Fat

Logically, if overeating is emotional–and the simple carbohydrate/fat combination clearly works in the short term as an anti-anxiolytic–then one could reasonably posit that the gain of fat is associated with unprocessed emotions. This is a thesis seen often enough.

Logically, though, this would also mean that LOSING that fat permanently would require either the processing or complete suppression of those emotions. This is an interesting fork.

It is obvious that the science of nutrition was corrupted in the mid-1980’s, largely through the work of a hack named Ancel Keys, and that the empirical basis for recommending low fat diets quite simple does not exist. Given that the adoption by the Federal Government of this idiotic idea corresponded nearly immediately with endemic rises in rates of obesity, we can I think with accuracy assume that much of our problem arose simply from bad ideas implemented by a central governing authority.

But I think there is more to it. There are now half a dozen or more, more or less low carb diets out there. It started with Atkins, but you have Protein Power, Carb Addicts, the Zone, South Beach, Paleo, and many others. The information is out there.

We assume that sedentary behavior causes obesity at least in children. They are sitting around playing video games or watching TV. Could we not also posit, however, that what is really going on is what might be termed “emotion-avoidance”, and that rather than be active socially they are using the numerous solipsistic caves created by modern technology in effect to prolong adolescence, and that this failure, in turn, creates the emotional NEED for the sorts of food that cause obesity?

As I understand the science, there is close to no link between obesity and physical activity. The excessive storage of adipose tissue–fat–is hormonally regulated. If you tweak those hormones, you initiate the use of fat as a fuel source, and eventually lean out. The process is very reversible, even, as I understand the matter, in diabetics.

Thus, we have twin cultural issues. On the one hand we have people like Michelle Obama in positions of power and influence working hard to spread scientifically disproven ideas about the nature of obesity.

On the other hand, though, we have a cultural need for the use of food as a sopophoric and emotional tranquilizer, which leads inexorably to metabolic effects.

These are of course large problems, but as I try to do, I will suggest at least some possible solutions.

First, the Federal Government needs to get out of the business of telling us what to eat. It is one thing to arrogate power that was never granted by the Constitution. It is another, worse, thing, to take that power and lead people in the WRONG DIRECTION. Quite literally, had the Surgeon General never rendered any opinion at all, we would be much better off. This is a common enough outcome when Statists prevail.

Secondly, I would like to see this curse of cultural narcissism brought into the light. I feel strongly that our nation is riddled with self centered parents who bring children into the world who feel the need to hide. Those children, in turn, never develop fully emotionally, and when they have children, the cycle repeats.

Banning things is simplistic, and fails to get at the root problem.

More generally, we need better ways of processing things emotionally. As may be obvious to more perceptive readers (I assume not all the hits on my site are from spam engines or whatever they are called, so I assume I do have readers), I was at one time the kid sent to all the shrinks.

What do you do there? You describe feelings, and put labels on the situations that gave rise to those feelings. By and large, this process is useless. The only useful advice any shrink ever gave me was to exercise (I was never medicated, but I’m sure I would have been in today’s world). The only psychology book that gave me any persistently useful advice was Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism, in which he describes in effect the “blocks” to depressive attacks. It gets you leverage over emotions that would otherwise sweep in and out like waves beyond your control.

It has long been my goal to develop something that actually worked. My dominant hypothesis is that you get at emotional issues where they reside: somatically. Clearly, some patterns of thinking are more useful than others, so I certainly do not reject cognitive therapy. Clearly as well, some psychological maladies do progress to (or begin as) organic, mechanical problems with nervous system wiring, so I do not reject the work of psychitrists in using various anti-psychotics.

Depression, though, clearly does not result from a deficiency in anti-depressant medication, as some people more or less unconsciously seem to assume. It is not “out there”. It is “in here”, in our cultural space, and is an artifact and outcome of how we move within our social space. It seems to me our culture is some combination of walls that are excessively permeable, and walls which cannot be bridged by any means at all. For example, you cannot achieve genuine empathy from a narcissist, but for their part they are only too happy to overlook your own personal boundaries.

Somatically, what seems to work for me is feeling feelings without labeling them. I look back imaginatively to some place or situation, and just remember what I was feeling, who I was. I do this without judgement. If someone hurt you, you just feel the hurt. There is no need to reinforce anger at them. If you feel anger, feel the anger. Often, if you look carefully, you will find residual love for people that hurt you. Many people overlook this, since it is not expected cognitively, and is illogical.

There are no illogical feelings: if you feel them, you must acknowledge them to remain whole, and psychologically reactive and healthy. This is an important point.

I do real time inventories during the day. I will pause periodically to simply listen to my body, and make an inventory: I feel anxiety about X, anger about Y, my back hurts (always: I have scoliosis), I believe I need to eat, and I keep thinking obsessively about Z. I make no effort to make any of this go away. If you acknowledge it, it diminishes in importance, even if it does not fade away fully.

Now, I am a man, and historically uncomfortable with what I was raised to consider the “feminine” process of feeling. Feeling is what girls do. If a conversation with a partner starts with “I feel that you. . “, then get ready to be uncomfortable with this whole mishy-mashy mush about sentiments, when I could just be reading a book and smoking a cigar–or, really, ANYTHING else. Many men, I think, are like this, and professions like law enforcement or the military readily support this basic predisposition of avoiding feelings.

(It is actually interesting that if you do get to the emotional core of soldiers and the like, they are almost childlike in their enthusiasms and generosities; this is because they never ended their emotions, but rather retained them more or less intact from childhood, in my view).

This basic ideas, that of feeling feelings, I got from Tarthang Tulku’s “Kum Nye” books, which I have found very useful. I have had difficulty with it at times, since feelings come up that more or less create emotional indigestion and heartburn for me. Since I can keep them from my consciousness, I often do. But you cannot progress as a human being without developing skill in feeling. The goal is not to not feel anger, as people supposedly on the spiritual path often assume. The goal is to see the role of anger, see its value, and also to see its pitfalls, and to only use it when it is the most contextually appropriate response.

Finally, I have been interested in some time in the process of “Autogenic Abreaction” of Johannes Schulz and (Wolfgang, I believe?) Luthe. Basically, you teach people to relax deeply, then let them have images drift by, which they describe to the therapist. The transcripts read more or less like real time accounts of dreams. They apparently got some therapeutic relief through these methods for their patients.

What I have found in myself is that there are bridges of emotion I must cross to become deeply relaxed. All sorts of things–unprocessed emotions, avoided feelings–come up, and prevent full relaxation. There must, then, I think be a continuum, in which you process feelings at the same time you are learning deep relaxation. You achieve success not when you feel nothing, but when you feel happy, fulfilled, open, but not naive.

Few thoughts for a Sunday.