Dialogue

In this age of cognitive dissonance and lack of communication it is refreshing to receive honest and thoughtful responses to ideas.  Because this blog focuses on health and wellness the way we use the fattest organ in our body is my primary concern.  The brain, which is composed of about 70% fat is often switched off when there is a difference of opinion or the suggestion that there might be a disagreement.  This tendency has lead to a dis-functional government whose participants are more concerned with the appearance of pleasing their constituencies than actually doing anything substantive that they can be held responsible for and as a result relieved of their duties in the following election cycle.  We have seen some masterful obfuscation, denial and poll induced flip-flopping, so these officials can retain their well paying jobs at the expense of us, the people.  And shame on us for tolerating it.

Which makes it a pleasure to have civilized discourse with my readers concerning all topics discussed here-in, but not limited to this blog.  The diet debate continues and the cool thing is we are now getting into the limits of will (G. Gordon Liddy listen up!), and my favorite brain exercise - philosophy!  After a good bout of this my head hurts, in a good way, and I feel strongly that these sessions are staving off dementia, Alzheimers and  Creutzfeldt-Jacob syndrome.

Last week a reader emailed the following response to my low carb diet monologue:

"Being an atheist (on both religion and diet), and being unable to extricate religion from diet in my mind—both dealing with the process of disciplining the body and body politic, infusing narratives of guilt, denial of pleasure, bad/good, belief, control/power (if you know his work, you’ll recognize I’m a student of Foucault)—I tend to put both subjects in a box, and ignore them. Happy to let people believe, if it helps them through their world, but personally, I try not follow a religion or diet. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t changed the way I eat or live to help me feel better, but I tend to avoid using/feeling the terms “splurged” or “fallen off the wagon” or “goal” or whatever. And I’m sure that results in a body that doesn’t function at its optimal point, but my personal reaction to discovering my body isn’t infallible (double negative) was that I actively chose to not make it a focus. (you’re right, tends to be a very personal subject).

All perhaps rationalizations for my choice to be an atheistic, non-goal-oriented slouch. 

That said, a couple of rhetorical questions that your blog posts stirred:

1. Knowing that you and Melinda appreciate the pleasure of food, and reading your article on the importance of play, how can one reconcile the simultaneous pursuit of diet and pleasure (especially if one isn’t a creative cook or has to eat out a lot)? You talk in your blog on play how it helps us to escape from our regimented/puritanical lives, but aren’t imposing “diet” and “exercise” regimes yet another form of regimentation, leaving us very few avenues of non-regimination? 

2. You may be interested (I know I have been) in the studies about how we have a limited amount of self-control, so if we exert self-control in one part of our lives, we’ll splurge in another. If true, it means we each have to decide the hierarchy of what is important to us—work or body or relationships or whatever—and make sure that is the priority for our limited self-control. (Alternatively, we need to consciously ask: if one is “good" in the world of diet and exercise, what has one sacrificed elsewhere?)

Less philosophical:

--They’ve done studies that show thin people have a higher mortality rate. Not sure how that jives with your comment that restricting calories is inherently good, at least for skinny folks like you and me.

--And, just to be balanced and make sure your audience has the info they need to make decisions, I’d link to sites about the possible negative impacts of a Ketogenic diet (I did a search, but not everyone may)—I always like finding the best critiques of whatever thought I’m espousing."

Because I am disorganized I will start from the top and work my way down.  But first Thank you.  Thank you for taking the time to respond to these ideas, and thank you for giving me permission to post your thoughts.

I once heard a philosopher describe the philosopher as a blind man dressed in black standing in a black room with no light searching for a black hat that doesn't exist.  The theologian, however, finds the hat.  My jejune understanding of Foucault on the subject of society's imposed restrictions on the body politic is that a person must create her own existence to fight against subjugation.  I see choosing a diet that relieves pain and dis-ease as the ultimate form of self creation especially when it negates a normative diet designed by corporations who (they are persons after all) financed studies to support their products which were then imposed on unwitting citizens resulting in the ultimate subjugation - margarine, partially hydrogenated oils, breakfast cereal and, arguably, statins!

Reconciliation of "pleasure and diet":  Why must they be mutually exclusive?  What is pleasure?
The orgasmic sensation of biting into a chilled, baked that morning cream puff from The Tea Room in NPZ, NY, or the pleasure of not riding the huge sugar spike & crash and the discomfort in my bowels that this treat creates?  Eating the former lasts a few minutes.  The latter effects, however, last a few hours.  So pick your pleasure.  That being said I will make my way to the Tea Room again at some point to enjoy this treat and it will taste that much better because I have waited.  Which begs the question: is foreplay denial or is it a means of creating greater pleasure?  Men, please do not respond to that query.  Is there no room for play without carbs?  I believe there is - try an avocado with smoked wild caught salmon and a dollop of full fat plain Greek yogurt on top. 

In terms of self control:  I have read some of these studies and that is one of the reasons I am trying to eliminate the need for self control with my diet.  Reducing or eliminating cravings should give me more willpower which I can direct to other aspects of my life.  Exercise is more complex because it requires a greater sacrifice than diet.  I feel that way because diet is a more passive experience that requires a decision and then you cook and eat, which are mostly pleasurable activities, while exercise can be quite demanding and not always immediately gratifying - often times you have to make it through the work to feel pleasure.

Skinny people:  In medicine the BMI is the standard for assessing risk of cancer, heart disease /stroke
 and D.M.  Because we (you and I) take care of ourselves and visit doctors I would bet that we have a much better chance of living longer as skinny folk than those who do not have access to health care, eat crap and are overweight.  One of the flaws of the BMI is that it does not take muscle mass into consideration.  Perhaps this study is another argument for increasing muscle mass.  It would be interesting to see a study that compares fat and thin people in the same socioeconomic category that includes diet, exercise, education and access to healthcare.  In the balance I would rather die a few years earlier feeling well as opposed to being an overweight older person having lived in a wheel chair with tubes in my body and unable to care for myself for several years. Fat or thin numerous studies have shown that caloric restriction or taking in only what you need correlates with longevity across cultures.

Access to information:  I usually try to keep these posts short and many of the topics I discuss are associated with numerous opinions both for and against, so I leave it up to the reader to google information and decide for himself what is relevant.

Thanks for reading.
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