Journal of Magic & Happiness

[roundcoconut]

So, OK, one of the weird reasons promting me to want to do so much comfort eating, is that I’ve had this AWKWARD freaking situation with a former co-worker.

First, he was my favorite co-worker, and I worked with him five days a week, and thought he was a blast.

Then, he left his wife, and started to seem a little more clingy toward me.

I left our mutual workplace (kind of coincidentally, I wasn’t fleeing the awkward situation with this man), and he would text me that we should meet up for coffee. This was fun, but he was always telling me how pretty I look. And how nice it was to be seen with someone so young and pretty. Well, that’s a huge red flag, right?

Eventually, I stopped responding to his texts, but he kept sending me more texts, assuming that I was busy with my new job, or stressed about my new job. I made it very clear (or so I thought!) that this was WAY too much, and I desperately needed my space. (I said those exact workds — “This is WAY too much. I desperately need my space.”

And this guy — who apparently doesn’t read social cues very well — was like, “OK, I’ll wait!” (he literally said, “take your time, take as long as you need, ill be here” and i had to clarify that i needed him to back OFF)

And there would be times when we’d be in the grocery store at the same time, and then he’d send more odd texts, saying, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you were grocery shopping. I’m not following you. I am giving you your space.”

So WOW that gets really awkward.

Finally yesterday, I had to verbally say to him that I would prefer to abandon contact altogether. Geesh. Too many freaking red flags!

It just felt kind of uncomfortable to have to say some of these things verbally, when I am frankly used to being able to rely on euphemism and expect people to go away when I decline three or four of their invitations to get together.

Most people are able to see, “She’s no longer interested in being friends”, but when I gotta get blunt, I DO get blunt. Anyways, I have had many, many quantity indiscretions over the last two weeks, and I think some of my urges to soothe with food, were following on the heels of my “scolding” this former co-worker. Good heavens!

All sympathy welcome! Ha. No one should have to get blunt — we should have these rules posted somewhere, shouldn’t we?

[JeffN]

Thanks for responding to my question

I think I kinda understood something about why the attention given to the Exercise Paradox kinda pisses me off!

It came to me as I was listening to somebody on public radio talk about the terms “false facts” and “fully manufactured facts”. The thing that the person on the radio said, was that when a person is asked to testify truthfully in court, they are asked to tell “the truth — the WHOLE truth”, and nothing but the truth.

He said that it’s more than possible to zoom in on some aspect of something to make it look bad or ineffective, when in reality, it is strongly positive and very health promoting. But you can certainly zoom in awkwardly, and give people the impression that they shouldn’t bother a heck of a lot with any type of movement. Just lie back and relax! Exercising has been debunked!

While sadly, many may think this, but then again, many have had thoughts like this for some time. There are some basic general concepts and generically rules of thumb, that always get misrepresented and blown out of proportion (BMI, calories, energy balance, etc) by people and the media. I cover some of this in my thread on Is A Calorie Still A Calorie.

Yes, some of it is irresponsible and misleading but from my experience, most actually comes from well meaning, good intentioned people just trying to do good but not fully understanding the concepts. Their desire to help outpaces their understanding of their understanding and knowledge. We see the exact same thing in the WFPB world today. While some are driven by wanting to monetize the information, and I see that more and more, many are just trying to carry a message they think is correct to help people.

However, while some aspect of the Exercise Paradox has been known for decades, easily going back to debates between Nathan Pritikin and Jim Fixx, the concept of the Exercise Paradox as we know it today, is because of actually good long term research on indigenous populations who are not trying to out run a bad diet. They are just trying to survive.

There are several threads in my forum where I take very specific studies that are/were being used by the WFBP movement/experts to make a point and show how the studies do not actually make that point, are poorly done and never should have been published, including from a WFPB organization whose main goal is to actually separate the wheat from the chaff. This is why I wrote the thread on The Importance of Evidence. We have to place truth over allegiance.

So there y’go. The big picture, and telling the whole truth, in the context of the overall body of research. A person, or a story, or a media outlet, or a study — that seeks to present something as useless and ineffective — when the larger body of evidence shows the reverse — is giving a false picture, in order to surprise, or to get published, or to get on NPR. But we have to see that for what it is — untruthful.

