Individual Rules - POSTED ON: Jan 07, 2013
We each have to individually determine Rules that get us to limit the food we eat in situations.
This can be achieved by adopting Rules from another Diet, a Non-diet, a Way-of-Eating, a Lifestyle; or by combining them; or by creating new and specific Rules just for ourselves.
We need to finally ACCEPT that we are going to have to change our lives and consistently eat less if we want to be smaller and feel better.
We are going to have to face down desires to eat sometimes when we're not supposed to … based on our individual Rules.
We're going to have to determine what foods work for us individually and just how much dense food we can live with or live without.
Doing this involves an absolute commitment to learning how much we really need to sustain ourselves, individually, - for our health and for our true pleasure.
Thoughtful Reduction - POSTED ON: Dec 29, 2012
Counting down 2012.
There isn’t One-Diet-For-Everyone, and there are lots of good eating plans available to us all. Each of us can find way-to-eat-less that we can make fit our lifestyle. Here’s a diet recommendation from one obesity doctor.
A Life of Thoughtful Reduction
Why not live a life of thoughtful reduction? No blind restrictions, but also no blind consumptions. Ask yourself whether or not something's worth its calories and how much you need of it to be happily satisfied.
Yoni Freedhoff, MD
Attitude About the Problem - POSTED ON: Dec 28, 2012
As part of my dieting hobby, I visit many different websites here on the internet, and sometimes I post comments on different forums and other blogs. Today, I've decided to post a copy of some dialogue from one of these forums, consisting of another member's unusual comments, and my responses to them. This member and I have been corresponding for more than 4 years, and we have developed a rather close relationship. She is an educated person who is quite religious. Although her desire and efforts for weight-loss have been ongoing, she has been consistently unwilling to work toward exercising conscious control over the amounts of food that she eats, and has been unsuccessful with her dieting attempts throughout that time period.
Quote from a forum member::
"Portion Control is Evil" My Response: I challenge this offensive, incorrect, and illogical statement. Just because we dislike something doesn't mean we get to redefine it. Portion Control is simply using the brain that God has given you, to work toward eating the correct amount of food for the body he has given you. Portion Control simply means = eating less food. How Much Less? That depends on WHAT you are choosing to eat. The goal is to take in the same amount of energy as your body, at it's healthiest, uses. If we are talking in terms of Good vs. Evil, Portion Control must be Good, BECAUSE it is the opposite of the "evil" behavior: "Gluttony", which Christianity (and many other Religions) define as sinful, bad, "evil". If Gluttony equals bad; then Portion Control equals good. Therefore, Portion Control is Godly Behavior. Avoiding obesity requires limiting your food intake... no matter what method you use to do this will always involve some form of portion control. The concept of "free will" means that we can choose NOT to use our brain to help us eat less food, However, an attempt to redefine "good" as "evil" is Foolishness. Quote from a forum member: Gluttony used to mean eating before the time to eat, according to a book on medieval eating that I bought. Webster's online dictionary now says "an excess in eating or drinking." Why, then, would there be a Shrove Tuesday or a Twelve Days of Christmas when people were expected to and encouraged to eat more than they required? I think our society may have changed the meaning of the word, with disasterous results. ...
"Portion Control is Evil"
My Response:
I challenge this offensive, incorrect, and illogical statement. Just because we dislike something doesn't mean we get to redefine it. Portion Control is simply using the brain that God has given you, to work toward eating the correct amount of food for the body he has given you. Portion Control simply means = eating less food. How Much Less? That depends on WHAT you are choosing to eat. The goal is to take in the same amount of energy as your body, at it's healthiest, uses. If we are talking in terms of Good vs. Evil, Portion Control must be Good, BECAUSE it is the opposite of the "evil" behavior: "Gluttony", which Christianity (and many other Religions) define as sinful, bad, "evil". If Gluttony equals bad; then Portion Control equals good. Therefore, Portion Control is Godly Behavior. Avoiding obesity requires limiting your food intake... no matter what method you use to do this will always involve some form of portion control. The concept of "free will" means that we can choose NOT to use our brain to help us eat less food, However, an attempt to redefine "good" as "evil" is Foolishness.
Quote from a forum member:
Gluttony used to mean eating before the time to eat, according to a book on medieval eating that I bought. Webster's online dictionary now says "an excess in eating or drinking." Why, then, would there be a Shrove Tuesday or a Twelve Days of Christmas when people were expected to and encouraged to eat more than they required? I think our society may have changed the meaning of the word, with disasterous results. ...
