My Tips for Easy Living get more spunk

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A diet that works, Making writing more exciting, More spunk

The diet program I’ve been working on has been upgraded and printed out for critique by my friends innumerable times. They make suggestions, I make notes on their suggestions and then go home and work and work, trying to make their ideas blend into the existing handout. I haven’t scheduled a lecture yet, but many preparations for it have been made. My goal is to make what I say so obvious that it will not sound like I am asking for anything that people can’t do, do easily, and keep doing as a routine habit.

In addition to showing the handouts to my old artist pals and various business friends, I read diet books seeking ideas that can be incorporated into my lecture. With that background of ongoing input of new information, I have been upgrading on a daily basis my thoughts on how to cope with the problem that is afflicting well over a billion people today.

Obesity is a problem that will continue to harm people and shorten their lives for as long as the profit motive stimulates the sales of various kinds of foods and other pleasure-giving stimulants. As that process will continue as long as there are people to buy and people to sell them stuff, there will be victims of excess. However, people are also interested in long-term health and are willing to spend money and effort to achieve that health. There is reported to be a multibillion-dollar industry devoted to delivering diet and exercise plans to help these people. It appears that the providers of these plans are motivated to help their clients be healthy. Unfortunately, the statistics show that the overweight population has gone from a few percent to perhaps over fifty percent of all people.

Last night in a local tea shop, with twenty college age kids there, almost all of them were huge. HUGE! That is very sad, and although I didn’t talk to any of them I suspect that they don’t want to be huge. I don’t blame them because in addition to being fed poor quality sugar-laden food they are being fed incorrect information about how to cope with their problem. I know my style of intermittent fasting is easy and it works because my wife and I have both dropped from BMIs of 28 or so to BMIs of 23 or so in fifteen months. We have a few simple little games and routine habits.

I have been spending so much time and effort on this diet plan lecture and handout because I want to help these kids and everyone else. I don’t want there to be the slightest hint of guilt being projected at them so I have rewritten Tips for Easy Living many times with the intent that it will be easily accepted and easily followed.

I may not be able to do as my minister suggests because the bar for behavior is too high for me, but as I said to him last Sunday, I can shovel snow, carry rocks and chop wood. Also, the kindest thing I can do is …

I can spend the time and effort need to write a diet plan that people can understand and use successfully.

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When is it time to tidy up one’s affairs?

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Where to spend one's time, Why pursue obesity?

I have discovered lots of things and written them up and even published some on this blog but beyond that never made much effort to bring them into public awareness. Perhaps it’s my failure on the marshmallow test that has made me hesitant to put my discoveries forward where they may be seen, appreciated and criticized. From the inside, it feels like I have pursued what is interesting me at the time and after I have found a solution to a problem that satisfies me it isn’t interesting anymore and I move on to another problem.

My post about revelations of Conan Doyle being Jack the Ripper is currently on my site’s top ten most popular posts. That series of murders is something that I was aware of back in 1988 when I did a presentation to the AAAS about Conan Doyle’s hoaxes. I didn’t mention that to the science meeting because my talk was about hoaxes that impacted scientific discoveries, like the Piltdown Man. It was still considered a marginally legitimate find and it was corrupting research. There are other bits of legitimate science still being corrupted or at least confused by evidence intentionally created to generate controversy, by Conan Doyle. 

There are many other things that are more important to me and the rest of humanity at the moment, such as my super simple method for easing the obesity epidemic and adding years of life expectancy to billions of people. That’s huge! Isn’t it?! And the Earthark Project to save the plants and thus animals too of the world, isn’t that important? So, why should I waste any time at all on some century-old hoaxes? There may still be hundreds of them still undiscovered, buried in places where they can be found. Doyle left clues as to how to find them. I know that to be a fact because I have found some, but I haven’t published where to find them. It’s too easy. Why not leave them in situ where they can create the exciting stir as Doyle intended?

So, at the moment my time will be devoted to helping ease the obesity epidemic.

 

The marshmallow test and me.

