As part of my dieting hobby, I visit many different websites here on the internet,
and sometimes I post comments on different forums and other blogs.
Today, I've decided to post a copy of some dialogue from one of these forums,
consisting of another member's unusual comments, and my responses to them.

This member and I have been corresponding for more than 4 years, and we have developed a rather close relationship. She is an educated person who is quite religious. Although her desire and efforts for weight-loss have been ongoing, she has been consistently unwilling to work toward exercising conscious control over the amounts of food that she eats, and has been unsuccessful with her dieting attempts throughout that time period.

Quote from a forum member:: 

"Portion Control is Evil"

My Response:

I challenge this offensive, incorrect, and illogical statement.
Just because we dislike something doesn't mean we get to redefine it.

Portion Control is simply using the brain that God has given you,
to work toward eating the correct amount of food for the body he has given you.
Portion Control simply means = eating less food.
How Much Less? That depends on WHAT you are choosing to eat.
The goal is to take in the same amount of energy as your body, at it's healthiest, uses.

If we are talking in terms of Good vs. Evil,
Portion Control must be Good,
BECAUSE
it is the opposite of the "evil" behavior: "Gluttony",
which Christianity (and many other Religions) define as sinful, bad, "evil".
If Gluttony equals bad; then Portion Control equals good.
Therefore, Portion Control is Godly Behavior.

Avoiding obesity requires limiting your food intake...
no matter what method you use to do this will always involve some form of portion control.
The concept of "free will" means that we can choose NOT to use our brain
to help us eat less food,
However, an attempt to redefine "good" as "evil" is Foolishness.

Quote from a forum member:

Gluttony used to mean eating before the time to eat,
according to a book on medieval eating that I bought.
Webster's online dictionary now says "an excess in eating or drinking."

Why, then, would there be a Shrove Tuesday or a Twelve Days of Christmas
when people were expected to and encouraged to eat more than they required?

I think our society may have changed the meaning of the word, with disasterous results.

Think about this:
What if portion control really is a new concept
and really is the cause of the obesity epidemic?

My Response:

The term "Portion Control" is merely a modern term for an ancient concept.
The term is commonly used to indicate "eating less".

..........Question: What is a "portion" of food?
..........Answer: It is an amount of food.

..........Question: What is "control"?
..........Answer: It is to exercise restraint or direction over, to command,
.........................to hold in check, to regulate, to curb.

I, personally, choose not to think of eating in terms of “good” and “evil”.
However, in support of my above-post, it is easy to see
that the definition of Gluttony has been fairly consistent for thousands of years.

Regarding the past definition of “Gluttony”, even a brief review of the Bible
makes it clear that in ancient, biblical times, “gluttony” meant overeating to excess,
and a “glutton” was often equated with a “drunkard …
which shows that they were considered to be similar behaviors.

The English word, "Gluttony", was derived from the Latin gluttire meaning to gulp down or swallow,
It means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or wealth items
to the point of extravagance or waste.

In some Christian denominations, Gluttony is considered one of the seven deadly sins
and it is specifically defined as - a misplaced desire of food…
... eating more than needed, eating more than one’s share.

The word "Greed" is defined as a selfish and excessive desire
for more of something (like food or money) than is needed,
A "Glutton" is "Greedy", and both of these words are often used to define similar behavior.

Deuteronomy 21:20 says:
”And they shall say unto the elders of his city,
This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice;
he is a glutton, and a drunkard.”

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns,
“Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat,
for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.”

Proverbs 28:7 declares,
“He who keeps the law is a discerning son,
but a companion of gluttons disgraces his father.”

Proverbs 23:2 proclaims,
“Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.”

Biblical New Testament Scripture tells Christian believers
that they are not to let their appetites control them,
but they are to have control over their appetites.
(See Deuteronomy 21:20, Proverbs 23:2, 2 Peter 1:5-7,
2 Timothy 3:1-9, and 2 Corinthians 10:5.)

