Eating well for health

Although I want this blog to be open to almost any aspect of human life, I do want to discuss weight loss a little more.

As I mentioned in my opening letter, weight gain(always do to over eating) is mostly caused by psychological factors. Understanding the issues that cause overeating for each individual will help in applying the modifications needed to loose weight. That doesn't mean that knowing will automatically take weight off. That is the problem with those who try to say that there is not a psychological cause of obesity. They look at people who are in therapy, who are dealing with their problems, but are not loosing weight. So, we need to go on to the modifications that are needed.

Increased exercise is important, and I will discuss that at a later time. Right now I want to get into diets.

There are hundreds of diet out there. Some work, some don't. The real problem is that a diet is thought of as a temporary fix for a permanent problem. What I am trying to say is that diet means what you eat, not just what you eat when you are watching yourself. We need to find a way of eating that is healthy and permanent. That will leave out the single product fad diets. A permanent diet will most likely also leave out the diets that send you food, because it is unlikely that you are going to keep that up for life. So what does that leave? It leaves a discussion on what is healthy eating.

All foods are made up of Proteins, Fats and Carbohydrates, plus vitamins and minerals. We are made up of the same things. The only question is how much should we eat and what is the make up of our foods.

Proteins : the main building blocks of our bodies. Although there can be problems with too much protein if a person has a damaged liver or kidney function and with people with gout, rarely is too much protein a problem.

Fats : the second of the building blocks of our body and energy storage. Rarely do dietitians note the importance of fat as a building block. They mention the essential fatty acids, linoleic and linolenic acid, they mention in passing the need for body function but they still push that fat is mainly for energy. Every cell membrane is made up of fat and protein. Fat is essential for health.

Carbohydrates : Although carbohydrates also have a building block function, it is minimal compared with proteins and fats. Carbohydrates are the major source of energy. Therefore the quantity of carbohydrates is very dependant on the activity of an individual and their need to lose or gain weight. Despite all the modern conveniences that have been created in the industrialized world, there has been no decrease in the recommendation that 40% to 60% of calories that are taken in should come from carbohydrates. This may be fine for an athlete but it is not for the average person. This is the reason so many people have done well in losing weight with "Dr. Atkins'" and "The South Beach" diets. They are both low carbohydrate diets. Actually, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of carbohydrates in our diets for about 10,000 years. Man was initially a "lean, mean, fighting machine". Our diet was meat, fruits and roots. Then came civilization with farming and the milling of grain. The beginning of processed carbohydrates.

In order to loose weight we need to cut our carbohydrate intake. It is impossible to go to zero carbohydrates because they are present in all foods, and besides the brain only burns carbohydrates. That doesn't mean that we can't realistically remove the excess carbs from our diets. This will help us loose weight and cure about 90% of the type II diabetes, which costs this country hundreds of billions of dollars and kills and maims millions of people.

Besides stopping sugars, stop eating the soft carbohydrates: Pasta, Rice, Corn, Bread and baked goods, and Potatoes.

In order to understand how a low carbohydrate diet will cure type II diabetes you first have to understand that eating soft carbohydrates is really worse than eating straight sugar. These soft starches (carbohydrates) break down into sugar and are absorbed into the body as sugar. Where as no one is going to eat a bowl of sugar we all have sat down to a meal of a bowl of pasta at one time or another.

Type II diabetes is not due to a lack of insulin. In fact, type II diabetics have too much insulin. For years the endocrinologists have thought that the problem is that the insulin doesn't work well with certain individuals and they become type II diabetics. This has been found to be convoluted thinking. When the body takes in too much soft carbohydrates and therefore a surge of sugar the pancreas pumps out more than enough insulin to cover the sugar. That does two things. First the person becomes hungry, and second there is damage to the arterioles of the kidneys which tends to lead to hypertension.

