all
learned behavior give both a
non-blaming approach and offers
method of solution of
unlearning / overlearning.

Food addictions, Stress/Anxiety Eating,
aka Emotional eating,
behavioral addictions,
carbohydrate/insulin craving eating,
wheat / opioid overeating,
are all learned behaviors.

We learned these, without
intending to learn them.
Now we just need to unlearn them,
or learn to eat reasonably.

Moderation is a myth,
when it comes to sugar,
fructose, wheat, omega 6 oils,
all manner of processed foods.
Processed foods are manufactured
with "bliss point" chemical methods.
We do not stand a chance of
avoiding becoming addicted
if we consume any of these products.
These are products, not foods.

Now we need to recognise
we need help to learn, and the
problem goes beyond just food.
We need to realize that much of
what we know is wrong.(1)
We need faith that a solution is available. (2)
We need to choose
to obtain that solution,
and then to use it. (3)
We need to understand ourselves,
and the world around us,
sort out real from fiction.(4)
This can be learned from others as well.(5)
But it remains up to us to choose (6)
and to implement. (7)
We need to clean up
our past errors in knowledge.(8)
and fix those things,
as best we can.(9)
We need to continue to
examine each food and
make appropriate choices,
always recognising we have
some wrong information(10).
We need to keep on learning,
both about food and ourselves.(11)
We need to pass this information
on to the next generation
and our community
for this information is important
to the survival of we humans.(12)

Problems with learned behaviors
may go far beyond food behaviors.
http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2013/10/14/curious-2/

If you have any questions,
Please advise, and I will
give you my answer, not the answer.

six more characteristics to stop practicing

Conditioned Hypereating has pointed
out six more characteristics for me
to stop practicing.

1 Lack of resistance to food cues
2 Extreme susceptibility to food cues
3 Lack of satiation from normal meals
4 Ease of appetition, appetite comes readly
5 Pre-occupation with food, eating, next meal
6 Lack of engrossing hobbies.

Each conditioned characteristic can be
unconditioned. I can avoid situations
that allow practicing these, and
can practice the opposite.

Or BB 449
and acceptance is the answer to
all my problems today.
(And the paragraph on both sides)

Loss of conscious control while eating

Lack of conscious control for eaters
could describe a number of issues.

Lack of resistance to foods and food cues.
Lack of satiation after meals.
Pre-occupation with food.

If you suffer from all three,
You may be a "conditioned hypereater",
in the words of David Kessler.

Conditioned, aka we learned it,
from home, parents, school, others,
culture, TV, and food commercials,
from our body liking food,
and wanting more. Where ever.
We learned it, so now unlearn it.
But the food pressure is always
in front of  me. In my face.
Cues everywhere.
How do I get away from the cues?

Go back to work?
Hid in OA meetings? or other
food free environments?
Perhaps find a real food free place,
like McDonalds or Tim Hortons to hang out.

Conditioned Hypereating

David Kessler came up with a term,
conditioned hypereating.
It implies hypereating is
a learned behavior,
learned in youth, and
continued at an unconscious level.

In my case, I became obese in grade 1.
I have much anxiety traveling,
catching planes, fear of being late,
and the like.
I expect that hypereating resulted from
stress refeed cycle after school,
And that resulted in the
glucose-insulin resistance,
fructose suppressed satiation,
food addiction to wheat based
opioid peptides.

The conditioned hypereating
lead to the other 3 issues.
If it can be trained in,
it can be trained out.
Now how is that done?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0rFEbGYnEE

Attitude

Attitude is the outward expression
of personal philosophy.

So our attitude toward things,
beyond our control or influence
must be one of acceptance
and gratitude that it is not worse
if we are to remain serene.

... and the wisdom to know the difference.
Epictetus tells us what we have control over,
our judgements, our opinions,
and some violations.

If we are applying emotional regulation,
we have more control over our desires
and aversions.

