The Ultimate Plan of Greatness

Low-Carbing and Freedom!

2008-04-08T14:53:00.004-04:00

I know I haven't blogged much, but I've been sticking to the low-carb way of eating very strictly. Anyway, the reason that I'm posting today is that I wanted to share the way eating this way has counter-intuitively made me feel more free than ever before, in two ways:

Food Freedom

I used to count calories every day. I used to fight hunger and cravings every day. Consequently, I used to binge almost every day. If you're struggling with your body's deep desires, chances are you're going to lose. At least if you're me. :-) In my case, when I restricted calories, my body would beg me to eat, just as if I hold my breath, my body begs me to breathe. The begging for food was less severe than the begging for air, but ultimately proved to be just as irresistible.

Eating low carbs, I never struggle with hunger, because I can eat as much as I want. It sounds like one of those scams I lambasted in the previous post, but it's true. If I'm hungry late at night, I can make myself a three-egg omelette with cheddar cheese and a few pork sausage patties on the side. No more eating a bowl of oatmeal and hoping (even though I know better) it does the trick, then reaching for something else, and then something else, and then, finally, binging. If not that day, then the next, or the one after that. I

And if I'm extra hungry at dinner one day, I can have a big steak. With butter. And buttered vegetables. And things are so much better with butter on them! Just try to be hungry after eating a big steak with buttered veggies.

But don't I sometimes crave carbs? Well, sort of. I definitely get to thinking sometimes that it would be awfully nice to have some sugary desserts or a big bowl of pasta. But it's a mental craving, not a physical one. My brain may not be able to resist my body's cravings for long, but these mental cravings are so much weaker and more controllable. Besides, as Jimmy Moore pointed out in one of his YouTube videos, eating something with a lot of fat in it -- which I can do whenever I want now -- does wonders to get rid of cravings.

Exercise Freedom

As I've mentioned before, I'm one of those weirdos who likes to exercise. Even so, before I started low-carbing, I always felt a certain obligation. It wasn't enough to just enjoy myself playing basketball, I had to make sure I was doing it enough to burn calories. I had to go even when I didn't want to. And as anyone who likes to read but hated reading for school knows, even enjoyable things are less fun when you're obliged to do them. Now if I really don't feel like playing basketball one day, I just don't. I know that I might lose weight a little faster if I exercise more, but I no longer fear that I'm going to gain weight (or even stop losing) if I just skip a few days.

Overall Freedom

Overall, I just feel like I'm finally free from the struggle. I don't have to fight with myself about food or exercise and I don't have to feel like a failure when the hungry or "lazy" part of me defeats the "good" or "motivated" part. I just eat low-carb and everything else pretty much takes care of itself.

The Weight-Loss Industry: Con-men and Crooks

2008-02-04T14:02:00.001-05:00

That weight-loss industry pisses me off. From the weight-loss programs that prominently display people who have lost lots of weight while adding in tiny print "results not typical" to commercials for ab machines that imply that they'll help you lose weight to the freaking Atkins-brand bars and shakes which are, as far as I can tell from participants of the Active Low-Carber Forums, universally detrimental to actually losing weight on the Atkins program, to all forms of "diet pills" that either don't work or are dangerous, or both. They are just taking advantage of the desperate and the uniformed. Absolutely disgusting.

It all reminds me of that Simpsons episode when, with little Lisa's help, the evil Mr. Burns creates a recycling plant. He has Lisa convinced that he has changed, until he shows her the "best part" of his plant: he has attached millions of recycled plastic six-pack holders to drain tons of fish and wildlife from the sea to create the "L'il Lisa Slurry," an all-purpose industrial chemical.