Thoughts About Hunger - POSTED ON: Dec 26, 2012
What is hunger? We grow up thinking that hunger is our body’s way of telling us that we need food, but that isn’t usually the case for most of us. Very few of us are so fit, or have so little body fat, or are so active that our bodies start calling for energy if we miss lunch. We feel hunger when we haven’t eaten for a while. We may feel hunger if the food looks good; or if we are in a social situation in which eating is going on; or because we think it’s time to eat. We tend to identify a feeling that comes along with eating behavior as the cause of the behavior. But “hungry” only means we are in a situation in which we are used to eating. It doesn’t mean that feeling hungry will make us eat, or, more important, that we have to eat. Hunger is a sign that we are used to eating in a particular time or situation. We are not required to answer the signal. Some of us are familiar with the statement: “We eat too much because we are fat.” Currently, there’s a strong tendency to think of hunger in terms of hormones, emphasizing the body regulates hunger like it regulates body temperature. While there is truth in this concept, thinking like this can lead to confusion because … ultimately, Behavior trumps hormones. The hormonal causation analogy isn’t really all that helpful, because we humans don’t regulate our temperature merely by hormonally means. Our major control of the body’s temperature is behavioral. We put on clothes, and we hide in caves. It has become popular to focus on an error in the statement: “a calorie is a calorie.” A critique of the energy balance model is: dietary carbohydrate = insulin = +other hormones = increased appetite = greater consumption. This explanation is limited because it mixes up metabolism with behavior, and implicitly accepts the idea that the effect of macronutrients on one’s body affects how much we choose to eat. Specific macronutrients clearly have different effects on satiety. However, no matter what our hormonal state, if there is NO food, we will not increase consumption. Although we have no choice in our genetics, and the way our metabolism functions is not within our control, our eating Behaviors are ultimately still a matter of personal choice. It is helpful to figure out what kind of hunger we’re talking about. Behavioral psychology stresses the difference between “tastes good” and “hunger” which really only means that eating good-tasting food increases the probability that we will eat more of it than the body needs.
No matter what our calorie eating allowance is when we are working toward weight-loss, it seems like bad advice to eat if we aren’t hungry. We frequently hear nutritionists say that “everyone needs to have a good breakfast”. Why we would specifically want to have a “good” anything if we are trying to lose weight is not easy to answer. Nutritionists say that this is true because this will cause us to eat too much at the next meal ….
Calories - Paleo, Low-Carb - POSTED ON: Dec 20, 2012
I recently posted an article: Do Calories matter ... discussing this issue with regard to Low-Carb eating. Here is a Paleo expert's recently stated viewpoint on whether or not Calories matter.
Low Carb and Paleo: My Thoughts Part 1 By Rob Wolf Slowly I realized, both by experimentation and by really looking at the literature: CALORIES MATTERED MORE THAN CARBS FOR BODY-COMP. I have to say this was a pretty big shake-up for me. I’d assumed one could eat as much fat as one desired and STILL get leaner. As I mentioned above, when I first started eating Low Carb, or more specifically, cyclic low carb (CLC) I was leaner than ever in my life. I know based on blood work and fat deposition that I had insulin resistance while vegan, and CLC helped with this immensely, but it was my new-found energy and activity level that drove my leanness, not an inability to store fat in the absence of significant insulin. I think this is one of the most damaging messages that comes out of the Low Carb camp to this day, I was duped by this, so I’m not going to do what a lot of other recovered Low Carb writers do and make folks out to be idiots for still believing this…but, it is time to face facts. In every damn study it is clear that for fat loss we’d like adequate protein, and a calorie restriction scenario. Low Carb is fantastic for this in that one typically feels satisfied on high protein, moderate fat, loads of veggies. If one is insulin resistant, this approach can be nothing short of miraculous. HOWEVER! If one manages to cram enough cheese, olive oil and grass-fed butter down the pie-hole, this is in fact, a “mass gain” diet. Low Carb is fantastic for the insulin resistant individual, as it addresses both glycemic load and satiety. But if one manages to bypass normal satiety mechanisms, or if one can find some combinations of highly palatable, but low-carb foods, it’s still a ticket to Fat Camp. The insistence on the part of the Low Carb community in adhering to the “no insulin, no fat gain” dogma ends up discrediting the real therapeutic benefit of Low Carb and hurts us all. The insulin resistant, crack-addicted individual really benefits from Low Carb, I cannot say that sufficiently, and the ease with which people lose weight (fat) on these programs is remarkable, but insulin control takes a backseat to calorie reduction via highly satiating foods. This whole situation further damages the ability to push ketosis as a therapeutic treatment for everything from cancer to neurodegenerative disease. It’s a tool folks, not an end-all-be-all.”
ROBB WOLF is a former research biochemist and is regarded as one of the world's leading experts in Paleolithic nutrition. He authored the best-selling book: The Paleo Solution (2010). Other books by him are: Practical Paleo (2012); Paleo Slow Cooking (2012); Paleo Comfort Foods (2011);...
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