Agreed.

However, for a person (in the media or not) being able to do that is not an easy job. It takes time, requires skills, education, etc which not everyone has or wants to pursue. Most just want a youtube channel, a podcast, and webinars to share the info they have which can also allow them to generate income. We have made it easier then ever for the non-expert (and/or expert at misinformation) to have an easy go at it today, have a platform and get attention and as a result, we have the current situation. In regard to the media, it's become a circus on steroids.

In Health
Jeff

[roundcoconut]

There is a woman who was kind of a superstar in the world of frugality or living simply, named Amy Dacyczyn. She had a newsletter WAY before my time, called the Tightwad Gazette, and then all her newsletters were later compiled into books, which I then bought, when I was in my 20s. I have read her books many times over, and that is how I learned to be smart with money.

Anyways, she used to say that she would get interviewed by various newspapers and local news stations (she had nicknamed herself “The Frugal Zealot” and the news outlets loved this), and they always kinda wanted a picture of her doing something extreme, like making crafts out of dryer lint. And she would mostly oblige, by finding something frugal that people found interesting — like, she would go on Late Night with David Letterman, and she would bring some homemade confetti eggs, that she had made with just chopped up bits of newspapers or something. And the audience loved her.

But in her newsletters, she would write that half of her success in saving money and living cheaply to ultimately retire early, was about how her car just easily and automatically drives past the McDonalds — day after day, and year after year. She would kind of laugh when talking to reporters, “Why don’t you film me driving past the McDonalds?”

But the reporters never wanted to cover the normal stuff! They never wanted to show her kids drinking a glass of water, or film the spot in the cupboard where the Nestle Quick would have been, if she had ever purchased a container of this. They always wanted to show it as nutty, and crazy — “look at this batty lady who doesn’t even buy commercial wrapping paper for gift-giving!”

She also commonly laughed at the (ridiculous) ideas for saving money that were published in women’s magazines. Stuff like “You can save $400 a year by doing your own manicures.” Like, are you joking me? A woman in rural Maine doesn’t need a manicure at all, much less a professional manicure.

I just see so many parallels with how eating well is covered in the media, and how a WFPB diet is framed.

That’s a big tangent, but I think we can understand what we’re seeing in the media circus through some of these parallels. It takes me a second to try to express myself — i am totally a slowpoke in that regard!

[roundcoconut]

And so, if I zoom in on the ways that the media discusses food, in this era of extreme disease and disability:

There was a book long, long ago by Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, about how to “hide” vegetables in foods that you give your kids. The media loved this crap, and Jerry Seinfeld’s wife was on Oprah talking about how her kids can still be (my opinion) demanding brats who will only eat certain foods, but how she let her kids keep the upper hand about what they would and woudn’t eat, and still managed to sneak some applesauce into their chocolate chip cookies. Wow. Big win, lady! Still cookies that are overly processed empty calories, but now they are (essentially) sweetened with fructose rather than cane sugar.

I mean, if you offer your kid some rice and the kid doesn’t want to eat any, then OK — you put the food back in the fridge. But the media doesn’t like that — it’s not circus-y enough! They would rather show Jessica Seinfeld (I think that was her name) sneaking some applesauce into the chocolate chip cookies. (Insert me making barfing noises at the television screen, even back in the 90s!)

Plain, common sense stuff doesn’t sell! That stuff doesn’t make a good story. You can write an article about how I’ve never been overweight, and how I’ve only eaten two Shamrock Shakes in my life, but nobody wants to read it. The antics of “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead” are far more appealing to american sensibilities — “guy looks like crap, buys a fancy juicer, regains his health”.

If it’s not new or interesting, the media doesn’t publish it (on their sites, or in a magazine or newspaper); and lots of people won’t read it; and most people dismiss common sense stuff as “boring” or “old”.

I am super chatty today! Hopefully, there is some sense to what I’m writing though.