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The Marshmallow test

I must have failed the infamous marshmallow test. —YouTube— Here I am 82½ years old and I haven’t gotten the marshmallow yet. At least that’s what I said to my older buddies this morning. That came about because one of our group’s granddaughters had just gotten accepted to a major university, and these old folks were beaming with pride and heaping abundant praise upon her for her hard work and ongoing success. All of that is wonderful and as it should be.

That family had other obligations and departed soon after this announcement and we remaining old dudes, or is it duds, settled into our usual routine of solving the problems of the world. My contribution to this melody was a statement about how wonderful it was that this young woman was getting so much support from her family. I mentioned that she had gotten more support from her family in those five minutes than I did from my family in my whole life. Verbal support, that is. I always felt that I was well treated by my family and my ACE score is very near zero but my PCE (Positive Childhood Experience) isn’t much above zero either. It just wasn’t in our family traditions to praise one another for our accomplishments, and there were many spectacular ones that could have been and should have been praised. It just wasn’t done. 

When I was about thirteen years old I did some project in school and got some sort of reward there, but my dad’s only comment was the memorable line, “You do good work. I don’t see much of it, but you do do good work.” That is the only time I ever heard him say a positive thing about anything I did. He must have said something else, but that’s the only thing I remember, and I do remember having a conversation about this subject once with my friends at college.

Perhaps it is this lack of acknowledgment that encourages me to accept the prizes at the Science Pub contests. There are over a hundred people attempting to answer ten multiple choice questions before the lecture on some lecture topic. It is usually delivered by a Oregon State University scientist. I don’t prepare for these lectures but I usually win a prize.

I don’t much like marshmallows so it hasn’t been any suffering for me not to get one.

 

Adult Obesity in the United States

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Adult Obesity, Adult obesity rate in the US, BMI, Controlling BMI, Controlling hypertension

A great place for seeing the obesity trends back to 1990 here in the United States is on the site The State of Obesity. It has current data and has a very useful and intuitive set of charts that has tracks for all the states. The data is presented in such a way that the relationships are instantly obvious.

A chart of obesity in the United States 1990 through 2016 with Oregon highlighted.

Tracking obesity is important because it is a precursor to many serious diseases including hypertension, which is a major causal factor in cardiovascular disease and death. Observe that obesity in Oregon in 1990 was 11% and by 2016 had risen to 28.7% and the trend is still dangerously upward.

Hypertension in the US has followed the obesity trend as shown for Oregon.

Hypertension in 1990 for Oregon was 21% and it has risen to 30.1% in 2015 and it was about average for the US. The current population of the US is 325.7 million (2017) and half of these people will have adverse effects from their obesity and resulting hypertension which will lead to their deaths being earlier than if they had known how to control their weight. The extraordinarily sad truth is that the scientists made some very poor suggestions for how the public should go about controlling their weight. For diabetics, they promoted the lowering of blood glucose, and the quick way to do that was to give insulin to people with high levels which did, in fact, lower their blood sugar. The problem was that the insulin did that by forcing the sugar into the cells and not letting it out, and the cells then convert that extra sugar to fat. A procedure that does work is to allow the cells to pump the sugar out into the blood by having the person fast. The best way to do this is with a voluntary intermitent fast.

Instead, what was recommended, and still is by some, is to keep the food intake very low by having the obese person frequently eating small quantities of food. The idea is to stabilize the glucose in the blood at a smooth low level, but that doesn’t work because the body never has a chance to clear out the sugar that is in the cells.

The normal human cycle is to eat during the day and fast overnight which lets the body clear out excess sugar. The way it does that is to dump excess sugar into the blood where it can be taken away. If there is too much insulin there in the bloodstream the sugar is prohibited from leaving the cells.

A normal weight person who doesn’t eat for twelve hours overnight will maintain a reasonable weight. If they become a little overweight, not obese, they may lengthen their fast until noon and then eat normally. If they are about BMI 30, limiting their eating to the hours from noon until 6pm will drop their weight about a pound or two per month. If they are diabetic this method will probably work but it must be done more carefully by monitoring the blood sugar so they don’t get outside of reasonable glucose levels.

