License to be a Fatty McFatterson

Good habit to match with driving everywhere.

We tell each other lies, but the worst are the lies we tell our selves because sometimes we don't even know that we are lying. At the heart of many of these lies is "false equivalency". Fox News is a master of the false equivalency lie: to be "fair and balanced", one fact must be balanced with an equal and opposite fact. An unfavored set of facts set off  a move to "balance" them with equal and opposite falsehoods under cover of "opinion". If there is any place in our personal lives where the line between opinion and facts are blurred, it's how we approach food.

Route data from more than 1,000 shoppers, matched to their purchases at checkout, revealed a clear pattern: Drop a bunch of kale into your cart and you’re more likely to head next to the ice cream or beer section. The more “virtuous” products you have in your basket, the stronger your temptation to succumb to vice.

Why make yourself TOO miserable with eating the healthy stuff? There needs to be "balance" to satisfy our baser cravings to prevent them from taking over. This is the "virtuous" thinking behind my eating for the past couple of years -- keep to the kale juice Monday through Friday, and hold on to your hats when the weekend came along. And to be honest, it worked for quite a while...as a transitional step, not a routine to live by forever. I used to mindlessly eat 95% crap, and by regimenting myself into 70% strict/30% whatever, I found a new balance that seemed fair to me. But  my body has seemed to settle on a new (lower) weight for a while now, and I'd like a new strategy to retain my health and get a little slimmer as an investment in my well-being as I teeter into my mid and late 40s.

Well, I guess thats fair. And balanced.

But it’s a particular problem in health because we’re confronted with so many decisions on a daily basis and yet the outcomes we’re most concerned about — like disease, disability and, ultimately, death — are difficult to measure, heavily influenced by chance or too far into the future to be sure of cause and effect. That leaves us vulnerable, because unlike Newton’s Third Law, the actions and reactions of the licensing effect aren’t necessarily “equal and opposite.” Few of our health decisions are clear-cut, so we’re left weighing uncertain benefits against unknowable behavioral compensation.
So how can we maximize our chances of coming out ahead? Psychologists have identified a few tactics.

A head of kale is not the equal or the opposite of a pint of ice cream. Eating well for 5 days does not license me to eat like a f'ing retard for 2 days. Maybe I'm being a little bit too harsh, but it is a line of thinking that has been brought to my attention a while ago by a loved one, and is now only starting to sink in. Disordered eating doesn't have to be as dramatic as death-taunting anorexia/bulimia -- it can be as simple as some one trying to "eat clean" obsessively or, uh, keeping a food diary on line for years and years. Obsession with healthy eating is no good because it's an OBSESSION, and by definition obsessions are out of balance.

One is to focus on the process of living healthfully rather than the goal of being healthy. (italics mine.)

It goes back to that ol' buzzword of the moment: mindfulness, living in the moment, not worrying about what my eating habits are going to do for me at the end of the month at weigh in, or years down the line when others of my age are crumbling. It's thinking how this food is going to make me feel after it hits my stomach in the next 30 minutes, will it get me through feeling strong to the next meal and not sap my energy or send me through a blood sugar rush? It is about shopping on Monday so I have good stuff to eat through the week. There is no need to think further than how long it takes for said head of kale to wilt and go funky.

A recent University of Zurich study tracked the progress of 126 dieters and found that, as predicted by licensing theory, the more weight the subjects lost in any given week, the less weight they would lose (or the more they would gain) the following week. But this rebound effect was weakest when the subjects homed in on the process of changing their eating behavior rather than on the outcome of losing weight or improving their appearance.

It is a truism that people who go on crash diets and are desperate to lose weight by any means necessary eventually stop panicking, return to "normal" and gain all the weight back. Nice to see (albeit small and maybe statistically undependable) study say in no uncertain terms, just worry about the process being good and healthy and sane, let the outcome take care of itself.

Another approach, proposed by Professors Khan and Dhar, is to narrow your focus so that you weigh the pros and cons of each decision in isolation. To illustrate this principle, they offered either a single free movie rental or two rentals (once a week for two weeks) to a group of undergrads. In the one-shot choice, just over half the subjects opted for a “lowbrow” film like “Dumb and Dumber” rather than a weightier selection like “Schindler’s List.” But when they knew they’d get another chance to make a “good” choice, the number who went lowbrow shot up to 80 percent.

In other words, judge each eating choice like it's the sole determinant of the outcome. There is no need or option to balance a virtuous choice with a guilty pleasure. Not every choice has to be kale, but every choice doesn't need to be kale OR ice cream, the trap of licensing and Fox New's "balanced fairness."

It would be funny if Fox News & it's corporate overlords weren't actually doing real damage to our country and our democracy.

I've depending on the recording of my eating to allow me to go on automatic during the week, but my life has been such since June that I'm able to work from home, therefore cook from home, too. No need to pack lunches that can be cooked in an office microwave. My life has gotten better in the past year, maybe it's time to ease up on the lock step of eating to the beat and get a little jazzy.  I'm kinda little scared, but more excited than fearful.

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2861

I don't like the high average, but I can live with it.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2805

SLEPT: 7:30pm-4:30am, 9 hrs

AM SNACK: 4:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7am, Fage with honey, almonds, vanilla, 450 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, beef patty, chicken mulligatawny soup, momma salad, health salad, 825 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, tilapia, asparagus,  poppa salad with dressing, 570 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, popcorn, +/- 400

HUNGER SNACK: 8pm, almond butter with chocolate syrup, +/- 400
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TUESDAY COUNT: 3340

SLEPT: 11:15pm-4am,  4.75hrs

AM SNACK: 4:30 am,  iced green tea

AM SNACK: 8:30am, half a donut, +/- 150 cal

BREAKFAST: 11am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: noon, steel cut oats, 450 cal

LUNCH: 3pm, chicken meatballs, mushroom curry, steamed string beans, 650 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, momma salad, 100 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, Stouffers French Bread Pizzas, poppa salad with dressing, 1040 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 8pm, pringles, 2 kind bars, 790 cal, hunger 9/10
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2655

SLEPT: 9pm-4am, 7 hrs

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, fruit smoothie, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1:15pm, sauteed shrimp and mushrooms in oyster sauce, poppa salad, 670cal

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, momma salad, 100 cal

PM SNACK: 6pm, slice of streetza, +/- 250 cal

DINNER: 8pm, burrito & diet coke, 925cal

EVENING SNORT: 10pm, whiskey, +/- 100 cal
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BIKE CREDIT: 1055
THURSDAY COUNT: 3005

SLEPT: 10:30pm-1am, 2:30am-3:30am, 3.5 hours

AM SNACK: 1:30am, 2 kind bars, cheezits, 410 cal

AM SNACK: 3:45am, iced green tea, 150mg caffeine

BIKE SNACK: 6am, homemade granola bar, 240 cal

BREAKFAST: 10am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11:45am, Steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2:15pm, vegetarian samosa and chickpea curry, momma salad, +/- 900 cal

DINNER 1: 7pm, whole wheat pasta with homemade sauce and parm, poppa salad, 700 cal

DINNER 2: 9pm, 1 slice pizza, ice cream, oreos, +/- 1200 cal

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FRIDAY COUNT: 2550

SLEPT: 10pm-5am, 7 hrs

AM SNACK: 5:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

AM SNACK: 11am, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, beef patty, pickle, 410 cal

PM SNACK 3pm, kind bar, 200 cal

PM SNACKS: 5pm beef patty, pringles, veggie straws, 720 cal

DINNER: 6:15pm,  peking duck, shrimp, dumplings, +/- 750 cal