This is why type II diabetics are over weight. It is also why the traditional medical care for a type II diabetic is counterproductive. The more insulin, the more weight gain with type II diabetics. The way to really care for a type II diabetic is with a 20% carbohydrate diet and exercise, till weight and insulin output are controlled.

OBESITY AND THE HUMAN PSYCHE

By: Ira J. Kasper M.D.
INTRODUCTION
Is obesity caused by genetics? There are many that would have you believe it. In reality that is junk science.
How can I say that? Well to start with, we have the scientific law of thermodynamics called the conservation of energy and matter. In terms of our bodies, this simply states that the calories in minus the calories used in daily function will either equal to an addition or a subtraction of weight. This is a fact that can’t be refuted or changed. The next problem is that people try to believe that there is a difference in metabolism to perform the same work. Here I use the term work as in physics. There are small differences in metabolic rate between individuals but since the body temperature of all humans when in a healthy state is approximately 98.6 +/- 2 degrees at most then the difference in efficiency and metabolism is not greater than 5%. That is certainly not enough to determine the differences in weight found. There is a small difference in absorption of food from one individual to another. This too is most likely secondary to increased consumption.
The differences are due to the formula INTAKE – OUTPUT=+/-. There have been studies carried out which show that it requires a considerable increase in intake to keep newly acquired weight. It isn’t as easy to gain weight as we have been led to believe. We all know that it isn’t easy to lose weight. The body has a homeostatic mechanism that attempts to keep all parameters relatively stable.
The difference between the output from one individual to another is important, but the real difference lies in the intake side of the equation. If that is true, then what is the cause of people eating themselves to obesity? The geneticists look at changes in lipid metabolism in obese verses thin people and try to find a genetic cause. These scientists are confusing the cause with the effect. Every attempt at looking at genes, which cause obesity in animal models, has shown no correlation in humans.
Obesity is secondary to emotional problems! Let me try to explain as simply as possible. Every child that has survived infancy has been held in someone’s arms thousands of times as their stomach went from empty to full. This has created, by classical conditioning, a strong connection between the act of filling the stomach and a feeling of warmth, security, being loved, and all the warm fuzzies you could imagine.
This connection will slowly loosen as children grow in a secure environment and are able to take and invest the inner security that they have gained during their infancy in further development. The connection never totally disappears and that is the reason that all festivals, cultural and social events are wrapped around food so as to bring out the warmth and feelings of security and love that are intricately involved in the act of eating.
On the other hand, if children are brought up in a less than secure environment, the children are afraid to invest much of their inner security and retain a strong connection between the act of eating and those feelings. Therefore they have a tendency to eat when they are lonely, depressed and bored. They try to fill an empty feeling with food but never feel satisfied because it isn’t food that they hunger for.
ECONOMICS 101 OF DEVELOPMENT
Security can be thought to be analogous to money. Parents invest time with their children during infancy and from this the children develop a sense of security. These are the investments that are made and the dividends they bring. When a child is held and fed, he not only develops a relationship between the act of eating and a feeling of well being, security and love, but it also helps develop the child’s inner security. As they grow they invest their inner security. When children succeed and are praised, they again receive profit and dividends on their investment. The more effort they feel that they have put into an activity the greater the return on the investment. If a child doesn’t study for an exam and passes he gains little, whereas if he fails, he has lost nothing. If a child studies and does well he increases his inner security. If he fails then he has lost some of his inner security. This actually explains why a child, with all the curiosity that children have, might not want to study for a test. If a child has little inner security then he fears loss and is afraid to invest in his studies. If a child has a great deal of inner security, then it is easy to make the investments that lead to success. It’s the same as with wealth. A poor person has a greater difficulty making an investment than a rich one. For a poor person to invest ten thousand dollars is frightening, but for a rich person it is easy. It’s not the schools that are failing but the destruction of family life which is sending children to school without enough inner security to succeed.