The ability to say “no” to anything in excess—self-control—
- is one of the fruits of the Spirit common to all believers
(Galatians 5:22).


It seems clear that IF one chooses to think of eating in terms of “good” and “evil”,
that eating less = i.e. portion control is “good”, and overeating is “evil”.

The establishment of various historical customs which appear to encourage overeating, don't change the definition of Gluttony.

Quote:

The Origins of Shrove Tuesday Shrove Tuesday originated during the Middle Ages. As in contemporary times, food items like meats, fats, eggs, milk, and fish were regarded as restricted during Lent. To keep such food from being wasted, many families would have big feasts on Shrove Tuesday in order to consume those items that would inevitably become spoiled during the next forty days. The English tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday came about as a way to use as much milk, fats, and eggs as possible before Ash Wednesday began. In France, the consumption of all fats and fatty foods on this day coined the name "Fat Tuesday" or Mardi Gras.

Quote:

The origin of the Twelve Days of Christmas is complicated, which is related to differences in church traditions, and different cultures observe this tradition in a variety of ways. By the 16th century, European and Scandinavian cultures had combined the Twelve Days of Christmas with (sometimes pagan) festivals celebrating the changing of the year. These were usually associated with driving away evil spirits for the start of the new year. Over the centuries, differing Christian denominations have had different customs involving the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are currently celebrated in widely differing ways.

A “health expert” says:
              “Don’t listen to health experts.”

You are the One
                  by Frank Forencich

Hi! I’m a health expert and I’m going to tell you how to live.

I’m going to tell you how to exercise, what to eat and when to eat it. I’m going to tell you how to succeed in athletic training and how to avoid injury. I’m going to tell you how much water to drink and how much sleep you need to get. I’m going to tell you what supplements to take and what products to buy. And since stress is such an important part of health, I’m even going to tell you what to think about your life and your world.

But what makes me such an omniscient health expert? Well, maybe I’ve read a big stack of books and/or I have a bunch of letters after my name and/or I’ve won some big athletic competitions and/or I have some testimonials from some really famous clients and/or I have a really hot bod and/or I’m just a good talker.

In any case, I’m claiming to know what’s good for your body and your life which, if you think about it, is a truly preposterous claim. After all, I don’t know you and I haven’t done any assessments of your body, your genes or your life. I don’t know your personality, your history or your life goals. I don’t know your biomechanical profile or your biochemistry. And even if I did know all of these things, it would be a outrageous leap to suggest that I could integrate all of that knowledge into a concrete, practical, personalized prescription for a healthy life.
So, why should you listen to me?

Well, perhaps you shouldn’t be listening to health experts at all. Maybe, just maybe, health experts are part of our problem. After all, health experts have been proliferating over the last several decades at just about the same rate as epidemic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, depression and heart disease. If health experts were the solution, we’d all be fit and happy. But we’re not.

In fact, we might even go so far to say that the proliferation of health information, advice and expertise is actually having a negative, disempowering effect on the very people it is supposed to be helping. Intimidated by the apparent complexity of health, fitness, nutrition and training, we balk. Afraid to take matters into our own hands, we give our innate intelligence over to others. Afraid to move our bodies, we hire personal trainers to hold the clipboard and count our reps. Afraid to make our own food choices, we hire nutritionists to tell us what to eat. At every decision point in the modern world, we come to a grinding halt, unwilling to take a chance with our own judgment. Awash in information, study becomes a substitute for authentic action.

Now maybe I’m writing myself out of a job here, but I’m trying to make an important point, which is: You are the ultimate authority on your health and your life. No one knows your body as well as you do. No one knows your life story as well as you do. No one knows your predicament, your stress profile, your passions or your dreams. Your nervous system knows millions of times more about your body than any trainer, physician or computer ever will.

Experts are nice if you’ve got them handy, but they can never be more than advisors. They have experience, knowledge and occasionally well-informed opinions, but ultimately, they’re just as flawed as you and me. They can offer some insight, direct our attention towards better habits and attitudes, but they can never be a substitute for authentic personal risk and engagement.