Gentle overnight fasting is the way for most normal people to bring their BMI to a healthy condition.

My experience on obesity and a new body weight setpoint.

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Body weight setpoint.

I’ve been asking a series of increasingly difficult questions to be answered about controlling body weight. What determines the body weight setpoint? It is known that sustained high insulin raises the set point. That is easily observed because people who are injecting insulin gain weight. They are injecting insulin to lower blood sugar, glucose, but the long-term effect of those injections is the body’s growing resistance to the insulin, which requires higher and higher doses of insulin to maintain a normal glucose level.

Does sustained low insulin in the blood lower the set point for the body? The existing setpoint is generally measured by the level of glucose in the early morning before eating. An average glucose level of a normal lean person is about 12 uU/mL and an obese diabetic about 18. (The Obesity Code by Jason Fung p. 77.) For a nondiabetic, the blood sugars are stable whether you eat six times a day or six times a month. (p. 121.) How can an individual set their glucose level to that of a lean person?

It has been observed that fasting for a few days will lower the glucose level of an obese person temporarily, but does it lower their set point? Probably not from a single several days’ fast, but from a year-long daily eighteen-hour fast there will probably be a significant weight loss and a lowering of the setpoint.

Does a year-long easy daily fasting stabilize at the lower setpoint? My personal experience is that it seems to have done that because I don’t have any sudden increase in weight when I basically ignore my current diet. I just eat normally by my new habitual eating routine now without any snacking between meals and that includes between my last meal at six pm and my first one at noon.

A year-long daily intermittent fast stabilizes at a lower body weight setpoint.

Tips for Easy Living

Tags

BMI control, Stress reduction, Tips for easy living!, Weight stabilization

Tips for Easy Living
I can do that !

Going for a relaxing walk every day and smiling at the nice things makes the next meal healthier. . . . . . . .
Making your eating area, place settings, and food as beautiful and pleasant as possible lowers your stress. . . . . . . .
Arranging your meals to have items with a variety of textures, colors, smells, and tastes will broaden nutrients. . . . . . . .
Pre-cutting the desserts to smaller sizes before meals will trim sugar consumption and still complete the meal. . . . . . . .
Drinking fruit juices with meals is good but when taken as snacks between meals they will stimulate fattening. . . . . . . .
Turning off the TV, radio, phone, and computer during meals lowers the stress hormones that stimulate fat growth. . . . . . . .
Making your bedroom dark, quiet, cool, and your bed prewarmed, will ease tomorrow’s stresses. . . . . . . .
Eat to the full at meals and then STOP, as stretching your stomach would make it demand more food to be full. . . . . . . .

Tips for adjusting a few more stress habits and your weight too

Going for a quick walk before eating time eliminates unpleasant hunger and perks up a pleasant appetite. . . . . . . .
Drinking water, coffee, and tea between meals is okay but ignore all sweet and caloric beverages. . . . . . . .
Drinking 2 cups of water with 2 Tbs. of apple cider vinegar and 2 Tbs. of fiber aids digestion and calms hunger. . . . . . . .
Putting a ¼ cup of mixed nuts, berries, and dried fruits at each table setting makes it easy to remember them. . . . . . . .
Also, have a selection of whole fruits like apples, oranges, bananas, or berries available for every meal. . . . . . . .
Replacing pasta and pastries with sweet potatoes, squash, other vegetables, and fruits will promote health. . . . . . . .
Getting proteins from plant-based foods plus a ¼ cup of body-builder style whey will stimulate feeling full. . . . . . . .
Start eating an hour later and stop eating an hour earlier to lower your BMI. . . . . . . .
Be friendly at parties by accepting one snack, and one beverage, but after that only coffee, tea, or ice water. . . . . . . .
Storing all foods and even pictures of foods in magazines out of sight helps you ignore and forget them. . . . . . . .
Even smelling good food will stimulate your mouth to water, your insulin to surge, and your butt to fatten. . . . . . . .
Setting an alarm clock at night and another one for morning helps you sleep more regularly and better. . . . . . . .