We have influence only
 over our bodies
and many of its wants or desires.

We can influence it by what we put into it.
If we do not consider something food,
after a bit it will not be food,
and we will have no desire to eat it
or so they say,
but the trigger may still be there,
so we need to do a replacement activity,
say a salad to deal with craving or hunger.

It is a plan but will it work?

Physical Craving

Here is a good paper reviewing the science of physical craving and food addiction.

http://foodaddictioninstitute.org/scientific-research/physical-craving-and-food-addiction-a-scientific-review/

There is much that could be added to this paper, but it is a good start.

What food program?

Grain Brain is about right.
I would move potatoes and
yams into the occasionally
eaten group, along with rice,
beans, and the heritage grains.

What should I read first?

The answer, today,
from me is
Epictetus's Manual.

It has so much in it
that deals with
emotional regulation
and our expectations,
judgements, commitments,
in such a dense format,
that I beleive it is essential.

Emotional Regulation

Emotional Regulation Ok.
A modern term, but Stoic methods work.

Emotions are automatic reactions to situations.
Stoic, we react, not to the situation,
but to what we think about the situation.

There is a space between the situation
and our reaction; insert filter.
Stoic- we feel the emotions,
but we react with reason.




Anger is something getting in the way
of our expectations.
Stoic, expect what happens.
Expect what typically happens,
in traffic, the aggressive assholes,
and the road slugs.

Stoic, natural human development
is from emotional to rational.
Encourage development of rational
approaches to emotional situations.

Stoic, some things are up to us,
and some are not. Our judgements,
our opinions, and some violations
are up to us. As we become more
rational, our desires, aversions, delusions,
and the like become up to us.
Our body, and everything outside
us is not up to us.
We can influence some things
by our actions, and more
can be influenced by others,
but there is much
that we have no influence on.
The weather, earth and it's events,
the physical world.

Boredom is lack of interest
in the world around us.

Hypofrontality

Ultimately, we overeat because
we receive some benefit
from overeating, and we like
that effect we receive.
It is the warm fuzzy feeling that I like,
an alternative state of mind.

Hypofrontality is loosely defined

as a decline frontal lobe functioning 

and metabolism. It's 

one of the major brain changes

 caused by an addiction process.

Weakened self-control systems (hypofrontality), 

are overwhelmed by the cravings 

emanating from sensitized addiction pathways 

and a desensitized reward circuit

Characterised by:

low (no) social skills

low (no) impulse control

poor regulation of emotions

Learning emotional regulation

is part of the recommended treatment.  

Cost benefit analysis:

Benefit of the active addiction: 

-the warm fuzz feeling 

obtained by partaking.(short term)

-removal of the craving.(short term)

Cost: overweight, obesity.

Benefit of not using:

health, long term

The cost: 

the craving, (short term) if it goes away:

to date, the craving is occurring,
and not going away.

  

Community

Step one suggests that our
personnel issues go far beyond
just the food
to other areas of our life.

Unmanageable may be a suitable term
for the alcoholic,
but what about the food overeater,
regardless of the actual cause
and manner of overuse.

Habitual bad diets (ignorance based overeating),
food addicts (substance based addiction),
compulsive overeaters (behavioral addictions),
undiagnosed allergy (physiological driven overeating)
emotional eaters (psychological overeating),
ritual eaters (philosophical overeaters),
etc. and all the other forms have separate causes.

Is it logical
to try to apply
just one treatment
that never identifies the problem,
and just applies a brutal one-size-fits all solution?

Is this something that the
"OA community" would like to address?
or are we going to keep our heads in the sand,
and bleed members?

Priorities

What are our priorities of desires?

Similar to Maslow needs,
we can create a priorities of desires.
Where does our desire to recover fall,
relative our desire to overeat?

Now what is real food?
and where is our desire to work?
and if we have no desire to work?
do we (I) have desire for what?
so where has my desire gone?