THE FAMILY OF MAN
What is so important about family? What is family? Actually family is a pre-man institution which was necessary for the development of man. If one thousand children were placed in a jungle none of them would survive. If one thousand young of any other animal were placed in the jungle some of them would survive. In order to survive human infants need to be taught. We have few instincts (sucking is one). Therefore for man to survive as a race, we needed family. Family led to tribe; tribe to village; village to town; city; nation and our whole civilization. In fact the only reason we have a civilization is to teach children. About fifty thousand years ago we developed marriage as the smallest unit of our civilization needed to help a child have the security need to develop to its fullest. The smallest unit is that of a father and a mother so that a child can develop both masculine and feminine sides of it personality and develop a feel for the relationship between the opposite sexes.
This brings us to the issue of homosexual marriages. The concept is the antithesis of the reason for marriage. If two adults wish to live together for a lifetime there is nothing standing in their way. It doesn’t matter if it is a man and a woman, two men or two woman or even multiples there of. You don’t need marriage for two adults to love each other; you don’t need marriage for comfort; you don’t even need marriage to procreate. You do need marriage to form a stable (legally and culturally) relationship in which society, the state, religion and culture have some modicum of say in keeping the two adults together in order to protect those (the children) who are unable to protect themselves.
There are those who will be quick to point out that it’s not working. I don’t disagree! I find it shocking to see judges rule for “fairness” when dealing with a couple that wants a divorce instead of ruling in favor of the children and let the adults grow up and take care of their own problems. If a couple has no children then a divorce should be simple. On the other hand if there are children involved no divorce should be allowed without some family counseling.
THE PARTS WE PLAY
What part does each parent play in the development of the child? Mother represents hearth and home. Father represents society and G-d. Let’s try to explain. The mother represents hearth and home. With this is the central development of security. The child starts in a secure environment. Normally the child is in a small closed area; held in someone’s arms when fed. As the child grows he is taken out of his closed and secure area. The new environment is both stimulating and frightening. The world starts to expand and the child starts to feel smaller. The father represents society and G-d. As the child’s world expands there is a fear of the unknown or more precisely the fear of dissolution of self. A close relationship with a father image helps alleviate some of these fears. The father goes out into the world and returns each day. This help relieve some of the fears that the child has of loss, just as playing peak-a-boo does when the child is still an infant. The child has a deep-seated belief that the father can protect him as he expands his environment. This feeling is central to the child’s growing sense of self-assuredness. It isn’t until the child has become an adult, and often only after parenthood, that the realization the father was never really able to protect the child becomes understood. It’s like the military. Any major officer knows that the need for military action means that the first job of the military has failed. The first job of the military is to be strong enough to prevent war and therefore allow diplomatic pressure to work.
Does this mean that every one whose father doesn’t fulfill his needs will be obese or that absolutely everyone who is obese had a father that didn’t fulfill his needs? No! Obesity is only one of many possible directions that can be taken. Some develop a need for acceptance that leads to gangs and anti-social and criminal behavior. Some are lead to alcohol and drugs. Some who were abused become abusers. Some take on a religiosity so as to replace father, who failed, with G-d who can’t be tested. Some women become sexually active at an early age looking for a father image. Often there is a combination of several of these as well as other attempts to compensate for a lack of secure development. And of course the mother has a significant part in the development of a child’s sense of security and self worth. In fact the relationship between the mother and child is so strong that when it is lacking almost any personality deficit is possible. I have also occasionally found that there are some people with language difficulties undiscovered or just untreated that due to the frustration of living in a human culture of communication have ended up obese. There are other possible causes that leave emotional scars, which create an insecurity that can lead to obesity.
IMMATURE IDEATION
It must be understood that this discussion is beyond the concepts of blame and fault or fairness. If one were to critically study the childhood of the parents who don’t give their children the inner security needed to develop you would have more pity for them than blame. The lack of care is passed on from one generation to the next with some, but little, improvement. Other than the few true psychopaths, people who hurt other people are either hurt people themselves or don’t realize the damage they are doing to others. Fairness is a child’s word. The world is not fair nor is it meant to be. In order for the world to be fair it must be fair to all. The world would need to be perfect to be fair to all and that would take away all challenge. Man cannot exist without challenge. When fair is discussed it is always about a single specific. Well, just as no one person can be the best at everything we must accept that in some things we will get less than others will. Life is a challenge!
CHILD CARE
There are two different ways of looking at the word “caring”. There is the small lettered “caring” which implies taking care of immediate needs, like food clothing shelter and comfort. Then there is the capitol lettered “CARING” which implies looking ahead to the future needs as well as the present needs of a child. Under “CARING” we have to consider the life plans that are made. The simplest, are children conceived out of wedlock or within a stable family structure? Are the children conceived for the greater joy of helping a child grow and flower or for the needs of pure animal lust without precautions or for the immature needs of adult/children for love?