Tips for when you are approaching your ideal weight

Taking a comfortably fast walk every day and a long walk weekly makes your heart body and mind healthier. . . . . . . .
Eating only at noon and 6 pm with whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, olive oil, and butter lowers your weight. . . . . . . .
Limiting caloric beverages to one per meal stabilizes your drinking habits. . . . . . . .
Fasting once a month for a day and once a year for two days will help stabilize your insulin hormones. . . . . . . .
Conversing with kind friends and doing solitary quiet meditations will lower your stressful cortisol hormones. . . . . . . .
Making these eating, exercising, sleeping, and socializing habits your routine will help make your life easier. . . . . . . .

1st Friday Art Walk in Bend, Oregon

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The grand purpose of life., What needs to be done?

We rarely miss the 1st Friday Art Walk in here Bend, Oregon. It is an easy couple of hours walking around our beautiful downtown, running into people I know from various venues and participating in generalized festivities. On fine weather evenings, which is nearly every evening here on the 3,600-foot altitude desert, people are dressed comfortably and having a pleasant walk-around. There are lots of tourists and lots of visual arts to look at, and some of the artists remember my name and start talking to me spontaneously. This is becoming more of a problem for me because my memory for names and other things is slipping away with my increasing age. It doesn’t bother me too much because, all in all, I am enjoying my life more than ever.

On that issue, it appears that what makes my current situation feel better is that I am working on several projects I feel are important. The one I am about to go public with is the project where I help people stabilize their life, and to start with, their weight. I know these methods work because I have personal experience so I feel confident about talking about them even though there will obviously be a lot of contention.

The strange reason for this change of attitude was the reading of several survival stories of people in a sustained prisoner-of-war type situation. The most recent one was Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. This book had added relevance for me because of my reading last year of Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus’s Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior (Hoover Essays) by James Bond Stockdale, and my own rendition a couple of years ago of Epictetus’ Enchiridion – A manual of Stoic living, found here on this blog. One of the key ideas in each of those books is having an important project to work on. It is more than just having a job, a family, a community; it is more like being a functioning part of the Universe and doing something that promotes that kind of grandiose purpose.

I know that this needs to be done, I want it to be done, and I am doing it.

My third day as a laborer and a talker to stones.

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Bruises, Bucking tilling machine, Labyrinth, Rocks, Roots, Talking to stones., Tilling

The Barreto soil tiller must go back tomorrow, so I put in another hour tilling my yards. This only took about an hour because I started the engine on the first pull and there were no engine-killing encounters with roots or rocks. This last effort amounted to going over nearly every square foot of dirt for the fourth time so everything is nice and soft and ready for seeds. Our climate is rather cool here in Bend, Oregon, and our growing season is short, but in the past years we have managed to get most of our vegetables for several months out of our garden. I’m not sure that it is economically better than getting them from the grocery store, but it does put us back into a deeper contact with nature. I was feeling sore from the violent bucking of the machine when I hit a large rock, and, although I don’t have any visible bruises, I do feel some pain when I move. I did manage to get the machine back on to its trailer without much fuss so it will be easy to get it back to the rental store by 8:30. It was a couple of days of an adult form of fun and it does have the satisfaction of seeing something accomplished. Not like this blog which is just words that vanish into the blogosphere.

This morning’s walk at the labyrinth was interesting as usual after the strange stresses created by that time last month when I asked the stones how they viewed me and they announced that I was very temporary. Well, yeah, but you don’t have to be so damned accurate and true. Today I inquired about what my virtues were and was informed that I had many remarkable qualities that they totally lacked and they felt deprived and envious. I can move at my choice and do many different things at my choice whereas they can do rock-like things which they valued, and the slowness of their actions was not a problem because they usually have plenty of time, but what they lacked was choice in their actions. They did what we humans might consider interesting things, like dive deep into the earth, and experience transformations, but they didn’t have any freedom of action. Things just happened to them from the outside, and things happened to them on the inside too, but there wasn’t any self-directed choice about it.