[roundcoconut]

Yes, some of it is irresponsible and misleading but from my experience, most actually comes from well meaning, good intentioned people just trying to do good but not fully understanding the concepts. Their desire to help outpaces their understanding of their understanding and knowledge.

I wonder if you’ve ever considered the idea that any body of commercial interests that has enough money to hire lobbyists, is probably also hiring people to represent their interests in the social media. It makes total sense to me that this would be the case.

I remember that even in the early days of Word of Mouth marketing (it gained popularity as an idea sometime in the late 90s, I believe), people paid as “social media” marketers would pose as normal people, pretending to be “raving fans” of a particular company or a particular product. It is fairly unethical to stimulate word of mouth this way, but who really cares, right?

Nevertheless, I believe that many people we encounter online are not actual people representing their own opinions truthfully, but rather are profiles created by social media marketers. Some “people” spout untrue horror stories of how they went on a plant-based diet, and then awful things ensued. They say, “I followed Dr McDougall’s advice to the letter, and found myself having horrible and persistent junk food cravings. I gained 40 pounds!! What went wrong?!?”

And people who are hired to stimulate word of mouth marketing for their employers, or to give competing interests a bad name — they just give these phony tales of woe, and make the Dairy Board proud. “I just feel so great when I am eating cottage cheese! I never had these cravings when I was following Dr Atkins!” (Ha, I don’t even know who is promoting low-carb nonsense these days. I’m so ill-informed in that regard!).

Other “people” show dummied-up before and after pictures, about how they have done so well on the South Beach Diet, and the “person” says, “It worked for me when nothing else did! You really should try it!”

I just don’t believe that the people who are in the pork industry, are fighting fair. I think they hire people to do their social media, in the same way that they hire people to advocate for them, with state and national government.

[JeffN]

it seems like what I was asking for when I posted in your thread, has been lost in all this. I am only looking for a specific example of how the media is misusing and/or misrepresenting the Exercise Paradox, specifically in regard to a comment you made that because of the Exercise Paradox, they are saying exercise is basically worthless. If you have a link to any such media article, I would like to see it as I am working on something on the issue.

Having said, that, my final comments on where this went..

Yes, some of it is irresponsible and misleading but from my experience, most actually comes from well meaning, good intentioned people just trying to do good but not fully understanding the concepts. Their desire to help outpaces their understanding of their understanding and knowledge.

I wonder if you’ve ever considered the idea that any body of commercial interests that has enough money to hire lobbyists, is probably also hiring people to represent their interests in the social media. It makes total sense to me that this would be the case.

Of course. I discuss it all in my forum.

PT Barnum’s have always existed but the main issue over the last decade or so is the impact of social media which has become a circus on steroids. It’s made it much easier for them to get their message out in so many new ways. And yes, people seem to be drawn to these miracles, fast, easy fixes that social media seems to thrive on.

I am now in my 4th decade doing this and my point is that it’s always existed but nothing like today. The signal hasn’t changed but we have way more noise. Way more.

From a colleague whose been at this longer then me on this issue...

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=27778&p=489835&#p489835

“Yes, I totally agree with you. I have said to colleagues recently that when I first started my career the worst things we had to deal with was the annual fad diet book and the few supplement pushers. But when a diet book came out, it would get some initial press and within 6 months, it was old news and everyone had moved on. Now it never dies nor do any sensational stories about studies that are misrepresented in the media or just plain bad studies to begin with. They continue to be passed along, quoted in blogs and articles and links posted on social media. Even studies that have been discredited and withdrawn from journals live on. It is exhausting to try to deal with this day after day."

In my field there are only a very few who agree with what I do. Yet most all of them are in it to do good & believe they are doing good.

I have a good friend and colleague who also goes back further then I. He was a peace loving “save the world” hippie in the 60s. Was the executive director of a non profit health organization that taught this long ago. He did lots or writing, media, speaking, interviews etc. Recently he said that he realizes that much of what he said wasn’t quite accurate and some was just wrong. I asked what he thought at that time. He said he thought it was accurate and beneficial. I asked if he ever meant to mislead anyone, hurt anyone, confuse anyone, etc. he said no never. I think he is a good guy who meant well. Was just somewhat misinformed.