It seems to me, the more desires,
good desires only need apply,
being greater priority than overeating,
the better of we be.

So displacement of overeating
can occur.
Keep up the struggle.
Death will find us soom enough,
but it will take longer if we are busy.

So today, I will try to build good desires.

Today

Logos.
Polyphagia.

Today is the first day or the remainder of my life.
Death is looming on the horizon.

To that end, I, along with Epictetus,
will point out the blackest of vices,
lack of persistence, and lack of self-control.
But note that lack of self-control,
in stoic terms, is not quite the same
as modern - lack of self control.

Man's higher stoic nature is reason,
and as such, reason must control emotion.
That is not saying we do not feel emotion,
but rather, we do not assent to action,
as a result to feeling emotion.
Ah. What?

We have the choice to act or not.
We can chose to not act.
We can chose to eat or not.

Our personality is known to ourselves
and to other by our actions, not our thoughts.

Step 1 Revisited

Here is a previous posts about and related to step 1.
http://oathursdaynightgroup.blogspot.ca/2011/10/step-1.html
http://oathursdaynightgroup.blogspot.ca/2012/09/to-what-lengths.html
http://oathursdaynightgroup.blogspot.ca/2012/02/step-0.html

When I came to the program,
I was desperate. I could not stay
on any diet any longer, but having
cycled through about 75- to 100 pounds
7 or 8 time in my life, I knew any
diet would take the weight off.
I had my problem down to not
being able to stick to a diet.

I had no idea that I was addicted
to wheat, carbohydrates, sugar,
omega 6 oils, and the like.

Admitting I was powerless over food
was not the issue, but that my life
was unmanageable was less apparent.
It did not take much thinking to see that,
I was on compensation at the time and
could hardly walk for back pain.
I had time to read, in fact, I did little else.

Diving into service and studying the program,
AA bb, AA 12x12, AA comes of age,
and the OA stories, and first 7 pages of text
were all of our literature then.
Kay Sheppard book had just come out.
http://kaysheppard.com/
Within about 6 weeks I became abstinent
and in the next 2 years lost nearly 100 pounds.
But life was unmanageable all the time,
obviously, as soon as I started looking.

I went into the program with my
"ideology of origin" and a
concept of god being a set rules,
that if I could follow them,
then I could recover.

Start .. where you are

Change in our thinking, is what this program
is all about. This is ultimately what happened
and what must happen, but the program
never says that up front. The term "spiritual"
is used, but it is our thinking, our beliefs, our values,
that we need to look.  The word
"spiritual" is the handle for the concept that was
in vogue when Bill wrote AA. Now we might
use psychology, philosophy, thinking, mind,
or any other handle. These are the non-physical
parts of us, some of which we have control over.

When we are done, we will know a
great deal more about ourselves.
We will know that we contain wrong ideas,
concepts, and let go of many of these.
We will adopt many new concepts,
more correct those we let go of.
We will understand our characteristics,
as well as the stages of recovery,
and the processes that move us
from one stage to the next.
Life will change in unimaginable ways.

At any time you can stop changing and
even go back to your old ways. This is or
will become totally within your control.
All we need do is let go of those thing
we have no control over anyway.

Food is one of those thing we have little control over.
We like to think that we can control what we put into
our bodies. If we were totally rational we could
control ourselves, but we are not totally rational,
we are largely emotionally driven. We need to learn
to manage our emotional drives so that we can
obtain what our rational mind tells us we need.

Some things are up to us and some things are not.
The question we need to answer is what is
within our power and what is not. This changes
nothing but our understanding.

Impatience is fine, but mainly irreverent to recovery.
Impatience is far better than procrastination. These are
related to our eager want, our time related desires.

Perseverance is the characteristic you will really need.

Caution: These are my word to describe how
I understand what happened to me, not the program.
The program is the steps, tradition, and the like.