Notes After One Week of Low-Carbing

2008-01-23T00:14:00.000-05:00

Down 8 lbs, 6 on day four and 2 on day five.
I've averaged 3466 calories eaten and 3666 burned. Following the fat = calories in - calories out hypothesis, I should have lost half a pound. But I lost 8. It doesn't feel like water weight, either. Ordinarily, averaging 3500 or so calories for a week would be pretty good for me, if I was trying to limit my calories. Much lower and I'd really have to work at it. This, in contrast, was effortless.
I averaged 69 g of carbs (44 g "net" carbs), 229 g fat, 234 g protein, and 31 g alcohol. Put another way, carbs were 5% of my total calories, fat 61%, protein 28%, and alcohol 7%.
I played in my Tuesday night basketball game on Day 1 and Day 8 (tonight) and the difference in what I could do and how I felt is extraordinary. For the last few months, I've been struggling up and down the court and couldn't do anything on offense except pass and shoot. Tonight, I drove the lane a few times and wasn't dying for a break after each game.
My mood and energy have been on average noticeably better than normal. I didn't experience any "induction flu."
Hunger rare and not panicky. The meals are all very satisfying, the snacks enough to tide me over.
Alcohol came from a few glasses of scotch on a couple evenings (what a diet!) and a lite beer or two here and there.
Sleep not as deep or uninterrupted as usual, but I feel much better than normal in the mornings regardless. Did have two nightmares which caused me to shout and disturb the gf, although they wouldn't have particularly bothered me if they hadn't bothered her. I've experienced such nightmares in the past when not eating carbs before bed.
Typical breakfast: 3 eggs w/ 2 oz cheddar, or an Atkins shake if not that hungry. ("Not that hungry!") Got omelets from two restaurants, one with a big side of bacon. Hold the home fries.
Lunch: Big salad with full-fat, naturally low-carb dressing, cheese and tuna/chicken salad; or meatballs from the freezer case.
Afternoon snack: Almonds and/or cashews or Atkins shake and 1/2 cucumber. Twice snuck nuts into movie as snack since theaters have zero low-carb foods as far as I can tell.
Dinner: Meatballs from the freezer case or restaurant meal I estimate as low carb. Restaurant meals included chicken with cashews or peanuts (twice) and a rib-eye steak with asparagus and broccoli (once.) I threw out my satay chicken appetizer once when it tasted suspiciously sweet and I found myself devouring rather than eating it. Looked it up online, it has significant amounts of sugar.
PM snack 1: Nuts or Atkins shake.
PM snack 2: Eggs 'n cheddar. Twice with real sausage links.
Midnight snack if I wake up hungry: 3 slices of mozzarella.
I drank probably 1.5 liters of diet coke per day (normal for me) and sometimes had black coffee (which is the way I like it.) Didn't drink a whole lot of water.

Notes on Gary Taubes' Lecture at Berkeley

2008-01-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

I watched this video over the last two days. I highly recommend it, although I cannot (yet?) say whether he is actually correct or not.

A few things that jumped out at me:

An analogy: we don't say that growing kids grow because they eat a lot, we say that they eat a lot because they are growing. Couldn't the same be true of fat?
Fat cells are active, not passive. Therefore, they can "tell" the body to modify its calorie intake and expenditure. Rats who are deprived of calories slow down and conserve while those overfed are more active and don't gain.
Insulin is necessary for fat storage and carbohydrate intake causes insulin.
Before 1950 it was "common knowledge" in the scientific and lay communities that carbs cause obesity and that the way to lose weight was to reduce carb intake.
The idea that obesity is caused by "sloth and gluttony" is so ingrained that scientists have trouble seeing past it even when the carb-obesity data are right in front of them.

Number 1 really got me. It cuts right to the heart of the willpower debate. Suppose we didn't want kids to grow -- would we insist that they eat less and exercise more? Suppose some succeeded? Would that prove that growing is caused by overeating or being sedentary? By analogy then, if our bodies grow fat because of insulin the way children grow height because of other hormones, then treating the problem by maintaining a calorie deficit doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why not fix the root cause (excess insulin due to carbs) rather than struggling with our own bodies?

Weightloss and Willpower

2008-01-18T13:35:00.000-05:00

Regina Willshire has a good post about willpower and weight loss maintenance. Excerpt:

The rising incidence of obesity in the United States is not new - for decades now we've watched as each year more and more of our population is classified as overweight or obese; and it does not appear to be reversing, despite the continuous messages to eat less and move more, be aware of calories in and calories out, just do it and stick to it.

Oddly it seems, the louder the messages get, the fatter the population grows.

Yet, while it's acknowledged that in the long-term dieting doesn't seem to result in long-term weight stabilization and maintenance, few are asking why.

Instead we're left with the idea that all these tens of millions of people who lose weight on a diet lack the willpower and resolve to maintain a healthy-balanced diet in the long-term.

I've heard maintaining a calorie-restricted diet compared to holding one's breath. Some people can do it for longer than others, but eventually, we all give up.

I think Dave sums it up perfectly in the comments to that post:

I think people have trouble sticking to "diets" because they're forced into deciding between some disease that may occur in the future, or signals from their body that they're going to die NOW if they don't get some food. Widespread failure should be no surprise, and the whole "willpower" thing is idiotic. In any other context, having the willpower to cause your own death would be considered mental illness.

