7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

[Alphaville]

There is no point to eating toast without jam

jam?

i don't always eat toast, but when i do, i drench it in kerrygold

or better yet--kerrygold and marmite--oh yeah... not much of a sweet tooth here. butter is my thing.

anyway, i'm sure you can get your nutrition sorted by taking time to pay attention to it.
eg see also something like: https://www.bodybuildingmealplan.com/endomorph-diet/

and again, glad/relieved to know the pressure has eased, and you'll get to have fun. that garage...

[white belt]

Right. It's also important for me to force myself to have some minimal routine I maintain in terms of "checking in" because I am a "fog" eater. IOW, the sort of person who can mindlessly wander in and out of the kitchen fetching mugs of coffee and cookies while puzzling out something in a book on systems theory she is reading or working out how to hang rain chains in lieu of gutters on the house she is renovating. This is hard for me to overcome due to my tendency towards cyclothymia. It's extremely difficult for me to go off sugar all together due to my brain chemistry. In the past I have had some success with increasing my fish intake and limiting my sugar intake to pure candy but no pastries, thereby eliminating all the extra fat and carb calories but keeping the buzz. My entire extended family, inclusive of lifelong very slender women, is composed of females who are total sugar fiends but do not become diabetic. So, it's just how I have to roll. Probably I should start buying bags of those green apple caramel suckers that you can't bite into again. OTOH, food that it is easy for me to give up would be red meat. I'm also not huge fan of white potatoes or white bread. I only end up eating them when I am living with the ex-football player types I tend towards dating. If I was forced to pick one menu section to eat off of for the rest of my life, it would be the Seafood section at a Vietnamese restaurant. Just brainstorming here...

I was planning a bit forward towards something like my ideal/maintenance semi-retirement lifestyle with my musings about tap dancing class, etc. As I noted above, I know from experience that complex carbohydrates do not keep me from craving sugar. In fact, although I really like steel cut oats with walnuts for breakfast, I crash much harder off of it than maybe just an egg with toast and jelly.

So here are some ideas that may help you. I know some of these may not jell with your personality or lifestyle, but I'm just throwing them out there:

-It sounds like mindless snacking is a problem for you. First thing would be to try to be a little more aware about why you snack (hunger, boredom, stress, etc). I know many people eat for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with hunger. One solution is to not snack at all and only eat during meal times. Of course this takes discipline and may not work for you if you're looking for constant variation. Another common tactic is to avoid having trigger foods (foods you know you can't control) in your house. Intermittent fasting could be considered a more extreme version of only eating during meal times that works for some people.

-So it sounds like you go for sweets as your preferred carbohydrate source rather than starchy carbs. The easiest way to address this is to substitute in artificial sweeteners. Why is this easiest? Because you are getting the same feeling of sweetness without any of the calories. Artificial sweeteners get a bad rap but the reality is that the body of literature shows them to be safe. This is why for obese people the immediate recommendation is to just switch from sodas to diet sodas, as it is low hanging fruit that can easily reduce calorie intake without requiring behavior change.

-The next Wheaton Level of nutrition beyond just tracking calories would be to track macronutrients. This would start to get into the composition of the food you eat, rather than just total quantity. However, I think for now just stick to trying to follow basic nutrition principles like having protein with every meal, limiting processed foods, eating lots of vegetables, eating fish, etc while getting a better understanding of your eating patterns.

-How are your sleep habits? Do you sleep 8+ hours a night? Do you go to bed and wake up at the same time everyday? Do you cut off caffeine consumption at some point in the day so it doesn't interfere with sleep? It seems like you have physical activity and diet covered, so the remaining pillar of performance is sleep. Poor sleep will negatively impact lots of things.


Further reading that I've posted elsewhere related to diet (some of it gets into higher Wheaton level techniques): viewtopic.php?p=214918#p214918

Edit: Regarding coffee, how many cups per day are we talking about? If you can give an estimate of the mg of caffeine you're taking in daily, it might shed light on other issues. Caffeine is actually an appetite suppressant, but if you're drinking such excessive quantities that it's causing GI distress or impairing sleep, then that's probably counterproductive at a certain point. Does caffeine have an effect on your cyclothemia tendencies? I think this also ties into your effort to progress from a "fog" eater to a more self-aware eater.