How many children can two loving parents take care of? That question requires an understanding of financial as well as emotional needs. When trying to figure out the causes of obesity in my patients we discuss their childhood. One of my patients seemed to have no sign of parental lack of involvement or caring. On reviewing her history with her I found that when she was in her pre-teen years her father, trying to be a good father moved his family out of the ghetto. This sounds like a great idea, but it required him to work seven days a week 12 hours a day to pay for the lifestyle he wanted for his family. They got the lifestyle at the expense of his emotional input at an important point in his daughter growth. Parents can fail despite the best of intentions. There is a financial demand that needs to be met without the loss of emotional commitment. That demand has been growing steadily over the years.
How many children can two people really “CARE” for? I have come to conclude that the maximum number of children that two parents can truly care for is four. Why only four children? Well, in every life trauma occurs. Two parents have only four arms and when there is trauma in and around the family structure each child needs to be held. If a child is left out for a few second, because he is the oldest and will understand, or because he is the youngest and doesn’t understand etc. then that child is rejected. Not because the parents don’t care but because they didn’t “CARE”, think about a child’s needs. Years of therapy will never completely make up for the seconds of rejection. I was asked by a patient what happens if a parent loses an arm; my answer is “that’s life”. No guarantees in life, we just have to try our best. Like all aspects of life, this is for thought, not to discourage people with larger families. That is the key; we can’t change the past and we can’t forget the past; we can remember the past and alter the future. Perfection is not a place but a direction, like north. We will never get there but our job is to try. I’ll give you a small hint in child rearing; when a child asks for something try to think if it will be good for the child’s children rather than for the child. Look at the future results not the immediate satisfaction.
WINNING REQUIRES UNDERSTANDING
So, why bother knowing the emotional causes of obesity? We have medication that prevents hunger. Oh yes! All of the medications used to prevent or suppress hunger are based on antidepressants. In other words they help cover the inner feeling of emptiness that makes people feel hungry instead of dealing with the problems that have created the feelings in the first place. Therefore the medication only works for a short time. Eventually the emotions overcome the medication. Well, how about surgery? The surgery is a tool, not magic. All tools require two things. The first is education. Just because you may be sitting in the pilot seat of a jumbo jet doesn’t mean that you’re going to get off the ground with out training. On the other hand, just because you know how to put a nail in a wall and hang a picture or even build a house, it doesn’t mean that your not going to hit someone in the head with the hammer. That is not a question of education but rather of “insight”. “Insight” means accepting what is going on in your head and trying to heal rather then cover over the causes of pain and insecurity. Therefore before giving a person a tool; a hammer, a gun or a gastroplasty, we need to be sure that the person will be able to handle the tool properly. If a person had the insight before being seen for obesity they wouldn’t be obese to start. Therefore it becomes necessary to discuss a patient’s history try to help the patient grasp the connection with their overeating. Even after the patient understands, sometimes it is hard to get them to work on healing. In order to heal you have to start to see human wants and fears and relate it back to the specific needs.
THE NEED TO LIVE, THE NEED TO LOVE
What are our “real wants”? All of us, deep down, want the same things. We want a secure relationship with someone who we feel is an equal. This ratifies our existence. This confirms our sense of worth and security.
Of course if the party is an equal we become insecure because we lack trust. If we don’t feel that the party is an equal then the relationship is not fulfilling. After a relationship we want to be able to prove ourselves by giving. Again on the surface this sounds simple. The problem is that we want to be able to give without feeling that we are being used or manipulated. To give, but not to be taken. Again we are confronted by our primary fears, of rejection and loss of self.
How to have a relationship without fear of rejection? Well, that is what our fantasies are for, to relieve stress by showing us a relationship without fear of rejection. But fantasies are never fulfilling because we create and therefore are not with an equal. What about reality? Today we have a divorce rate of over 50%. People again either come together with their equals but are unable to be completely honest in their relationship because of fear of rejection or come together with others who are not, in their minds, their equals and can’t feel fulfilled. If the latter then they are forever searching for a partner that they feel is their equal. If the former then they search for someone that they can trust, but that is usually someone who is not an equal because then there is less fear and more like a fantasy. If these fears and insecurities are strong it can lead to extremes such as rape and pedophilia. In other words not a relationship but rather a fantasy of power. It must be remembered that no one will enter into a relationship that makes him or her uncomfortable.
Why do thin men marry obese women? We pick a partner from a group that tends to relieve some of our fears. Often men who are afraid of being left will pick a women from a group that they feel will not leave them. A woman that they feel is less likely to be wanted by other men. This doesn’t mean there is less love. It only reminds us of the deep thought that exists below feelings. Feelings come from one side of the brain and thought comes from the other. They are connected and we are both.