People in these forums mean well and all seem to have only good intentions. But in their efforts to do good and help others, occasionally they get these wrongs. I can only think of a few, less then a handful, who were banned because of clear malicious intent.

If you do have a link to any media where the Exercise Paradox is being used to say exercise has no benefit, I would still like to see it.

Thanks for the conversation

In Health
Jeff

[roundcoconut]

it seems like what I was asking for when I posted in your thread, has been lost in all this. I am only looking for a specific example of how the media is misusing and/or misrepresenting the Exercise Paradox

Oh my gosh, I hope you realize that asking me to construct kind of a “proper” argument, where I support a statement with fact-based examples — this is like asking a cocker spaniel to do your calculus homework. I don’t even think I could produce a serious button-down argument if held at gun point! It’s not my thing.

I have a lot of “boots-on-the-ground” observations about what people do at the gym, and how many of my co-workers report they have “tried everything” to stop their middle-age weight gain (where “everything” is not inclusive of any pattern of daily exercise). But boots on the ground isn’t really the kind of stuff you can take to the banik!

[roundcoconut]

Here’s a giant summary of everything I’ve ever written:

I think that the biggest problem we face with our health and weight, is feelings of powerlessness and patterns of learned helplessness.

I’m sure that there are many studies about feelings of self-efficacy, versus feelings of powerlessness. And patterns of learned helplessness, versus patterns of SEEING cause and effect coming through our own initiative. But I don’t think that we even need to see the studies, or read the books written on the matter — the lessons are all around us.

There are two things that are plain as day in modern America.

The first one, is that many people have given up on their weight. They have fully accepted the idea that if they COULD’VE controlled their weight, they WOULD’VE controlled their weight. So now, they turn their attention to other matters, and do not try to change their weight any more than they try to change the color of the sky.

The second thing that is plain as day to me, is that many people have given up on exercise. Just like with food, there seems to be no consensus on how to exercise. Back in the 90s, there seemed to be many voices in the media saying, “Walking is the best exercise. Just roll up your shirtsleeves, and walk 1/4 mile. Build up over time. Your health and endurance will improve.”

But we are in a time of (pardon the term) “postmodernism”, where there is no longer agreed-upon ideas of what is good. Modern society is very fragmented, to the point of being shattered into a thousand different pieces, representing a thousand different opinions.

If you pick any form of exercise, there is someone to say, “That is a stupid (or dangerous, or ineffective) thing to do”. It is super-popular these days to be dismissive of long, slow exercise. There are many, many self-proclaimed experts who will piss on your parade, if you think you are getting anywhere with low-to-moderate intensity stuff.

There are a lot of people who want to believe in “gentle” and “meditative” ways of connecting with our bodies. And there are more than enough people to point out that you cannot get anywhere by taking a tap-dance class. Or by doing only stretching exercises, and never actually moving your body. (I would tend to agree with these criticisms, just as a side note.)

And lots of people will tell you that doing high-intensity exercise is a recipe for injury, if you have not taken the time to build a baseline fitness. So, YES, there are probably dangers associating with doing high-impact stuff (like running) when people are heavy or are smokers or whatever.

Well, I think that the combination of such a contentious dialogue around “how to exercise” is that people just throw their hands up and give up on exercise.

I am not necessarily saying I know anything about how OTHER people can build feelings of self-efficacy, but I will say that this is the path that I see for myself — amplify feelings of self-efficacy, and keep believing my ability to get good at healthful behaviors, like making good food choices, and exercising in some kind of Maffetone-ish fashion.

That’s all outta me for today!

[roundcoconut]

I go in phases where I like to listen to podcasts, and hear ideas from other people. Well, I’m in that kind of phase at the moment, so I feel all full of possibility from listening to things.

The podcast I was listening to last night — I almost never listen to the plant-based podcasts! — was one that featured a serial entrepreneur, who was saying that it can just be helpful to generate a bunch of ideas about an issue. They don’t even have to be your own ideas — they can be other people’s ideas. Just come up with a bunch of ideas, and marinate in them. You don’t even have to execute any of the ideas, unless YOU decide to go there.

