Change 1

As I go through life, relationships have always been difficult. Now I know the cause. Relationships are all about learning to tolerate and fain interest in noise. It is about tolerating high noise to signal ratios, 100% noise, most of the time. In relationships, signal is "that which I am interested in", and noise is all else.

Having delved into Buddhism and Stoicism, my interest do not include sports, political beyond those that effect me, and the like. Life becomes limited to that which I consider important.

I am not tribal, unlike jews, black, natives, and the like. That characteristic is the major cause of so much difficulty. I believe in working... in some form... and little else. Everything must have practical value, else it is up to someone else. My priorities are physological survival, saftey, knowledge-utility- esteem, self-actualization, love belonging. Note the difference with Maslow... I am low social need person.  

Now when it comes to change, and levering off my values, social pressure is not as effective as for some. Survival is the best to lever off. But in the change cycle-cognition, preparation, action portion, we can only change the things we have control over, and then only if we want them to change. We cannot, long term, overcome cravings, hunger, insulin resistance hunger-cravings, or the like. Note that I have cravings in there twice. I can separate two types of undifferentiated cravings, and each seems to have separate type of treatment. One is the result of too much, an addiction type craving, and the other is too little, a deficiency type craving. Both are ugly, but the deficiency craving is most difficult, I do not know what I am deficient in... inositol... leptin... some mineral, vitamin... We can only change that which is up to us.

With respect to food, we can change the quality, quantity, and frequency of consumption, of the available choices. That is all, and then we must make a decision what to change, and how, without triggering a craving. There in lies the difficulty. What fun.  

Changes

Much has been talked about as change.

Change can be looked at as a bouncing ball in the spiral of precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Relapse is a downward bounce. Try things, if it helps, keep it. If it does not help, abandon it. The first step is to realize that we need help, not just with overeating but also with life, and become willing to learn from others. There are many that offer to teach what they think will help. All I can say is out there, there maybe concepts that can help, but we need to test them on ourselves.

I have concluded that there are many causes for this overeating problem, and going through the list, one at a time, may help. The other issue is that there may be order in the solutions, one may not help until the prerequisites are in place.

I think we need to start with understanding that we need to learn and adopt new behaviors, which are founded on new thoughts- concepts- ideas, and what these new concepts are is anybody's guess. Persistence will be another key factor. There will be topic areas that come up and need to be explored. Our values, beliefs, spirituality, philosophy, objectives, goal, desires, aversions,  dreams and delusions of how life should be examined and cleaned down to reality.

The easiest way for me is to consider the concepts of others, one at a time, and see if it fits my life or not.

My big changes have been the realization that god is a concept, an idea. Prayer may be useful as self-talk, but nothing is going to happen. Concepts cannot do anything, but someone may... that is luck... fortune, not the result of prayer. Morning plans and evening summaries may be useful for change. It is life change that must occur for change to occur. The only constant in this is change, learning, sorting, and we have many choices... too many, that is the problem.

It is up to us. We have the power of choice much of the time. Choice...decision... followed by action. All this sounds like 1,2,3.

But what do I know.

Low impulse control and overeating

One of the items that appears to drive overeating or contribute to it. Consider the situation at a smorgasbord. Wonderful table of food at which you have paid admission to, nothing holding you back. Now if you (I) have low impulse control, what is going to happen? Are you (I) going to get my money worth? You bet. So what is the solution. One is to avoid smorgasbords. But that is just avoiding the problem. 

What ultimately the problem? is it low impulse control or too much desire? Too much desire is one that need a look at first. Do I have willpower in abundance, when I get fixated on something? you bet. now what? Until recently, as a society, we learned to deal with desires by abandoning them because they were unreasonable. But not in modern times, as a society, we are full throttle at satisfying our desires, not letting the desire slide off and be lost. That is a potential a problem, excessive desire. 

Now through history, desires have been a problem. The old Stoics, Buddhist, and lots of others have warned against desires getting out of control. Is the desire for food the primary problem? How does one let go of desires? One way is to name them as unreasonable, and counter them with another an action, walk away from the food. 

Other concepts of limited menu may also be useful. This needs more thought.     

What is driving

What is driving me? Today, I have a feeling that it is temptation/ low impulse control and high natural appetite. The only short term psychological benefit that I receive from food is removing the craving for food. So what does all that mean? The long term cost is weight gain. or is it? But over the last week, my weight is stable, but it will change 1 kg in a day, my morning weight down 1.5 kg from the night before. Water loss, mainly, I guess. So is the craving a natural hunger form, or just a craving? It does not feel like the gut hunger, 6 to 8 hours after the last meal. So what is it, a craving or energy shortage signal?

Recovery outline

Smart uses a four step process; motivation, dealing with cravings and urges, problem solving (emotional, behavioral, feelings, thoughts, money, relationships, health), and life balance. Peele adds more on motivation, that is exploring our values in depth, and levering additional motivation off those values. 

Now we can list what our issues are; and in my case these are addictive behaviors or could be described by any of the following handle, each handle points to a specific problem:

1. compulsive overeating
2. behavioral addiction
3. anxiety/stress overeating / depression overeating / poor problem solving
4. emotional / comfort overeating
5. temptation overeating / low impulse control
6. isolation comforting overeating / social anxiety / personality issues
7. social overeating / peer or family pressure / family feasting   
8. environmental overeating / living at a smorgasbord situation
9. chemical driven food addiction 
10. Natural appetite level
11. Vitamin or \Mineral deficiency, or low inositol, glycogen, ....
12. Low/high dopamine, serotonin, endorphins level, receptor issues .... 
13. Love of food/eating (desire) is greater than our desire to not eat and be normal size... precontemplation stage, or relapse to precontemplation stage... 

 So get out the shotgun approach ... eh... now what if it does something but not enough... And then there is an over driven natural appetite level to explore.

But what do I know?   

Endorphin Addiction

If it is endorphin addiction that so many of us struggle with, it is a low endorphin level that causes us cravings. Exercise raises endorphins, so exercise should help. Sugar pushes endorphins from the gut to blood, and hence to the brain. Protein provides the peptides and fats that endorphins are produced out of. Stress and cognitive discord burns through endorphins. So then the problem becomes to few endorphins, not to many. Eating supplies the needed endorphins, and the gut produces them, but is it through working the digestive tract, as exercise? if so, raw foods would be better.

Perhaps I should do exercise rather than eat, when I get cravings, but eat when I get hunger, but can I reliably tell the difference? 

So is recovery all about providing the stewardship of diet to regulate our endorphin levels, and weight is irrelevant? 

What do I know? 

what is your monkey?

http://gardengirlkp.blogspot.ca/2013/07/happy-canada-day-2013-eh.html 

Emily's was painting.

Thomas Horvath suggest one method of addiction recovery is to find a "perfect addiction" and switch. He outlines the requirements. What fits?

Working. Some hobby. Some skill. Philosophy. Recovery.