The creation and use of this website feels like one big present to me
from the Universe. This is one of those happy, grateful times that
I work to fix in my memory to offset those times that are less pleasant.
All of us have lives that contain both the good and the bad,
.....and for me.....today the good is predominant.
For me, Valentine's Day has always equaled Candy.
Flowers, jewelry, lingerie are all good....but a box of candy, preferably heart shaped, is my focus.
My lifetime position has been that other presents are nice extras, but I really want that candy.
Those chocolates usually come to me every Valentine's day....even if I have to buy them for myself.

This year I told my husband that I didn't want that heart-shaped box of chocolates. 
Normally if I make that statement to him, I don't really mean it.
What I mean is: "I know eating that candy will cause weight-gain and I don't want to be fat."
and my true belief is..."If you don't get me candy, you don't love me, and you think I'm too fat."

This year feels different.  This year I really meant it, and the only reason I can see for that 
is my current low-carb experiment. I've been working on this since New Year's, sometimes
successfully, and sometimes not. For more than a week I've had no refined carbs,
and...in fact...no complex carbs except specific vegetables.
I find that I don't crave candy the way I normally do...although I do allow myself
tiny amounts of artificially sweetened candy at times. 

This "sugarless" candy is still high-calorie, and is full of artificial ingredients.
It certainly isn't "real food", and is probably bad for me.  However, it's value to me is that it
tastes sweet, without causing me to crave more...plus a lot of sugar-alcohol is known
to have a laxative effect. That potential for immediate gastric distress encourages me
to eat only very, very small amounts of it.
I'm planning to have one Russell Stover sugar-free Strawberry cream chocolate today....
maybe two...because after all,....it is Valentine's day.
My web-designer-developer-genius is my son,
and he has been busily working to get this site operational.
There are still things that need to be done, but I just couldn't wait to start posting here,
Please excuse any temporary glitches, and tell me about any problems that you experience. 

My son also writes, produces and shoots videos regularly and I've decided to share
the following Valentine's Day video with you, although it wasn't intended for me or for this site.
I find it amusing, and relevant.  Since every chocolate contains about 100 calories,
I was interested in whether or not the actress was concerned about that.  My son told me
that when off camera, she spit most of it out.   I  was pleased because that is the definition of
"chew and spit", which is officially defined as an eating disorder, and is something
I'm going to discuss here in detail...along with anorexia, bulimia, and bingeing....at some later time.

Disclaimer here: I love my son, but we have very different lifestyles. I do NOT normally watch
his "Exotic Jess" videos.  It is my understanding that they are a bit suggestive, but they are 
not "adult" videos. I've seen only a very few of them and if you choose  to access any 
that are not posted on this site, you're probably watching videos that I've never seen. 

Dieting is engaging in a specific type of eating behavior. Most people look at dieting as….”a means to an end”. What does that mean?

The term “means to an end” refers to :
any action (the means)  ... that the sole purpose ofis to achieve something else (an end).

It often refers to an activity ……………(such as an undesirable job)
that is not as important as the goal you hope to achieve …………….(monetary gains for example).

When we say something is “a means to an end”, the term “end” is defined as our “results”, but the common use of the word “end” means the cessation or termination of a course of action, pursuit or activity …..i.e. to Stop.

So, if Dieting is the means, what is the end?
Ordinarily, people think of the “end” as a desired weight-loss result……such as achieving leanness or a normal weight,

However, achieving weight-loss, is only part of the challenge, and Maintenance of that weight-loss is merely an extension of that process. Therefore the “end”….meaning “result”…. isn’t the end (cessation) at all.

It is common to think in terms of “beginning” and “end”, so this misunderstanding runs deep within us.

A common saying is:
“Let’s get this weight off, once and for all.”

To “delay gratification”…. implies we get something “later”,
and “later” is when?

Usually we think of “later” as
..…after we become lean, ……after we lose the weight.

But if we engage in “dieting” behavior to become lean, and we stop that behavior, we will become fat again. This is what happens to more than 95% of all people who lose weight, and is what experts mean when they say that “Diets don’t work”.

However, whether we call it a diet, or call it a lifestyle. It still means we can’t eat as much of everything we want whenever we want to.

To remain lean, after weight-loss, one must remain on some type of continual diet,and guess what… Losing weight, doesn’t magically turn a body’s tendency toward fat into a tendency toward leanness.

The survival instincts of a reduced-weight body will work against the continuation of the type of eating behavior that is necessary to keep that lost weight off. This is a physical problem.

Yet, many experts imply that this is merely a mental or emotional problem, and that once we’ve learned the “proper” behaviors, over time eating less will become natural for us, and we won’t need to consciously “diet”.