[7Wannabe5]

It sounds like mindless snacking is a problem for you. First thing would be to try to be a little more aware about why you snack (hunger, boredom, stress, etc). I know many people eat for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with hunger.

I think I am usually more positive emotion seeking rather than negative emotion “fixing” when I eat. I do it because it is a fun, pleasurable activity. Unfortunately, it is a fun, pleasurable activity with unwelcome secondary effects. By analogy, from other conversation, I know you like dating. What if for every time you “dated” a woman you ended up with a pimple on your face? That wouldn’t change the fact that your initial motivation was towards pleasure.

So, the low hanging fruit for me would be eliminating as much less pleasurable “fog” eating as possible while maintaining “fun” eating. I think controlling what food is easily accessible would help with this.

How are your sleep habits?

I almost always fall asleep before 9 and wake up before 5. Sometimes I have early wake up insomnia, but it’s not related to my coffee intake. I drink a lot of coffee (4 mugs) but stop before 4 pm. I only drink alcohol a few times a year. I think the early wake up insomnia is hormonal, because I am usually feeling too hot when I wake up even though room is kept at 67.

I could get a prescription for Ritilan or similar to help with my “fog” and then I definitely would lose a lot of weight. Asthma medications had similar effect on me during teen years. IOW, I am naturally too dopey, so downers like alcohol knock me right out and stimulants like coffee or ephedrine help me be more normal level alert. They don’t make me shaky or anxious.

[Alphaville]

i totally get eating for pleasure, as i'm a massive jouisseur, but wonder if you seek sweets more for the cocaine effect than anything.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... -and-brain

you drink you coffee black?

[7Wannabe5]

Dunno. I only tried cocaine once and it had no effect on me.

Also, I would note for the record that I prefer complex dishes that are somewhat sweet rather than pure sugar. I only drink soda very occasionally. For instance, sweet and sour eggs and heirloom tomatoes is a seasonal favorite or sushi with eel sauce or pineapple chicken or salmon patties with cole slaw . I notice the craving much more when I try to give up sugar completely as with Atkins all protein type diet.

I usually drink coffee black. Sometimes I tart it up.

[Alphaville]

Dunno. I only tried cocaine once and it had no effect on me.

it was probably baking soda

or maybe it was masked by meds at the time. who can know. was it the 80s?

anyway, there's something going on obviously... do you want to keep poking at it till we find something?

e.g. we know your brain likes a more "up" state, we know you have asthma and can use meds (you taking any?), we know coffee is good for this, we know sugar is a dopamine trap.

i'm not trying to draw any conclusions, just get the whole picture. ofc im not a doctor lol. just trying to see if parts connect and maybe one small change can have effects or there is something in common etc.

[Alphaville]

i should add, to explain, past the joke.

by "the cocaine effect" i dont simply mean that sugar is a stimulant, but rather, that sugar, like cocaine, hijacks the dopamine circuits and promotes dependence in a way that leads to abuse.

it's a known thing that cokeheads eventually no longer use the drug to get high. rather, they take it so that they can just function, because ceasing to take it would mean crashing into a most abject and dark depression.

some people have for now been working with the idea that sugar does the same thing, but sugar is so embedded in the culture that we don't notice. nevertheless this isn't new: there's a short story by baudelaire where a boy starts "experimenting" with sugar and gets hooked, hahaha. i need to find that, have not read it in ages.

but yeah, sugar, previously a pharmaceutical, gets added to a large number of foods, like your sushi pineapple something, so the theory goes, in order to make it addictive, and sell more. not just sweets but sauces, cereals, mayo, everything. which causes depression when one ceases to consume it. (this added sugar is why for me a lot of industrial foods taste utterly cloying).

i'd throw a wild speculation out there and wonder if your cyclothemia might not be related to sugar consumption patterns.

anyway if by any chance this subject interests you there is a fun and entertaining movie that presents/illustrates some of these concepts. you don't have to believe everything he says, but once you see some of it you start to wonder wft.

see: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892434/
it's free on various channels right now, and it's well-made and highly watchable.

anyway for me it wasn't so much the biochemistry of the thing that made my eyes pop, but rather his highlight of the role of sugar in the culture that gave me almost a sense of red pill vertigo. "we equate sugar with love." goddamn. yeah... every stupid celebration includes a ton of sugar. also, the "bliss point." goddamn...

lemme know if you watch it, i'd be curious to hear your reaction to it.

