This month I've been suffering from overload.

Not overloaded with too much food, because I've been working hard to avoid that, but rather emotionally overloaded.

Partly this is due to the disruption of my normal routine by my household plumbing emergency and repairs, but a great deal of it is the busy schedule I've been keeping making videos, and answering viewers questions on YouTube.

This YouTube Grandma thing is taking a giant chunk of my time... like almost ALL of it.

The companion DietHobby channel on YouTube now has more than 2000 subscribers. So, I think and write more than ever before, but for right now, most of it is happening on my DietHobby YouTube channel where I'm answering my YouTube Grandbaby's questions about Life-in-general rather than writing about dieting issues here on my website. 

My husband is a Vietnam veteran, and one of the things about that culture that impressed him, was the saying and the attitude..."Buddha Take"... House gone, family gone,... Vietnamese people would just shake their heads open their hands and say "Buddha Take".

That has become a saying in our household when something changes or disappears. "Buddha Take."

I'm striving to achieve a balance, and I believe this will happen,
but it may take awhile.
So, if you come here and wonder what is happening,
where are all the insightful articles about dieting issues, ......... 
"Buddha Take"

Today, I uploaded a video about Selfishness.
I find the saying interesting and thought provoking.

Is it true for all?  I don't know,
Perhaps it is something that is true only some of the time?
Depending on how that truth is applied?  

Right this minute, as I write this, I am soooo frustrated.
Just as I put the finishing touches on my day's article,
which I felt was inspired, having spent the past 2 hours writing it.
my MacBook Air did one of it's tempermental crashes,
and I lost the entire article. 
Perhaps I'll write it again another time, but not today.

So annoying. 

Today I posted another cooking video, Grandma's Goulash
which is located at DietHobby, under RECIPES, Mealtime.
When exercising appropriate portion control, 
this dish will fit into a low-calorie lifestyle.

   Dreams and dedication IS a powerful combination.
Successful weight-loss and maintenance of that weight-loss
takes both of these elements.

If one didn't have the dream,
there would be no incentive or motivation to make it happen.
If one doesn't have the dedication,
one won't follow through with the effort that it takes to make it happen.

  And, make no mistake, a Great Deal of Effort is needed. 
Marketing interests that tell you different are lying to you. 
Yes, they are allowed to do that. 

For those of you who are following my “Ask Grandma” video series
Click : “Getting Along With Parents" to see my latest video,
which is located in DietHobby under RESOURCES, Videos, Ask Grandma.

When talking about Willpower, we are referring to

Self-discipline,
which is training and control of oneself
and one’s conduct…usually for personal improvement

and/or

Self-control,
which is the ability of a person
to exert his/her will over their body or self.

There are many areas in my life that I am very strong,
and where I regularly do exercise a great deal of self-discipline and self-control.
However, there are other areas....especially when dealing with food...
where I have extreme difficulty exercising any self-control at all. 

Today I bought the book, "Willpower", by Roy Baumeister, psychologist, 
and John Tierney, science writer, which is about the science of self-control. 
I’ll be reading it on my Kindle as I find the time to do so,
and hope to gain insight and techniques that will help me with this issue.

The following is a 9/11/11 review of that book by NPR books.

Look at that cupcake. Doesn't it look delicious?
Don't you want to eat it? Well, don't.

The power to resist temptation — to pass up dessert,
to endure an unpleasant experience, to defer satisfaction —
is our "greatest human strength," argue psychologist Roy F. Baumeister
and science writer John Tierney in their new book, Willpower.
The book delves into the science of our age-old struggle with self-control.

"The Victorians talked about this vague idea of it being some form of mental energy,"
Tierney tells NPR's Audie Cornish. "In the last 15 years we've discovered that
it really is a form of energy in the brain. It's like a muscle that can be strengthened
with use, but it also gets fatigued with use."

Whether you're resisting a favorite food or completing a dreaded task,
exercising self-control in different areas of your life saps the same
mental energy source. Many dieters employ the out-of-sight-out-of-mind
technique of hiding desirable food — and studies show there's something to it.

"Just putting food where you can see it next to you depletes your willpower," Tierney says.
"Whereas putting it away in a drawer or putting it across the room makes it easier
for you because you're not actively resisting the temptation."

One of the most well-known studies found that hungry students who were forced
to resist the temptation of eating chocolate chip cookies did not perform as well
on subsequent tests of focus and self-control as students who had not been asked
to previously exercise restraint

"You only have a finite amount [of willpower] as you go through the day," Tierney says,
"so you should be careful to conserve it and try to save it for the emergencies."

Exhausting your mental energy is a process that researchers call "ego depletion."
Decision-making taps into the same energy reserves as self-control.

"You don't think of decision-making as necessarily being like resisting temptation,
but it is," Tierney says. "It involves the same kind of mental energy, the same source
of mental energy."

If you want to know when you're experiencing ego depletion, you're pretty much out of luck.
Tierney says scientists searched the data for symptoms of self-control fatigue and came up empty.

"Basically, it's that everything feels more intensely to you," Tierney says.
"Good things and bad things. You suddenly feel everything a little bit more intensely
because your brain has lost some ability to regulate emotions, and so you therefore
respond more strongly to everything."

Cravings, frustrations, desires — all feel overwhelming.

In the short term, self-control is a limited resource.
But over the long term, it can act more like a muscle.
Tierney cites one study in which students were asked to watch their posture for a week.
At the end of the week, those students performed better on self-control tasks
— tasks that had nothing to do with sitting up straight —
than students who had not been exercising control all week.

So when it comes to willpower, if practice doesn't make perfect,
then at least it makes progress. Tierney says people
who exercise their willpower frequently often have better self-control
— observant religious people, are a good example, he says.
"Most religions have prayers you say, exercises, meditations you do,
all those things build up that self-control."

There are plenty of secular ways to build up your willpower, too.
"Not using contractions when you speak, only speaking in complete sentences,
saying no instead of nah, don't use profanities ... all these things require mental effort,"
Tierney says. "And the more you do that, the more it builds up that muscle."