This has not proven to be true for me.
I still have to consciously diet. This is a physical problem.
My body wants to eat more than it uses. My choice is to diet and be normal weight,or to “intuitively” eat and be morbidly obese.

I didn’t choose my body’s genetics. However, I get to choose my mental state.
I choose Acceptance. I choose to embrace the devil that is food and dieting,
and to make it an enjoyable part of my life.

I’m looking forward to an opportunity to “talk” about all of the aspects of diets and dieting that are of interest to me, without censorship by others.

Here, there will only be self-censorship, based on my own personal values and needs, rather than the values or needs of others. After a lifetime spent working to fit into the worlds of others, I find this to be a rather unique opportunity.

As I share my viewpoint about Dieting as a Hobby, some of the subjects I plan to cover here, although not in that order, nor in any particularly organized manner, are…

Weight-loss and maintenance of that weight-loss.
Individual Diets.
Dieting tools.
Dieting organizations.
Differences between Diets.
Food and its allure.
Exercise, or physical activity, as involved with dieting.
Therapy.
The concept of Eating Disorders, and those individual behaviors which are so labeled,
................................              including Anexoria, bulimia, binge disorder, chew and spit.

Writing has always been part of my life, even another one of my Hobbies.
Many years ago, I studied creative writing. I even wrote a couple of romantic novels,
which went unpublished, and a small collection of rejection letters to go with them.
I put that Hobby aside after careful consideration of a Thought that was threaded
through my many ‘how to write fiction’ books. That Thought was that the only reason
to Write was because one had something one needed to say.

After an inner search, I realized that there really wasn’t anything I needed to say.
So I stopped writing as a hobby, and basically limited myself to work-related writing.
Although, I must admit that as a family law attorney, some of my client Declarations
that were filed with the Court were rather fine examples of creative writing.

Now, at this time in my life, I do find that I have something to say.
I Plan to say it here. 

Taubes starts out

“The very notion that we get fat because we consume more calories
than we expend would not exist without the misapplied belief
that the laws of thermodynamics make it true.
…
Obesity is not a disorder of energy balance,
or calories-in/calories-out or overeating,
and thermodynamics has nothing to do with this.”

There are three laws of thermodynamics.

“The first one…is known as the law of energy conservation:
all it says is that energy is neither created nor destroyed
but can only change from one form to another.”

He goes on

“All the first law says is that if something gets more or less massive,
then more energy or less energy has to enter it than leave it.
It says nothing about why this happens.
It says nothing about cause and effect.

It doesn’t tell us why anything happens;
it only tells us what has to happen
if that thing happens.
A logician would say that it contains no causal information.”

As an example,
Taubes suggests that instead of talking about why we get fat,
we could talk about why a room gets crowded.
In this example the energy we’re discussing is energy in entire people,
rather than just their fat.

So, we want to know why this room is crowded and so overstuffed with energy (people).

If I said, “the room is crowded because more people entered than left,”

You’d say…”Of course…But Why?”

If I then said, “rooms that have more people enter than leave
will become more crowded. There’s no getting around
the laws of thermodynamics”.

You’d say…”So what.?”…because I still haven’t given you any reason why.
I’m just repeating the obvious.

Taubes says

“This is what happens when thermodynamics is used to conclude
that overeating makes us fat.
Thermodynamics tells us that if we get fatter and heavier,
more energy enters our body than leaves it.
Overeating means we’re consuming more energy than we’re expending.
It says the same thing in a different way.

Neither happens to answer the question why.
Why do we take in more energy than we expend?
Why do we overeat?
Why do we get fatter?”

He goes on:

"The vast majority of experts who say that we get fat
because we overeat
or we get fat as a result of overeating
…are making the kind of mistake
that…should earn a failing grade in a high-school science class.”

Taubes says maybe we should start with the 1998 National Institutes of Health report
that said:

“Obesity is a complex, multifactorial chronic disease that develops from
an interaction of genotype and the environment.

Our understanding of how and why obesity develops is incomplete,
but involves the integration of social, behavioral, cultural, physiological,
metabolic and genetic factors.”

I’ve read many books and online discussions about
the First Law of Thermodynamics.
So, despite my lack of knowledge about such Scientific issues,
I am familiar with what that First Law says.

Usually in these discussions, people wind up arguing about things like
the differences between energy burned inside an open container
and energy burned inside a closed container.

Frankly, this tends to make my eyes glaze over,
and I want them to talk about something more interesting to me,
or at least, something I could better understand.

I like the fact that Taubes gives a simple explanation 
of the First Law of Thermodynamics
and how, while that Law is always True,
it doesn’t explain what causes of obesity.

Also I definitely agree that obesity is a very complicated disease
and that no one completely understands how and why it happens.