You are an animal, a fully-capable bipedal primate. Animals just like you have been taking health into their own hands and paws for millions of years. Given half a chance and a decent environment, any self-respecting mammal will find a way to express their vitality, vigor and exuberance. We are wired for beautiful movement. Health is who we are.

So take a chance. Take whatever health knowledge you’ve got and put it into practice.
Be your own scholar, your own expert, your own coach.

Frank Forencich is a columnist in Paleo magizine. He earned a B.A. at Stanford University in human biology and neuroscience, and has been teaching martial art and health education for 30 years.

What is hunger?

We grow up thinking that hunger is our body’s way of telling us that we need food, but that isn’t usually the case for most of us. Very few of us are so fit, or have so little body fat, or are so active that our bodies start calling for energy if we miss lunch.

We feel hunger when we haven’t eaten for a while. We may feel hunger if the food looks good; or if we are in a social situation in which eating is going on; or because we think it’s time to eat.

We tend to identify a feeling that comes along with eating behavior as the cause of the behavior. But “hungry” only means we are in a situation in which we are used to eating. It doesn’t mean that feeling hungry will make us eat, or, more important, that we have to eat.

 Hunger is a sign that we are used to eating in a particular time or situation. We are not required to answer the signal.

Some of us are familiar with the statement: “We eat too much because we are fat.” Currently, there’s a strong tendency to think of hunger in terms of hormones, emphasizing the body regulates hunger like it regulates body temperature. While there is truth in this concept, thinking like this can lead to confusion because … ultimately, Behavior trumps hormones. The hormonal causation analogy isn’t really all that helpful, because we humans don’t regulate our temperature merely by hormonally means. Our major control of the body’s temperature is behavioral. We put on clothes, and we hide in caves.

It has become popular to focus on an error in the statement: “a calorie is a calorie.” A critique of the energy balance model is: 

             dietary carbohydrate = insulin = +other hormones = increased appetite = greater consumption.

This explanation is limited because it mixes up metabolism with behavior, and implicitly accepts the idea that the effect of macronutrients on one’s body affects how much we choose to eat. Specific macronutrients clearly have different effects on satiety. However, no matter what our hormonal state, if there is NO food, we will not increase consumption. Although we have no choice in our genetics, and the way our metabolism functions is not within our control, our eating Behaviors are ultimately still a matter of personal choice.

It is helpful to figure out what kind of hunger we’re talking about.
Behavioral psychology stresses the difference between “tastes good” and “hunger” which really only means that eating good-tasting food increases the probability that we will eat more of it than the body needs.

No matter what our calorie eating allowance is when we are working toward weight-loss, it seems like bad advice to eat if we aren’t hungry. We frequently hear nutritionists say that “everyone needs to have a good breakfast”. Why we would specifically want to have a “good” anything if we are trying to lose weight is not easy to answer.

Nutritionists say that this is true because this will cause us to eat too much at the next meal ….
 as if, in the morning, we can make a rational decision to eat breakfast in the face of not wanting to eat  but, at noon, we are suddenly under the inexorable influence of urges beyond our control.   It would be more reasonable to add the condition … “if you find that you eat too much at lunch when you don’t eat breakfast…,” Many people have the opposite reaction to eating breakfast -- sometimes food can be more reinforcing than satiating.

Semantics … the words that are used to present a diet concept tend to influence our food choice behaviors. For example, nutritionists like to say that diets are high in fat, but alternatively, say that they are rich in whole grains. Portion Control actually means “don’t eat too much”, but the term is used by nutritionists as though it was a great new scientific principle.

 Hunger is a feeling or a signal. We get to choose how we respond to it.

It’s simple, but not easy.

Christmas Gifts:

To your Enemy: .... Forgiveness
To an Opponent: .... Tolerance
To a Friend: .... your Heart
To All: .... Kindness
To Yourself: ... Respect

There is hope for all.
Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.