ROMANCE
No two people are equal at everything. What a bore to go out with yourself. Therefore we look for a partner whose weaknesses we can strengthen and who can strengthen ours. We look to mesh our weaknesses and strengths. A meshing of neurosis. For a long time I saw this as a major flaw in our society. People meet; fall in love; marry; and fall out of love as they mature and change. They grow and their weaknesses and strengths change. That which meshed to form a whole no longer meshes. I looked at societies that had arranged marriages and saw a system where two people of similar backgrounds, ethics and cultural understanding are brought together, marry and then fall in love as they spend time together and create a life together. It seemed to me to be a better system and since there are fewer divorces in those societies it appeared to be the better way. I was wrong. Our culture of romance and marriage is of course more difficult and has greater risks of failure but it also has an opportunity of a greater gain.
As two people mature in their separate ways they have the opportunity to not only grow apart but to grow together as well. This creates times of separation and rebirth of feelings of love. We are granted through love the chance to live on the edge. The excitement doesn’t have to leave. We need to learn to grow without fear, to accept change in ourselves as well as in our mate and progeny with an open awareness. Open to knowledge and understanding that reminds us of our obligation to help move in the direction of perfection with the understanding that as human beings we will sometimes take a wrong step or a poor choice but as long as we live we can try to correct our errors.
THE PREVENTION OF SUCCESS
What really keeps us from being successful in our relationships? If two parties come together and want the same thing in a relationship it should be easy, right? The problem is that the two parties come with baggage left over by four other people. Each parent has left an imprint of his own fears and insecurities. We look to decrease the stress of living with those fears. So we look for a “soul-mate” who appears to soften the sharp edges of our universe. Someone who fits his/her psychological mountains and valleys to ours. But the fit is never perfect. And then come maturation and growth. We grow with time and experience similarly to the shape of an onion. We don’t change our inner child, we put layers of pseudo selves over him/her to protect from fear and pain. Often we end up with a situation where the outer persona is so radically different from the inner, that there are “stress fractures” in the personality. If these are severe enough then therapy is needed. If it is not so severe that we recognize the need for therapy, we often have difficulty in our relationships because we are looking for other people to plug the gaps that we need to learn to do ourselves.