Well, there are always funny little situations in life, and it can be fun to think of different ways to approach those situations, or different ways to frame those situations.

One of my “funny little situations” in life, is about dating and relationships. I tend to be extremely cautious about meeting up with someone new, unless they can pass a stringent battery of tests. Like, in my current pattern, a person’s gonna get accepted into the navy SEALS program before I’m going to agree to meet up for coffee. Ha!

And one idea I have about this situation is, “What if I JUST look the people around me and ask, ‘who here would be the most fun to have lunch with? is there anyone here that I would be interested in knowing a little bit about?”

I mean, it would not be hard for me to let my guard down. It is quite obvious that there are single men who would be willing to talk to me. It would be easy and effortless to say, “Y’know, I don’t work on Mondays or Thursdays, and once the holidays are over, we could absolutely get a drink somewhere.” I would honestly only do this with someone who is not a creep, but I swear, I know a LOT of non-creeps!

Well, that is just an IDEA, and not something that I am promising to act upon.

Truthfully, I sometimes think WAY too far ahead of myself, about whether I have enough in common with someone, and then, y’know, I rule EVERYONE out.

There y’go. All about my personal life!

But I post these kinds of things here, because I think when we get “stuck” in some area of our lives, and live in the same old ideas, then we start to slide into feelings of powerlessness and feelings of poor self-efficacy. And in that way, I believe that all kinds of areas of life affect our state of mind, which in turn affects our eating.

[roundcoconut]

Back to the world of ideas:

I think that it’s always fun and interesting to see how we can adapt ideas from one arena of life, to another.

Like, I am very inclined to like Phil Maffetone’s ideas about exercising at a fairly low intensity, and as you do this, you build efficiency (i.e. speed at that level of exertion, and of course, you freaking enjoy the process more. (Not the adrenaline junkies, they probably hate the process — but people like me enjoy that intensity level FAR more than any crossfit-like pissing contest.

Well, I was thinking today, “What would a Maffetone approach look like if you applied it to your finances? What would a Maffetone approach look like if you applied it to the dating scene? What would a Maffetone approach look like if you applied it to your new job?”

Isn’t that great? It is kind of abstract — there are no right answers, but it DOES get you thinking along new lines.

I am somewhat fascinated by the relationship question, because in the two years that I’ve lived in New Mexico, there’s only been two guy that I got to know quite well and spent dozens of hours of one-on-one time with. Now I am pretty much ready to have regular contact with someone else.

A Maffetone style approach to social connections (as I imagine it) would be to always in “light and easy” mode. Never to expect yourself to be perfect or scientillating, but to simply engage in light banter with anyone I find atractive, a few times a day (or whenever the opportunity arises, but a few times a day sounds about right).

Another aspect would be to not go balls to the wall, with ANY particular person (kind of like you would never go balls to the wall on any particular workout), but rather to know that it is a lot of light and easy connections that eventually opens up a path that is worth going down. Just taking easy and comfortable actions, over time, and letting the results build up in ways that are almost imperceptible.

Isn’t that fascinating? I think that actually sounds like a decent strategy, even though I have not committed to pursuing ANY strategy until I have given it more thought. Today, I am just in a brainstorming stage.

[roundcoconut]

I keep looking for ideas that can help me implement a better strategy than what I’ve been implementing up till now. And one of the ideas that seems to have some interesting perspective is this:

What if I were to take a stance of no longer seeing through innocent eyes? Y’know, “hope is not a strategy”. And “get smart here, girlie!” And “Your (feigned) innocence will not protect you.”

Let me see if I can explain myself a little better — one of my favorite things to say (sarcastically!) is “What could go wrong?” Kind of like, “Hiring a drug addict — what could go wrong.” Or, “Getting back with your ex-wife — what could go wrong.” Or, “Loaning money to someone you just met — what could go wrong.”

For some reason, I have not been as clever as you might hope! Five years in, and I seem to still be systematically “letting threats in”, if you will.

The real truth, is that if I spend time among binge foods (going down aisles where my typical binge foods are located), then I am making a bad move more possible and more likely.