Maybe I'm just making excuses, but I don't think so. Being fat sucks and I've struggled more-or-less continuously to lose weight for the last ten years, while my weight has gone up and up, taking only short downward diversions before rebounding. Every time I try to cut calories, I start getting seriously hungry, which leads to either binging and gaining so fast it's scary or, if I'm lucky, going back to the slow but steady pace of weight increase that's been typical for me.

I'm desperately hoping that cutting the carbs will short-circuit my body's signals that I'm doing something terribly wrong every time I cut calories. The hypothesis is that my body's intense urgings for more food than I should be eating are the result of a reaction to carbohydrates and not something just innately screwed-up about me.

I'm going to give this low-carb thing a real try and see if it works.

Hunger vs. Cravings

2008-01-15T00:13:00.000-05:00

It's funny: I thought I was hungry about two hours ago, but whenever I think about having my final snack of the day which does not include carbs, I can kind of take it or leave it. Now, finally, my stomach is starting to ask for it. Two hours ago, I was craving carbs. Now, I'm finally getting hungry.

Off to my cheddar omelet.

Hypoglycemia, Carbs, and Hunger

2008-01-13T22:22:00.000-05:00

Effects of a high-protein ketogenic diet on hunger, appetite, and weight loss in obese men feeding ad libitum. Via Jimmy Moore's Living La Vida Low Carb blog.

The hardest part of dieting for me is the hunger, or perhaps, the cravings. By cravings, I don't mean just really wanting a candy bar, but intense, nearly overwhelming feelings that I have to eat something now. It's not actual hunger, because I don't have the stomach growling or the feeling of emptiness in my gut, but it is like every cell in my body is just screaming at me to eat. Eventually, I give in.

Since I was a teenager, I've thought that I have reactive hypoglycemia. If I go more than 3 or 4 hours without eating, I start feeling light-headed, and if I have too much sugar or carbs without protein, I get shaky and "hungry" within an hour. Every day of my life since high school has been either a struggle between feeling well and not overeating or feeling pretty well while eating enough to gain up to a pound a week.

By eating small meals or snacks every three hours that I'm awake, including right when I wake and right before I go to bed, I can just barely negotiate that line of feeling well and losing weight. Eat too much at an early meal, though, and there's no way for me to end the day without either going over my calorie limit or feeling like crap.

The only breaks I've gotten from this struggle are the few times I've specifically restricted carbs. Once, I completely abstained from sweets for two months and I felt better than I'd felt in years while simultaneously losing 30 pounds, all with no struggle or serious effort. On several other occasions, I attempted more severe, Atkins-like low carb diets. For the first 2 or 3 days, I felt awful, but by day 4 or 5, I felt amazing -- I had high energy and the near-constant desire to eat was just... gone. I woke up in the mornings without the grogginess that is my constant companion most mornings of my life.

I believed for years that my intense cravings and inability to stick to a diet were due to a condition called reactive hypoglycemia. Now I'm thinking that what I thought of as hypoglycemia could perhaps be more accurately described as a refined carbohydrate addiction. I need my fix every few hours and if I don't get it, I feel like hell. If I remove refined carbs entirely, I feel awful for a couple of days (withdrawal?) and then the cravings just go away.

Unfortunately, the no-sweets period of my life ended with many months of binging on around 1750 calories of chocolate chip cookies per night, leading to the inevitable result of an extra 15 lbs a month. The Atkins-like low-carb pushes never made it to a weak before I decided I couldn't live like that even though I'd already dropped 5 lbs and felt great. I don't think I can go completely low-carb or completely sweets-free.

Anyway, as a New Year's resolution, I'm giving weight loss another serious try. I'm counting calories every day on FitDay and again, I'm running into the problem of hunger or cravings. Usually at this point I would give up, maybe recording my 4000 calorie days for a week or two before giving up the exercise as fruitless. This time, though, I'm more motivated than usual, so I find myself forced to confront this issue. Surely I can find a way to limit myself to 3000 calories without feeling awful, right?

Anyway, I'm coming around to the idea that carbs may be the source of my struggle. First, I read an article called "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" by Gary Taubes, a science writer. Then I read this interview. And then I got his book, which I have so far only skimmed. Taubes's argument is that there is very little empirical evidence for the low-fat diet that has been pushed for the last few decades by various establishments, and that it is in fact refined carbohydrates that have led to the increase in obesity. He argues that refined carbs stimulate the body to store fat and also to send the signal for more food, resulting almost invariably in overeating.