Further reading suggested: everything on step one
Further writing: a food diary.
Write down everything you eat, before you eat it.
Also list down the attitudes,
characteristics and virtues that are named in step one.

Remote Sponsor

I have been asked to serve as a remote sponsor.
Here is the warning that I sent as a response.
I beleive that it is only fair to warn anyone what I have done,
as part of my program of recovery.

I must warn you that I do (and have done)

other things as part of my recovery,
and may stray beyond the program.

In addition, I am a non-thesis, so that I twist the program to fit,
but still use the same processes as the basic of my 

program of recovery,
plus a few more.

There has been fifty years of research since the 

program was developed,
and many things have been learned, or proved, and more suspected.
Some of these things are useful, and some
contradict typically held knowledge, beliefs, and values.

For me, recovery has been a learning process,
sorting what works, from that which does not work
what is real from what is not or less real,
what I believe from public myths and fiction.

It is said that this program has three parts, 

physical, emotional, and spiritual.
I look at is as more, including knowledge about food, 

physiology, philosophy, psychology, behavior, feeling, 

thinking, and much more.

With this program as my core thinking system,
I have been able to let go of in excess of 50 kg,
and maintain that loss for a number of years.
Along the way I have changed considerably in behaviors,
feelings, and thinking. (emotionally, spiritually, physically)

I have learned a bit about food addiction, behavioral addiction,
and learned behaviors, food knowledge, all of which contributed
to my recovery.

Welcome to the adventure.

I am aware that this is all a bit intense,
but for the first 20 years around the program,
all I did was the program, and that was really tough.
This is easier, but how ever you would like it,
all I can do is tell you what I tried, what worked, and what did not. 

The Question

Today is International Recovery Day.
http://aaagnostica.org/2013/09/08/faces-voices-of-recovery/

What does your recovery look like?

What does recovery look like?

Belief System Clean Up

I have had expended family up the ying yang for ten days, and on and off all summer. Enough already. Back to reality.

Along the way, I need to clean out my belief system. The range of possible choices is limited by our belief system, which is to some extent, is set by our ideology of origin, and is then modified by our lives. For example, if our belief system says: it is wrong to eat between meals; the idea of eating between meals is placed off limits, aka just not acceptable, and we are not likely to eat. Same with "not considering acellular carbohydrates as food"; there is less temptation to eat them, until some "grannie food pusher, aka temptress" comes along.

Eve and original sin is a concept, but the original evil is producing and pushing acellular carbohydrate as food. Anyone in a idology gives up free will, so why not use that to our advantage. It is just wrong to eat acellular carbohydrate, it is evil to offer it, to push its use, and the like. The whole concept of sin, aka, not adhering to arbitrary rule, in itself suspect. If the rule has a known purpose, perhaps it is ok. But then abstinence is a arbitrary rule to reduce or eliminate craving for some foods, and when I slip, the cravings come back severely, so there is a arbitrary rule with a purpose.

Emotional growth is the process of letting go of negative emotions and cling more strongly to positive emotions, that is positive for my life, not necessarily positive for other's lives. You may not like what I say but Oh well. One of the process of change is venting or dramatic relief. But change is made difficult by the continual temptations of food pushers. Until we, as a society, or as a subset of society, over come this, the obesity problem will continue.  

Obsession, a natural characteristic

Obsession, is a natural characteristic.
Now, do I want to keep practicing this
or let the whole characteristic
fall to the ground, to cast it off,
like an old coat?

There is a space between
stimulus and response.
I can add to the Epictetus filter
that I have slipped into that space,
but then, nothing get through.

Without obsession,
will anything get done?
My life has been driven
by a series of obsessions.
There never has been a reason
to do any of the thing I have done
beyond the need, desire,
obsession for money,
and the things money provides.

I never wanted,
beyond the potential for money,
to do engineering,
to dig holes,
to solve problem others created,
to provide solutions
before others knew they had a problem.