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

It’s well known that people with bipolar disease or cyclothymic experience intense sugar cravings. Manic brains run hot and only sugar and fish oil get through brain barrier. However, it is not the case that sugar causes cyclothymia or bipolar disease because it is clearly heritable. It is also not the reason why I am currently overweight. I am not always overweight and half of the cyclothymic sugar fiend females in my family are quite slender. I was just noting that this is the reason why I can’t entirely limit sugar calories in my diet. It is much more difficult for me than for normies. What has worked in the past is mostly eating high protein/high fat meals like catfish and spinach salad with blue cheese dressing, but also letting myself have a few packs of sour patch kids or sour apple suckers. The artificial sweetener in most sugar free candy ties my guts up in knots, so it’s not worth saving the calories in 3 small packs of candy. If I don’t let myself have the sugar in pure form, I will seek the same quantity in foods that contain too many other calories. For some reason, taking the sugar along with very tart, sour or bitter foods is also helpful.

[ertyu]

i should add, to explain, past the joke.

by "the cocaine effect" i dont simply mean that sugar is a stimulant, but rather, that sugar, like cocaine, hijacks the dopamine circuits and promotes dependence in a way that leads to abuse.

it's a known thing that cokeheads eventually no longer use the drug to get high. rather, they take it so that they can just function, because ceasing to take it would mean crashing into a most abject and dark depression.

some people have for now been working with the idea that sugar does the same thing, but sugar is so embedded in the culture that we don't notice. nevertheless this isn't new: there's a short story by baudelaire where a boy starts "experimenting" with sugar and gets hooked, hahaha. i need to find that, have not read it in ages.

but yeah, sugar, previously a pharmaceutical, gets added to a large number of foods, like your sushi pineapple something, so the theory goes, in order to make it addictive, and sell more. not just sweets but sauces, cereals, mayo, everything. which causes depression when one ceases to consume it. (this added sugar is why for me a lot of industrial foods taste utterly cloying).

i'd throw a wild speculation out there and wonder if your cyclothemia might not be related to sugar consumption patterns.

you didn't aim this at me but i do feel very much called out

anecdotally this checks out, i do observe escalating consumption in myself, i do have cravings, a tub of ice cream does indeed act like a good tranquilizer when i'm down, etc.

the connection between sugar and mental health you mentioned also checks out epidemiologically: its increased addition in anything and everything coincides with the rise of diabetes but also with the rise of anxiety and depression. cannot speak to cyclothymia in particular, but a connection with depression wouldn't surprise me at all.

the story you mentioned sounds quite interesting, it should be in the public domain by now.

update: was able to find the full sugar film on youtube.

[Alphaville]

the story you mentioned sounds quite interesting, it should be in the public domain by now.

yeah, i had been looking and found the baudelaire text (vivan los digital books!). these are classified as prose poems, but when translated into english read more as flash fictions.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47032/47 ... 7032-h.htm

if you search the term sugar there you find 5 instances, to wit:

All was light, dust, shouting, joy, tumult; some spent, others gained, the one and the other equally joyful. Children clung to their mothers' skirts to obtain a sugar-stick, or climbed upon their fathers' shoulders the better to see a conjurer dazzling as a god.

At the glowing hearth-stone of your hair, I breathe the odor of tobacco mixed with opium and sugar;

The child, with his face washed, became charming, and the life he led with me seemed a paradise, compared to that he had undergone in the parental hovel. Only I must say that the little fellow astonished me at times by singular spells of precocious sadness, and that he soon manifested an immoderate taste for sugar and for liqueurs; so much so that one day when I found that, despite my numerous warnings, he had again been doing some pilfering of that sort, I threatened to send him back to his parents.