HUMOR
What is comedy? What brings laughter to our souls, and a smile to our lips? And why would I be asking this? Let’s leave the last question till later. Let’s see what the dictionary says about comedy. “Comedy - a drama of light and amusing character and typically with a happy ending; a ludicrous or farcical event or series of events”. This at least to me, says nothing. Let’s try ludicrous and farcical. “Ludicrous – amusing or laughable through obvious absurdity, incongruity, exaggeration, or eccentricity; meriting derisive laughter or scorn as absurdly inept, false, or foolish”. “Foolish – marked by or proceeding from folly; absurd”. “Farce – alight dramatic composition marked by broadly satirical comedy and improbable plot; to make more acceptable (as a literary work) by padding or spicing.” Well this is a beginning. Let’s try looking up “amuse”. “Amuse – to divert the attention so as to deceive; to occupy the attention of; distract; to appeal to the sense of humor”. “Humor – that quality that appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous; the mental faculty of discovering, expressing or appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous”. “Absurd – ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous; having no rational or orderly relationship to man’s life; the state or condition in which man exists in an irrational and meaningless universe and in which man’s life has no meaning outside his own existence.” I know that none of this elucidates what makes us laugh, but it may help later on.
What tickles our funny bone is someone else’s tragedy. Look at the simplest of comedy, the slapstick comedy. We laugh at someone falling; someone being hit; something falling on someone; someone caught up in a situation with no possibility of being saved by his own hand; someone being embarrassed. We laugh at someone’s tragedy because “it’s not me!” More sophisticated comedy is no different but weaves a larger picture and story as well as greater depth of character so that the pain we feel for the other person is more intense or less intense with or without compassion depending on the desires of the artist. The greatest comedians are those who are able to laugh at themselves and let the audience laugh along. In this country the Black and Jewish comedians have been the greatest because they are often people who have learned to survive by laughing at situations that hurt. Now let’s try to look at the definitions from “Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary” in this context of comedy. I will try to define comedy with the definitions we have found. “COMEDY - a light drama to divert attention with no real relationship to a man’s life and a happy ending; a light drama that diverts attention from the fact that man exists in an irrational and meaningless universe and in which a man’s life has no meaning outside his own existence and a happy ending.” I know that this is a little hard to take.
And why would I ask about comedy? Because WAR and COMEDY are the same. No war can be fought without the support of the people at home. The United States learned that in Vietnam. The politicians forgot to keep the people stirred up and the media started to show the pain too close. A man slipping on a banana peel may be funny, but not if it’s your brother and you see the pain up close and have to take care of him after. War is like comedy, it feels good if they keep the pain from getting too close. Both comedy and war exist for the same emotional reasons. They both divert attention from the fear we each have of looking within ourselves and finding no meaning in a universe that tends to be meaningless.
Some people look for meaning in life after death. They create religions that feed on the utter simplicity of faith without meaning. Believe! Don’t question! Happiness comes from total faith! If you question then you will not enter into paradise, therefore ignorance is bliss! It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you believe! This world is not important! Only the next world is important! How ridiculous can people be. There may or may not be an existence after death but it is certainly not life as we know it. Whether there is or is not doesn’t change the fact that the only thing that gives meaning to life is posterity. We are connected to the past and the future. Our job as human beings is to improve the world for future generations. If there is a G-d then we are partners in creation. Surely an omnipotent G-d could have created a perfect world. Since this is not a perfect world there must be a logical reason. The only logical reason is to give Man the opportunity to work creatively to perfect it. If there is no G-d, then the future of mankind is the only meaning to our lives and the value of each individual is based on what they add to the future.
War is a diversion, a joke, a very bad joke. There are no dirtier jokes than wars fought for religions. I don’t mean for the freedom to practice religion but rather those fought to force other people to follow a religion against their will. If one believes in a monotheistic world then it is apparent that we are all G-d’s children and if one is on the wrong road, killing is not the way to get us on the right road.