Taubes, like Atkins, presents a whole bunch of scientific data supporting his view. Unfortunately, as a computer programmer and not an endocrinologist or health professional, I'm not personally qualified to judge whether Taubes and Atkins are following the science better than everybody else. Generally, I'd bet on the establishment when a maverick challenges its accepted wisdom. I believe in science and I'm skeptical about individuals who think they've outsmarted the scientific community.

But here's the thing. Even the establishment cannot seem to point to any evidence that shows a low-carb diet is any worse than a low-fat, or even balanced, diet. I've seen several studies that show that low-carb diets are perhaps even more effective than low-fat ones, and may be easier to stick to. I know personally of several respected physicians who believe in low-carb dieting.

Above all, though, I just know from my experience that carbs mess with me. Of course, if I eat fewer calories than I burn, wherever those calories come from, I will lose weight. I've done it a dozen times. However, I also know that if I cut calories without paying attention to my carbs, I have to struggle with hunger and cravings every day.

This brings me back to the paper that I linked to at the top of this post. It's conclusion: In the short term, high-protein, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets reduce hunger and lower food intake significantly more than do high-protein, medium-carbohydrate nonketogenic diets. "Reduce hunger and lower food intake." That's exactly what I'm looking for. Trying to force myself to restrict intake while fighting desperate cravings is like hitting my head against the wall. Maybe I can get my body to help me lose weight instead of fighting me.

I'm not ready to go on a program as strict as Atkins. I'm just not a super-disciplined person and I'm not willing to give up that flexibility. But I am going to start paying more attention to my carbs. As long as I'm able to keep my daily calorie intake as low as I need to, I'm not going to worry about my carb intake too much. But when I struggle, as I so often do, I know that I now have a trick up my sleeve to make the cravings stop. I can just cut back on the refined carbs, and the cravings will go away on their own. Instead of eating refined carbs when I'm craving more food than I should eat, I'll have some more protein, or perhaps some complex carbs like old-fashioned oatmeal. Maybe I'll go two- or three-hundred calories over my limit for that day, but I know the next day will be easier. The next day I won't have the cravings, or they will at least be smaller.

Today, I'm sticking fast to my limit, for the first time in months. (I've gone slightly over every day this week, leaving me with enough deficit to lose, but not as fast as I'd like.) I can say that confidently, because I'm going to bed soon, I'm not hungry and I don't have strong cravings, and I still have a big bowl of oatmeal ahead of me. Today I'm managing because I did not substitute a fudge brownie for a sensible snack and try to cram in a 500-calorie cookie as an essential part of my lunch. I did have a small, 200-calorie candy bar, and even two beers, but the majority of my food has been balanced, healthy, and most importantly, low in refined carbs.

Now to my oatmeal. Wish me luck!

Favorite Books, Videos, Links, and Podcasts

2007-07-02T14:34:00.000-04:00

In progress...

Weightloss, General

The Hacker's Diet (site)

Nice explanation of the basics behind counting calories, along with some tips and tools.

National Weight Control Registry (site)

Most people who lose weight end up regaining it. This site focuses on those who manage to keep it off. Contains some pointers to studies of successful maintainers.

FitDay (site)

The easiest free calorie-counting site that I know of.

Strength Training

A Practical Approach To Strength Training (book)

A science-based approach in a world of pseudo-science. Perhaps the most important point it makes is that one set of each exercise is all you really need.

Stretching/Yoga

The All-Day Yoga Workout - A.M., Stress Relief, and P.M. Yoga for Beginners (DVD)

This contains three 20-minute yoga classes. Probably the best yoga DVD for beginners who know the very basics. Still one of my favorites.

Crunch - Candlelight Yoga (DVD)

Nice, relaxing routine with Sara Ivanhoe.

Psychology

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (book)
Thoughts & Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life

Despite the hokey titles, these two books are based on the science of cognitive-behavioral therapy. They both contain exercises which are remarkably helpful in combating the irrational thoughts behind depression, anxiety, procrastination, anger, and other problems.

The Ten Commandments of Weightloss (for Me)

2006-11-07T18:40:00.000-05:00

The Ten Commandments

Watch the sugar.

Record calories.

Eat often.

Eat protein.

Pace yourself.

Plan your food.

Use willpower in short bursts.

Lift weights.

Do intense cardio.

Walk daily.

The Explanation

I have issues with sugar. I may have to avoid it entirely sometimes in order to prevent bingeing.