*this was the one i recalled*

the last 2 instances of the term in that document are used in the recipe for the concotion of a lichen syrup, i'll look into this later.

but notice how in the mid xix century we're looking at sugar belonging to the imagery of magic and divine spectacles, eroticism, intoxicants, and criminality, hahahahha.

eta: the lichen syrup recipe appears at the end of "mon cœur mis à nu" which... it's supposed to be a prescription to help him achieve his goals (which ones?).

bit reads like this:

Fish, cold baths, showers, lichen, lozenges, occasionally; in addition, suppression of everything exciting.
[Pg 248]
Island Lichen 125 grams
White sugar 250 —
Steep the lichen, for twelve or fifteen hours, in a sufficient quantity of cold water, then drain the water. Boil the lichen in two liters of water, on a slow and continuous flame, until the two liters have dwindled to one, remove the scum once; then add the 250 grams of sugar and allow it to thicken to the consistency of syrup. Allow it to cool again. Take a large tablespoonful three times daily, morning, noon, and night. Do not be afraid to increase the dose, if the crises become too frequent.

crises? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetraria_islandica#Uses
cough?

[7Wannabe5]

The ratio of sugar in mammalian breast milk is in direct proportion to relative brain size vs muscularity. That’s why human babies can’t thrive on cow’s milk unless the protein is broken down and sugar is added.

[Alphaville]

The ratio of sugar in mammalian breast milk is in direct proportion to relative brain size vs muscularity. That’s why human babies can’t thrive on cow’s milk unless the protein is broken down and sugar is added.

this is probably why ice cream is so insanely good, as it brings us close to the holy nipple of the goddess of the infant brain

[Alphaville]

@Alphaville:

It’s well known that people with bipolar disease or cyclothymic experience intense sugar cravings.

ah, so, that was not known at all by me. like i said, i'm not a doctor, a nutritionist, a psychiatrist, any of that.

but i had a bipolar friend (he's now dead) who was an inveterate gum chewer, yeah. he ate splenda like crazy too. was quite obese (likely what killed him, we don't know). great, hilarious guy, left us too soon. dammit. but yeah big on sugar eating.

another bipolar friend from my college days, also dead now (fucking hell, fucking death) i don't remember as a big sugar eater, but in her latter years she drank. goddammit. i do remember in one of the stories she wrote, the mention of "moon pies." fuck.

anyway, related to the rest of your comment: you mention high protein, etc. so i was looking at "ways to increase dopamine naturally" on the interwebs and one of these websites #1 suggestion was "high protein diet." https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ho ... e-dopamine

anyway again not a qualified professional, not a weight loss expert, not a prescriber of medications, i only know what works for me, but maybe one change you could make is to increase protein intake, and just see what happens/go from there?

eta: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ch ... in-sources

my go-to supplement is whey powder, no flavors, no artificial sweeteners, i'll season with actual cocoa and a bit of real sugar if needed. i have my breakfast with it. eventually i might switch to pea or something, but i have some 20lb of the stuff in the pantry.

[7Wannabe5]

I have found that whey or soy protein in the form of ridiculously overpriced nutritional snack bars is quite satisfying.

[Alphaville]

I have found that whey or soy protein in the form of ridiculously overpriced nutritional snack bars is quite satisfying.

yeah, cuz bars come loaded with a ton of added sugar

anyway, i wish you the best with this quest

[Alphaville]

ok, so thinking about my dead friends, and things i didn't know, i found this:

So people with bipolar disorder may be indulging in a form of self-medication when they eat sugary snacks during depressive lows or manic highs.

and

Instead, swap out simple sugars in the diet for more complex carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates burn slow and long, ensuring a more controlled release of neurotransmitters to the brain. Complex carbohydrates are also healthier for you overall, keeping your blood glucose levels more stable and preventing the development of type 2 diabetes.

the whole thing:
https://www.everydayhealth.com/bipolar- ... order.aspx

[EdithKeeler]

Diet stuff is interesting, but more project, please!!

The photos of the cleaned up shed look AMAZING--you've done a lot of work and it shows. It's definitely cleaner than my garage at the moment.

(I hear you on the weight woes--I recently signed up for Nutrisystem, which is RIDICULOUSLY expensive and not anything I can't do myself--except I don't. Down 22 pounds in 5 weeks. Menopause SUCKS re. weight and energy....).

Back to the project!

[7Wannabe5]

@Edith Keeler:

Yeah, nobody is more bored than me with the prospect of having to diet (again)

More interesting news is I received both my first dose Covid vaccine and my approved building permit today!

[EdithKeeler]

More interesting news is I received both my first dose Covid vaccine and my approved building permit today!

WOOT to both!! I get my first dose tomorrow. I can't wait for life to get back to normal.

[Alphaville]

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/an ... ts+stomach