If I were to take inventory of my own patterns of overeating — what are the foods I’ve overeaten on before, and where are the places (the specific aisles or the workplaces) where I’ve gotten the unhealthful foods, and what are the scenarios in which I make bad choices?

And knowing what my weaknesses are, I can easily start to develop some selective paranoia. Things that are safe for other people, are NOT safe for someone who has succumbed to those triggers in the past.

For example, there are people — even on these boards — who have no problem keeping two days worth of ready-to-eat food in their pantry. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that if my PERSONAL history includes episodes of getting up at 5am and feasting on two days worth of food that you put in the pantry last night, then it would be wise to say,

“Wow — putting yourself alone in a closed space with two days worth of ready-to-eat food. What could go wrong.”

Shall I call this my strategy of “getting less stupid”?

[roundcoconut]

Here’s my little case study: It’s kind of a train wreck, so read this at your own risk. But here goes:

Yesterday, I just made it through the most difficult work shift of my week. As the time was drawing near for me to go into work, I was noticing how I had whipped myself into quite a state of emotional discomfort about my shift.

Humans in modern society often feel begin to threatened in situations where they feel deeply afraid of important people rejecting them, or deeply afraid of failing publicly at something. In some ways, this is brought on my a reality of the situation (me: I AM in a new job, and I AM the least competent server on the floor right now due to being new); in other ways, this is brought on by choosing a viewpoint that amplifies the anxiety (the “Oh god, it’s going to be the end of the world if I make a bad mistake tonight, and I just want to RUN FAR, FAR AWAY!!!!! This is not a helpful viewpoint, and it is CERTAINLY not the onlly viewpoint)

So, I am looking at how I whipped myself up into a state of “fight or flight” about going in to work yesterday. When we are in fight or flight in modern society, we are AT LEAST smart enough to know that we cannot start a fist fight, because we are not even being threatened physically. (Well, that’s hilarious!).

ANNNNNDDDD, we are also smart enough to know that we cannot RUN AWAY. What, am I gonna go hide in a cave and rock in a corner?

So there I was, having a fight or flight response (which we are still responsible for choosing the viewpoint that amplified our anxiety to this point!) and that was when I swung by the store for some food to soothe my emotions. I understood that I was choosing something dysfunctional, and if you must know, I got into a loaf of sliced squishy commercially-prepared raisin bread, and three bananas.

But I at least understand SOMETHING about what went down yesterday, and I think I can binge-proof myself next Thursday. There is nothing challenging till next Thursday, and actually, I might even be past the panic-mode of a new job. From here on out, I may actually be able to choose better viewpoints, and keep myself entirely out of “fight or flight”.

Isn’t that fascinating, in a train-wreck kind of way???

[roundcoconut]

When in “fight or flight”, I have OFTEN reached for the food. This is no secret!

There is a guy who used to work at the restaurant that I am now working at, and one day HE whipped himself into “fight or flight” mode. Well, guess what he did? He went on the verbal attack, and said that he thought his job was bullcrap, and told the general manager that he thought SHE was total bullcrap.

And after indulging in “fight” mode, he followed up with “flight” mode, and said he wanted OUT, and to hire someone else, because he’s through.

Well, despite being an incredibly charming and knowledgeable server, this guy was NOT accepted back when he settled down and offered some kind of apology.

Anyways, it is worth acknowledging that in some ways our habits of coping through food, ARE less destructive than other people’s patterns of coping through verbal tirades. Eating is slightly less dysfunctional than lashing out! REALLY. We get credit for this.

And y’know what? Eating bananas in times of stress, is less dysfunctional than eating twinkies.

And coping by distracting ourselves in non-food ways, is one rung up from ALL the patterns mentioned.

Just some thoughts!

[roundcoconut]

The thing that seems most promising, as an approach, is to focus squarely on the situations where I get most easily overwhelmed or mired in feelings of powerlessness. Because those are the areas of life, that are making me want to go run and hide.

And trying to bargain with myself, once I’m in states of overwhelm or states of powerlessness — is really just damage control. So, let’s say I get sloppy for a week, and all of a sudden I have such a mountain of laundry, that I just want to practice avoidance rather than take any laundry-related action.