To lose or even maintain my weight, I must record my calories at the end of the day. When I stop recording my calories, my weight increases rapidly. I can lose weight at about 2800 calories a day, assuming I exercise a lot and am consistent with my eating.

At least for now, in order to feel okay, I must eat every three hours, if not more often.

To feel okay, I must also eat a lot of protein.

If I've overeaten early, I cannot make up for it by eating less later in the day without feeling crappy. I'm not willing to feel crappy to lose a seventh of a pound. In fact, based on my experience, I'm willing to gain a seventh of a pound or more rather than feeling crappy. Whether I eat 400 calories or 700 calories for lunch or dinner, I'll be just as hungry 2.5-3 hours later.

I can most easily lose weight by planning a sensible eating schedule at the beginning of each day. Although I'm not great at sticking to it, I generally come close. Therefore, I plan to eat fewer calories than I have to in order to lose weight.

If I don't have a plan for the day, it's easy to exercise willpower for the thirty seconds it takes to commit to a healthy meal. I don't need willpower all day, just for several thirty second periods.

Weight training seems to make me lose weight and gain muscle even if I do only one set of each major exercise a few times a week.

Intense cardio appears to help more than long, slow cardio.

Even short, daily walks seem to help.

I'm Back!

2006-11-07T18:35:00.000-05:00

It's been too long. Actually, it's been just over a year.

What got me motivated again? In part, Steve Pavlina's excellent new Personal Development for Smart People Forums. I'll be posting there under the name GreatnessBlog in addition to making more frequent posts here.

On Delayed Gratification

2005-11-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

Imagine if, every day, you made all decisions based on how you would feel about them the following day. Each day in this lifestyle after the first, you would live in a world where the you of the past went out of his or her way, every day, to make you happy.

Planning and Weightloss

2005-10-01T23:56:00.000-04:00

Whether or not I plan ahead of time what and when I'm going to eat while allowing enough flexibility to keep myself from rebelling is the single most important variable in my weight-loss success. I get off track the most in the following situations: vacations and other breaks from normal life, weekends, restaurants, parties, and when the foods I'd planned on eating are unavailable.

In the future, I will have contingency plans for certain predictable situations and I will focus on creating plans on-the-fly for unexpected ones. I will also redouble my efforts to create a general plan each morning of what I'm going to eat that day.

Another benefit of planning is that it allows me to eat a greater variety of food. If I haven't planned on going out, the idea makes me nervous because I know I'll likely eat too much, but if I go out with a plan, I can enjoy myself without worry. I can also prepare new meals for myself after a little planning.

Update: 30-Day Challenges

2005-09-07T02:23:00.000-04:00

I have quit both challenges.

I feel I could have finished the first one, which was eating no sweets for 30 days. However, the benefits I was experiencing were small and I knew I wasn't going to go the rest of my life without sugar. I decided to quit after fifteen days.

The second challenge, to average 500 fewer calories per day for each week in a month, was much harder. Having overeaten early in the first week, I found it impossible to end the week with the required 3500 calorie deficit without feeling more misery than I was willing to accept. I was not willing to do what it would have taken to complete this challenge for even a single week.

I learned the same lesson I've learned many times before: rigid solutions don't work for me with regard to weight loss. I'm not willing to give up sugar forever and I'm not willing to be a slave to FitDay forever.

It seems many self-help books are written by and for people who exercise too much willpower. They are full of advice on how to relax and warnings about never eating too little (as if.) I've always been a person of sporadic willpower and ordering myself onto a strict regimen of anything has never worked. Solutions in the past have always allowed a lot of flexibility and so in the future, I will focus on flexible solutions as well.

Here is my more realistic plan. Most mornings, I will plan approximately what I will eat for that day, leaving a few hundred calories free for wiggle room. I'm going to plan for about 2600 calories, 2300 of which are spread across seven "meals" and 300 of which are allocated miscellaneous. I fully expect to go over the 2600 most days, which is why the plan is for 2600 instead of the 2800 I really need to be eating. I fully expect to have a lot of 3000-3500 calorie days and a couple 4000+ days, but I'm going to keep on truckin' and hopefully knock this excess weight down bit by bit. I will continue to record my meals and my weight in FitDay almost every day, since that's proven both effective and manageable.

The most important thing with weight loss is perseverance. I'm not giving up; I'm pushing on. If this plan doesn't work, I'll change to another. Flexibly.