I can walk around the labyrinth and think about things, like what I want to do with my day, and I can look at the wind blowing through the trees, I can think about these questions, I can feel the cold wind, and I can choose to go up to the UU fellowship building and hear a truly interesting and inspirational sermon by our new Reverend Scott Rudolph.

I as a human have these wonderful opportunities that I can choose to do and they as rocks do not.

My second day as a laborer

Tags

Day labor, I survived some hard work, Preparing my garden, Tilling the garden

Yesterday I got a fresh taste of tough manual labor. It came in the form of a hand-operated Barreto brand rototiller. It’s a wonderful tool for taking a smooth area like a large front yard and chopping the soil into a finer dirt that would be more amenable to gardening or growing a grass lawn. It wouldn’t be too daunting a task assuming my soil had been tilled in recent years, but this soil had never been tilled; it wasn’t as hard as highway pavement, but it was close.

Going through the well-mixed soil wasn’t too bad, but there were occasional rocks the size of baseballs, and the two-inch diameter roots were plentiful enough, and when I hit one it would lock up the whole system instantly. The engine would stop and try as I might it usually refused to start when it was hot, so I would have to do something else for fifteen minutes. There was plenty to do, such as digging with a shovel to expose the root, then taking the arm-operated branch cutter with a two-inch snipper blade and cutting out the roots that had been discovered. That was a challenge!

But the most annoying thing was trying to get the engine restarted. Until I developed a technique, I had pulled with all my might to get it to fire and run for about five seconds, but it would then sputter and slowly die. There were several levers for controlling the choke and throttle and timing which had a range of possible settings, none of which had any visible range markers so everything was a big guess. Over the course of the afternoon, I must have pulled the starting line fifty times to get about four successful starts. Fortunately, when it did go, near the end of the working session I could get twenty minutes of operation by avoiding where the roots and rocks had been discovered.

Last week the guys up the trees were starting their power chainsaws with one pull. It had to be that way because they were in no position to be fighting with chainsaws.

I have the tiller until 8:30am Monday morning and tomorrow afternoon, Sunday afternoon, is free after about 4:00pm, so I could get in a couple more hours of tilling in the front yard before dark. Perhaps that can be let go because we are considering getting a professional landscaper to make it xeriscaped. The water here might be becoming a problem so it makes sense to make the landscaping as water-free as possible.

Oh yes, every muscle in my body hurts, except for those in my nose; I don’t know why they were spared.

Some Stoics meet in Oregon

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A reasonable way to live, A Stoic society, We have a Stoic meeting.

This evening three of us met at Dudley’s coffee shop for the first meeting of Stoics here in Central Oregon. After I read the opening paragraphs of Epictetus’s book known as The Enchiridion, we talked about coping with life from the point of view of a Stoic.

“Some things are within our power to influence such as our thoughts, opinions, emotions, physical actions and creation of personal habits. Some things are outside of our power to control such as the past, remote things, our body up to this moment, our legal rights such as ownership of property, our reputation and holding public office. Those things are not of our personal control, and our relationship with them must be distant. The things within our power are naturally free for our personal use, and they can not be restrained by others.”

The meeting was scheduled to go from 6pm to 8pm but after Dudley’s closed we talked on the street until about 10pm. This is reminiscent of my many years at the Caffè Mediterraneum coffee shop back in Berkeley.

It closed at midnight but there were many conversations that went past 1am on the sidewalk out front. I loved those standing conversations perhaps even more than the ones inside because they had an even more free-form style than those sitting at the tables. And so it was.

There is a parent group of which we are also members which meets in the same venue on the second and fourth Thursdays. The discussions in that group are formalized and facilitated in a fairly strict way but as there were only three of us present this meeting was totally a conversation.

This was the fifth Thursday of the month but that would be rare for meetings, so the third Thursday is probably open and perhaps once a month would be okay, but there is a music group that plays downstairs on that day, so it would be too noisy. Perhaps a different meeting place or time would be better. I will check on that.

We need a Stoic society here in Bend. It is different from the UU and the Socrates Cafe.