Lack of desire, or what?
Is obsession just a fixation on a issue,
without a reason.
Or with a reason?
A solution must be found.
Just supply the problem.
This sounds like obsession.

Perhaps the Epictetus filter
need a few holes in it.
To allow engineering like problems in.

But for today, with family,
I am just a mushroom:
kept in the dark,
fed shit.
It is none of my concern.

Warning: Direction Change

This blog is going
off course for a while,
to drift where the mind blows it.
While I consider
the possibility that
this problem that I have
has nothing to do with compulsive overeating
and has everything to do obsession,
only obsession.

Obsession is a natural characteristic
of some portion of the human population.
Now what if that natural characteristic
gets itself pointed at food and/or eating?
How would we treat this?
It may be easier to treat
and measure the success
 of the treatment
than determine if
one has an obsession.

So here what the treatment would look like.
Every time I get the urge to eat
more than my prescribed amount of food
or outside of meal time,
feeding time at the zoo,
I will leave and do something else,
walk, read about or study this problem,
or something else.

Now what about the
black box(s) concept of the mind?
We receive a stimulus,
that thought, impulse or image
passes through a conversion matrix
in the mind and a reaction direction comes out.
That output may also be zero, the null solution.
The conversion matrix is under my control,
some thing are up to us and some are not.
Now I need to watch
for a while
and see what happens.

Obesity, the Cause of Isolation

Step eight of today
drove home the realization
that I differ from the common order
of the development of this overeating issue.

My order is obesity as an infant, small child,
before I had reason, control.
The harassment followed,
and then self imposed isolation
as self defence of from harassment.
Self protection is a basic human characteristic.

This suggest a chemical/physiological problem,
chemical food addiction to milk, dairy products,
grain and sugar came first.
Separate and treat the chemical addiction with
total abstinence from those chemicals.

The behavioral addiction of overeating
is a separate issue.
This can be handled through choice,
the power of choice, of stewardship,
separation of me from my meal.
The steward in me prepares the meal,
and puts the food away, and serves the meal.
The other me show up and eats
and runs.

Intentional living limits my time at the dining table.
On to other things. Life.
Intentional action to displace the 
habitual unwanted behavior.

We have the natural faculty of choice
and reason among the available
alternatives. Walking away is a alternative.
So is the zero choice, do nothing; or write.
No people needed. But in a crowd,
isolation is easy.
Noise causes isolation, naturally.
  

Emotional to Rational

The human population is seldom either emotional or rational, but rather a mix of the two extremes. If we could truly measure this characteristic, what would we find?

I expect we would find something that looks like a normal distribution folded in half. A few high emotional, and a few high rational, and most of us in the middle.

What difference does this make? Well, if we were rationally driven, we could follow a diet without issue. But we cannot, therefore we are emotionally driven, when we fail. Add physiological in with the emotional, and we are in good shape. The model behaves as people.

Now the problem is that it is rational to set up a diet, and then say those that are unable to follow it have a philosophical, psychological, or physiological problem, but never accepting the issue that 50% of the people are not predominantly rational. So the diet industry is based on a non-understanding of people, so the failure rate will be high. Yes, exactly as we see.

Now how does one get hold of directing the emotional part of oneself? Adopt a god is one method. Adopt a philosophy, and convince the emotional part that it should be followed. Not so easy.
But we can also lever off our beliefs, bend behavior. Some things are just not food works. But that alone may not be enough. Perhaps we need a purpose bigger than ourselves, that we become obsessed with, regardless of what that purpose is. Perhaps it is understanding this disease, and understanding a solution, and describing that solution without resorting to a god for a solution.

Each time we go through this model, more is added, or refined. sooner or later it will all become clear. As we age, we may become more rational as well; hence, age out of the problem.

I think that we are reluctant to admit that we are emotionally based and are unable to consistently and committedly able to follow a rational plan of eating, aka a diet. We cannot be rational and still hang on to religion, so as long as we have religion, emotional govern people. This is beyond the issues of setting up and measuring food energy in a useful way.