New 30-Day Challenge: Calorie Deficit

2005-08-24T00:28:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling especially motivated these days, and the circumstances in my life are conducive towards releasing body fat: For the first time in a while, I'm in a low-stress environment, I have sufficient free time, I have a gym I like to go to, the weather is beautiful, and I've kicked my sugar "addiction." I'm going to try a new 30-day challenge, which will overlap with my no-sweets challenge.

Starting tomorrow morning, I will average a 500 calorie per day deficit per week for four weeks. I will hold myself accountable for each 7-day period, so for example if in the first 6 days I eat 2500 total calories fewer than I burn then on the 7th day I'll have to eat 1000 less than I burn. Since I usually have a hard time eating fewer than 2500-2800 calories on a good day and according to Fitday I burn about 3200 calories a day without exercise, if I eat significantly too much for even one day, I'm going to have to do some serious exercise to make up for it.

Weight loss has been at the top of my goals list for a long time, and I'm ready to do something about it.

This challenge will be 28 days (since it's four weeks) and end on September 20th. I hope to be about 4 pounds lighter. If I am, it seems likely that I'll decide the effort is worth it and press on.

Are my Goals Worth the Effort?

2005-08-22T23:50:00.000-04:00

The most important thing about goals is having one. --Geoffrey F. Abert

What should I do? How should I spend my time?

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately, having discovered Steve Pavlina's website and then voo2do.com, a free online task manager, yesterday. I'm convinced that setting proper goals and working towards them (without becoming too rigid) is the best way to get things done. However, I have a hard time picking goals.

Except for losing weight, my goals seem too small to be worth pursuing. I have a pretty good job, a great relationship, and a good financial position. Having a better job, an even greater relationship, or becoming wealthy don't inspire me enough to get off my ass. Steve Pavlina (I swear I'm not joining a cult) wrote an article about this called How to Get From a 7 to a 10. He claims that,

There is no 7.

What you’ll find when you leave the comfort of your 7 and go chasing after that 10 is that your 7 was never a 7. It was only a 3.

If you think you’re at a 7, you’re really at a 3 maximum. The 10 is way, way out there. You think you can see it, but your definition of a 10 is based on your experience of a 7, and you can’t even see a real 10 when you’re standing at 7. It’s beyond your ability to fathom.

It's interesting. Maybe I'm selling myself short, and I have no idea how great my job, my relationship, or my wealth* could be. From where I stand, it often seems like it's not worth the effort it would take to go from a 7 to a 10, but maybe I'd feel differently if I were there. I guess the thing to do is to run an experiment: put in the effort to raise one 7 towards a 10 and decide afterwards whether it was worth it. Or maybe the lesson is to never become content in any area of my life -- there's always not only room for improvement, but limitless room for improvement.

When I graduated college and became a professional and an "adult" at the same time, I realized the scary fact that everybody learns at that stage of life, which is that adults are just people like us. Older and more experienced, yes, but fundamentaly made of the same stuff as me. My parents, my professors, firemen who run into burning buildings -- they're all just people, and the only difference between them and me is that they'd followed a certain path which I hadn't (yet) gone down. Similarly, maybe the difference between those super-successful people everybody marvels at and the rest of us is that the super-successful don't settle for 7.

* I'm not really comfortable with the idea of being very wealthy. Compared to the third world everybody in America is fabulously wealthy, and I'd feel selfish hoarding a bunch of money. However, I could define wealth as freedom, either financial freedom or freedom to travel or the freedom to be a philanthropist. We'll see.

I Will Not Consume Sweets for 30 days

2005-08-19T01:00:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been reading the articles of Steve Pavlina. I've found these particularly informative:

Self-Discipline (series) Excellent. Start here.

Six Months of Goal-Mongering Inspiring. How Steve practices what he preaches.

The Meaning of Life (series) Not great, but interesting. I took out of it Steve's idea that since life seems to have no specific purpose that we can see, we should use a heuristic approach: specifically to evolve ourselves constantly. We might not know where we're going, but evolution is the right general direction.

30 Days to Success Simple but motivating trick: think of a change you want to make and commit to it for 30 days. Afterwards, decide if you want to keep it.

One of the major goals in my life for the past 10 years or so has been to lose weight. Another, to feel less depressed. I've had more success with the depression than the weightloss, but I know eliminating sweets would help significantly on both fronts. I've read a number of books which claim a link between depression, compulsive overeating, alcoholism*, and sugar consumption and, although to be honest, most of them have the smell of quackery, what they argue does line up pretty neatly with some of my experiences. I swore off sweets successfully once for a number of months and during that time I dropped weight easily while experiencing fewer mood swings than usual.