Well, by that point, it doesn’t matter a heck of a lot whether i hide in the food, or whether I hide from my problems by doing something a little more positive (like go to the gym). In either case, once it gets to that point, I’m kind of on the hook for mis-handling myself emotionally.

The better situation is not to have a life where some aspect feels unmanageable and out of control. If you’re running and hiding from certain areas of your life, then maybe you’d better look at your life, rather than at the food!

Of course, there are probably people in the plant-based community who do not run and hide in the food when times get rough. But there are a LOT of people in our culture — with and without weight problems — who have some area of their life that they can’t seem to get a grasp on. Some people can’t seem to figure out how to get into a healthy relationship. Other people feel hopelessly stuck in a shitty job. LOTS of people feel they have no control over their body or their health.

It was said somewhere, that with such a large portion of society (is it 30% now?) having an obese weight, that the emotional issues can’t be at the root for ALL of them. But I suspect that many, many people with drinking problems are hiding from unmanageable parts of their life, by drinking. And i suspect that many, many people with debt problems, are hiding from unmanageable parts of their life, by spending. And I believe that many, many people with weight problems, are hiding from unmanageable parts of their life, by eating.

In short, I believe that the emotional issues of Americans express themselves in many ways, including and especially systematic overeating. Emotional issues ARE that widespread, from what i see.

Saying, “it’s the food” (when it is used to imply, “It is always about the quality of food you are eating, and never about the decisions to eat when there is no hunger”) kind of misses the point that large, large portions of society have difficulty coping directly with situations in their life, and revert to non-helpful behaviors.

To draw an analogy, someone with a debt problem cannot imply that the stores are the problem (The stores are systematically overpriced! It’s Target’s fault that I have racked up all this debt!).

Just telling someone to start buying cheaper cars, and cheaper clothes and cheaper entrees — cannot fix the situation, unless you tell them to cut down on their pattern of constantly buying things they do not need. You cannot be constantly buying things you don’t need, and still be in strong financial health. Ditto the thing about eating food you do not need.

Those are my thoughts for the moment!

[roundcoconut]

So, I think my big strategy in life right now, is to get good at things by using consistency and repetition as my main tools!

I’ve been hitting the gym daily for about 6 weeks, and some days, all I really do is knock out four sloppy miles at an unimpressive pace. My thought process is that if I knock out four sloppy miles, then I do not backslide — I can come back at any point, and continue to build my endurance and to build my efficiency, but all I really expect of myself on a crappy day, is to do SOMETHING.

Something is always better than nothing, right?

One idea that I like, is that when we fail at executing a particular behavior, then we can always break it down into a ladder, and then just focus on getting one or two rungs up from where we are. No one needs to scale the whole ladder in a week!

Life is like Chutes and Ladders!

Yesterday, I was in the middle of a large and unexpected car repair. Out of nowhere, my radiator was leaking like a faucet, and suddenly I was at the car repair place actually scheduling a time to replace the entire thing, which was affordable but took me very much by surprise.

And the foods I ate yesterday were really only one rung up from the very worst foods I could’ve chosen. I didn’t eat bread or peanut butter, but I DID have a big humongous bowl of rich foods. (I chopped up a whole block of tofu, and added it to some beans and corn and salsa.). So, basically, I allowed myself a whole big calorie bomb (a day’s worth of calories at one sitting!), but I didn’t drop back to that bottom rung on the ladder.

Well, it is a good reminder to get proactive on car-related stuff and money-related stuff. Because the whole reason this took me to an emotionally negative place, is because I tend to be avoidant about car issues in the first place, and tend to have no idea what my bank balances are or where my debit cards are.

So — if I get straight on my car issues — I won’t be as vulnerable to these kinds of things in the first place. So — get my oil changed. Get my snow tires put on. Ask my mechanic how things are looking in terms of how much life I have left on my brakes, how much life I have on my tires.

Also, if I get my financial act together a little better — order a new debit card from the bank where my savings account lives — I will be less vulnerable to panic when I have a large and unexpected expense.

Well, I am rambling, but that is the update from my end!