Starting with the Bottom Line

Intentional living is any lifestyle based on an individual or group's conscious attempts to live according to their values and beliefs. These can include lifestyles based on religious or ethical values, as well as coaching, personal transformation, and leadership training. These are often expressed by living in a community with other like-minded people, claiming higher satisfaction, and more sustainable future.

Ok, so we have living by some principal. Frugal, green, self-sufficient - more or less, subsistence farming, why not Stoic, or Epicurean principles; but living with an underlying purpose. It is that purpose that provides the motivation. So how is this different from an action plan ? Or from Smart - life balance? Or really, goal setting? It is placing some emotional value on some future desired result, and then using that to lever motivation. We need to know where we want to end up at, the bottom line.

I was at a OA meeting last night and the subject was step 7. It once again struck me the negative aspects of the term "character defects". These are characteristics that I must stop practicing. I do not know whether the outcome will be negative or positive. Being overly chatty and other verbal diarrhea can be corrected by silence and walking away with a smile on my face. Practicing saying less, cutting to the bottom line, starting with the bottom line, may be a better way to live.

Negative visualization for today: Some of the drivers today will be aggressive assholes, just as the wind blows crap around. It is nothing to do with me. Just smile and let it all go.      

Do I have free will?

Considering the animal brain, emotionally driven person has free volition; there is no doubt that we have control over our judgements, opinions, beliefs, values, and the like. We have general control over our movements, up to the physical limits, although it may not be precise.

The difference between free volition and free will lies in whether we have control over our desires, delusions, and aversions. Totally rational people (Spoc like) have control over their desires, while the remainder of us have less control, but some management ability of our desires. Those of us who do not have control but only some influence over our desires are hurled along by our desires, not down a planned course but from one desire to the next. It is in satisfying those desires rather than ignoring them that this eating problem seems to arise in me and others.

Could this be one more key in understanding my problem? or just take me one step closer. Perserverence. I need to see if this worm hole goes somewhere. So next, how does one dissipate a desire once it has formed?

Now the kicker. Free will may be a learned characteristic. Can we learn to say no to all the shit on offer? All the food, drugs, bad habits, all forms of addiction, bad behavior, and learn to live a frugal and prudent life? The frugal part will be the most difficult within the cities, if we have an average income or better.

Spiritual or Philosophical Development

One thing that is absent in the steps but many of us have found necessary for continued development is a ongoing commitment and effort to develop spiritually or philosophically. Step 11 suggests that we need to work on improving contact, but nowhere is there any suggestion that ongoing development is necessary, until we read the book, or AA comes of age, and then we see that the whole program is about spiritual development. The steps are just the starting point.

For those of us who do not profess to follow a god, we must learn something of what a god would have us do and do it, because it is simply right to do right. We may subscribe to doing what it is natural for us humans to do, or what we may define as our purpose inside the greater purpose of humanity.

It may be the purpose of humanity to grow and prosper, to create and support creation, but we are also rational beings. We should accept that there is a limit to growth given finite resources, and we may be beyond sustainable, without shortages. There is likely poor, good and better ways of doing things, of relationships, of speaking, of acting, and of making a living. There are as likely wrong, better and best known ways to thinking, of knowledge, of intents, and attitudes. And to go along with this, effort, concentration and attention or mindfulness.

Some thing are up to us and some are not. Our judgements, opinions, volitions, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, values and the like are up to us. If we are a highly rational person, our desires, expectations, delusions, aversions and like are up to us. That which is not up to us is beyond our control and is therefore none of our concern. Our bodies are beyond our control, but we do have influence over what we put into them, but not over physiological cravings. We can use our volitions to leave the scene of eating when necessary, and hide out elsewhere, as a last resort to eating, while learning other methods of handling the problems.