I've had two major problems with eliminating sweets from my diet. First, it's hard to make myself do it. Second, it seems to increase binge-behavior when I do return to sweets. I hope this 30-day trick on my brain might avoid those problems.

So: I'm starting now. One a.m. August 19th, 2005. My before picture: I've been craving and eating a lot of sweets. I've experienced a lot of fatigue. I have dark circles under my eyes. I'm thirsty all the time and have trouble staying hydrated.** I weigh XXX.*** I find it difficult to keep my calories below 3000. I haven't binged recently except for a couple of incidents wolfing down 4-5 granola bars in a ten minute period. I'm going to count granola bars as sweets because my body seems to.

August has 31 days, so my time will be up at 1 a.m. on September 18th. Until then:

I will not eat sweets. This includes normal (i.e. not sugar-free) versions of candy, cookies, cake, ice cream, frozen yogurt, beer (except light beer), fruit juice, granola bars, sweet cereals, "nutrition" bars, etc. I will be wary of foods which suddenly become exciting to me, especially if they are sort of sweet or are full of crappy carbs. (In other words, I won't binge on pretzels or lightly-sweetened cereal.)

* Thankfully, alcohol's not my poison, but it's a recurring theme in the literature.
** Although these sound like diabetes symptoms, I don't have it. I checked.
*** I have records of what I weigh. You don't need to know. :)

My Itchy Homunculus: ADD/ADHD and Compulsive Behavior

2005-07-11T17:42:00.000-04:00

In the book Delivered From Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder, Drs. Hallowell and Ratey write something interesting:

People who have ADD often don't like how they feel inside. It is difficult to say exactly what they don't like about how they feel, except to say that they feel bored, or off, or logy, or at sea.

What can begin as a mildly unpleasant feeling can escalate in seconds into a veritable crisis. They feel they must do something to change how they feel. Within moments, they are operating on a level beyond their rational control.

It is in these moments that they can make impulsive, self-destructive decisions...

What they don't understand -- and the wide world certainly does not understand -- is that these reckless acts do stem from a biological need to alter their inner state. In pain, they feel compelled to seek relief immediately. It helps if they can develop a repertoire of adaptive, healthy ways to change their inner state.

To explain better what's going on, let me ask you to consider if you think the following people have anything in common:

The type A, hard-driving workaholic who can't relax

The so-called type T, or thrill-seeking individual

The extreme-sports athlete

The compulsive consumer of erotic literature

The sex addict

The compulsive gambler

The alcoholic or the person who can't quit smoking

The person who abuses other drugs

The compulsive overeater

The rage-o-holic

People who describe themselves as having "an addictive personality"

The adult with ADD

I suggest that they all have something in common. They all have an itch they can't ever quite scratch. Their attempts to scratch may lead them to become workaholics, or to take extreme risks, or to scratch the itch with drugs, alcohol, food, sex, or gambling. There are good ways to scratch and bad. (59-60.)

I don't know if I have ADD, but I know exactly what they mean by the "itch." Sometimes when I've been sitting in one spot for a while, or when I'm in a meeting, or when I'm trying to focus on a programming problem for more than an hour or so, or even if I'm home alone on a Sunday without any plans, there's a part of my brain that starts screaming, "Feed me! Feed me!" So, I go fire up a web browser or pull out a book and start rapidly downloading information to my brain. This usually works for a few hours, but then the voice gets worse: "More! More! More! Faster! Faster! Faster!" I can sate it for a while longer with online lightning chess or superfast tetris, but eventually, I need to start pulling out the heavy weapons: chocolate chip cookies. So far, a box of chocolate chip cookies has always done the trick. I sink into that food coma where my belly hurts and I feel... wonderful.

This technique of using increasingly heavy weapons of stimulation on the itchy little man in my brain has drawbacks, of course. It might seem like a good thing to be constantly driven to take in more and more data, but compulsive net-surfing and rushing through books aren't the best ways to learn. They are, however, great ways to procrastinate. And cookies obviously bring their own problems.

Being in the compulsive state in general isn't any good either. When I'm in this state -- when I'm scratching furiously at the itch -- I'm hardly breathing. I tense up and read, read, read, or play, play, play, or eat, eat, eat. I've had pain in my forearms and tingling in my hands for years which comes when I'm tense and goes away when I'm relaxed. Also, it's hard to focus on something complicated -- work, for example -- when you're cramming as much data/food into yourself as you can.

So what do the good doctors recommend? How can we scratch our itch without damaging ourselves or working against our own plans?

The best way to scratch the itch is to engage in some kind of creative activity. Play...

Connect with the discomfort you are feeling -- the itch -- and try to let it guide you to a place where you can transform it -- i.e., scratch it -- through creative activity...

[You] must make a plan, set up structures, and develop habits. At the top of the list for us adults who have ADD is to marry the right person and find the right job. Put ourselves in situations where our creativity can be valued and expressed. Avoid situations in which we will be tempted to swerve toward near-addictions or full addictions. Stay away from people who instill fear through ridicule.

And, above all, cultivate connections in which our best selves can emerge. Cultivate creative outlets -- with people, with activities, with pieces of music or periods of meditation -- that are always available to us, so that when we feel the itch, we have adaptive alternatives to the maladaptive patterns that can ruin our lives...

[W]hen you feel the itch you should try to bear with the pain, instead of suppressing it, and allow it to lead you through a labyrinth. The labyrinth may be a conversation that started with your feeling bored (a sure harbinger of the itch!). Instead of gulping down your drink to alleviate the boredom, you speak to the person attentively. You allow the creative process to lead you into the unknown territory called spontaneous conversation. Being who you are, if you stay at it, the chances are good that what began as a boring conversation will turn into an interesting one. The itch will be transformed into pleasure. Your creativity will have done the scratching. (64-65.)

They go on to list a couple of other methods of scratching: exercise, meditation, and prayer.

I think they're really on to something here. Too often I try to scratch that itch in all the wrong ways. Whenever I step back, take a deep breath, slow down, relax, and focus on what the little guy is telling me, my itchy little homunculus goes from psychopathic stimulation addict to wise teacher.

Sometimes, I need to go into a room, close the door, turn off everything that has a screen or speakers, close everything with words, and basically refuse to feed the itch for an hour or so. Eventually, it settles down, and I go back to normal human being.

Action items:

Work scheduled meditation times into my workday.
Learn to recognize the itch. When I start to feel it, I'll refrain from feeding it compulsively, let it settle down, and constructively channel it towards something creative like work, studying, or conversation.

Think about ways to ensure that I avoid compulsive behavior.

Perhaps a timer which beeps every 15-30 minutes. When it beeps, I decide whether what I'm doing at that moment is compulsive or useful.
I'll probably feel more relaxed at the end of the day if I've been resisting the maladaptive itching patterns. If I'm too tense when I leave work, I'll know I need to re-visit the issue.

Introduction

2005-07-09T16:19:00.000-04:00

A few years ago, a friend and I started getting interested in methods of taking charge of life. We were losing weight at the time and wanted to transfer our methods of success from that domain to the rest of our lives. Jokingly, we came up with the goal to create The Ultimate Plan of Greatness, which would encompass everything necessary in order to make all aspects of our life Great.

Anyway, life happened. I gained back all of the weight I lost and then some and dropped a lot of the good habits I'd aquired. One of the reasons is that it's so easy for me to lose track of what I'm doing. Say I'm trying to bring your lunch to work every day instead of paying more for less healthy food at the cafeteria. I can do great for six months and then miss one day because of a crisis and another for travel, and before I know it, I've forgotten about my habit and I'm eating 2$ slices of lukewarm pizza every day.

I hope that this blog will be a tool for me to keep track of my goals and to be a repository of information that I've found useful. It'd be great if I could help other people while I'm at it, and of course I'd love it if they could help me by commenting.

Here are the basic categories of my goals and some sub-goals, unordered:

Health & Fitness

Weighing 160-170 lbs.
Being injury- and pain-free.
Dunking a basketball (a "reach" goal if there ever was one.)

Career

Meeting my current goals at work.
Grad school?
Doing good.

Primary Relationship

Planning dates with my gf.
Working on issues as they arise.

Mental Health

Not being overly stressed.
Not being sad too often.
Not being lethargic too often.

Financial

Save/invest x$ per month.

Social

Create new friendships.
Maintain old ones.
Join clubs.

Reading

x books per month/year.

Get some more hobbies.

Martial-arts?

See social.
Stretching my boundaries.

Dancing?

Miscellaneous Personal Growth

Educational reading.

Meta (goals which will help me acheive the other goals)

Blog regularly.
Use my time wisely.

Limit net surfing, tv.

Be organized.
Keep things as simple as possible.
Translate goals and subgoals into habits, schedules, and routines.