Fri, Mar-30-12, 12:43
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Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
March 30, 2012
Mind vs. Body: Who's In Control?
by Barbara Berkeley, MD
Hi everybody! I'm back from a couple of weeks of vacation in the sun and my solar batteries are feeling nicely recharged. Thanks to those who wrote and asked about my absence. All is well.
On my return, I found a long email from a reader (let's call her Ms.X) that piqued my interest. She wrote about a phenomenon which she has dubbed "Passive Dieting" and which can be defined as the mistaken belief of some dieters that the body is in control and knows best. Her hypothesis is that Passive Dieters are hesitant to take the reins and thus control the process of weight loss and maintenance mindfully. Here are some quotes from her email:
Passive Dieting is a way of removing yourself from the driver's seat and acting as though your body pilots itself. You're not in control; your body is in control--and it's a mysterious, fickle entity, operating independently from you, with its own agenda, its own demands, and its own will. You're just along for the ride.
I would guess you've encountered these types of attitudes:
"No matter what I do, the scale hates me. The scale is evil!"
"I'm craving _____. My body must be telling me I need it."
"I can't get any lower than this stalled 'set point', because my body likes this weight."
"Just let [whatever plan] work its magic!"
"My body must think I'm starving and that's why I'm not losing weight."
"I need to listen to my body and eat whenever I'm hungry."
"You need to eat more calories to trick your body into releasing fat."
"Even if you're not losing pounds, are you losing inches?"
To me, there is an irrational belief contained within this common type of "body talk", in which "your body" does things and you're at its mercy. Personally, if I "listened to my body", I'd probably still be extremely overweight. My body wasn't "telling me" what I should be eating or what my portions should be, or how a person at my current weight needs to eat. I had to dictate those things.
My body never "liked" being at a heavier weight; bodies don't "like" things, and if they did, they wouldn't "like" being obese. No plan ever worked its "magic" for me while I sat back and let it work. I had to work it.
The Passive Diet Talk turns the process into something that is happening to us rather than something we are creating and actively fostering. This is just as important for the psychological components of weight loss as the physical actions, in my opinion. We create cravings and attitudes--and magnify them. We can learn to shut them down, even as persistent and annoying as they are sometimes. Your body is not "telling you" it wants fast food. My body doesn't "need" chocolate or ice cream just because I'm expecting my period. If I crave that stuff, that's because my mouth wants it or my thoughts are glamorizing it.
These childish attitudes truly bother me, because we need to be in charge of our weight loss and maintenance--decisively and actively--rather than believing we are limited by the capricious will of our bodies.
It's not "our bodies" that steer us wrong. Not on "their" own, anyway. It's our unwillingness to accept and inhabit the role of "pilot". It's the fears and excuses we hide behind, and the distancing mechanisms we use to protect ourselves. That doesn't mean we're bad people; it just means we're a little deluded. I'm sure we all would rather avoid uncomfortable self-confrontation; it's not a lot of fun. But the answer is not to distance ourselves from "our bodies" and act as if "they" control us.
Since Ms. X asked my opinion on these things, I will offer it here. I hope that you readers will respond as well, because the interface between the body and mind is a truly complicated issue and the ability to (at times) willfully exert control over biological urges is definitely a key to success in weight maintenance.
There are a number of lessons I have learned during my journey as a doctor and counselor to those trying to lose weight. The primary one is that there is quite a bit of biologic variability in the way our bodies react to an unhealthy food environment. Secondarily, there is a wide degree of variability in the psychological elements that overlay weight problems. Psychological tie-ins may be completely absent or may utterly dominate an individual's efforts at weight control. I believe in the ability to exert control but I also believe that the body does "speak" to us with cravings and compulsions. The intensity of this "talk" is highly individual and while no one has an easy time controlling it, some people are more able to find strategies that work to disable the dialogue.
Our ability to exert control over biological urges and to stay focused is not infinite. Studies have shown that repeated attempts at exerting focused attention eventually break down. So, I am a believer in the importance of devoting more early maintenance attention to creating a truly pleasurable new life that avoids old triggers. We are safe on the maintenance island when movies are no longer linked to popcorn but feel just as good with grapes, or when the Pasta Alfredo on the menu just no longer looks as good as the Grilled Salmon Salad. The reason that I believe that we can get to this point is that I myself have experienced it. In my life prior to weight gain I was a huge and uncontrolled eater who weighed 110 pounds at 5'6". I loved nothing more than hot fudge sundaes, loaves of bread, cookies, pasta and french fries. Today, after about 10 years as a 90% Primarian, I have no particular craving for any of these things but truly and honestly enjoy eating plain, clean, fresh, simple foods. Like meditation skills, success comes from the practice. Continuing to eat this way and to associate it with pleasurable feelings of lightness, health, and attractiveness carves a deep path that no longer feels like a desperate trudge up a mountain.
Does our body "speak" to us? Yes. And is our body in control of us? Ultimately, yes. 99% of our body processes run on auto-pilot, from keeping the levels of potassium, sodium and about 100 other elements stable in your blood, to telling you when to eat, when to sleep, when to breathe and when to eliminate. We can temporarily override these messages, but eventually we do have to obey the body's imperatives. But the body's messages are meant to help, not harm. What is most important for us to understand, is that the body is no longer sending beneficial messages when we expose it to confusing and harmful environments.i These "wrong" messages are the ones we must tease out and learn to circumvent.
I've written before about my feeling that the body does not care about excess fat or even act as if it is aware of it. Our bodies react swiftly and with stunning specificity to any threats to our health, creating rafts of antibodies to combat bacteria, sending complicated clotting cells and chemicals to staunch bleeding, and releasing a host of mind and body sharpening chemicals when we need to flee from danger. Yet someone who is hugely threatened by a fat mass of over 100 pounds, does not benefit from bodily help. The body is silent, almost uncaring. It continues to send the same messages of hunger (or even more urgent messages) than it did before. These messages are not right for the organism, but not because the body has made an error. In my view, the confusin occurs simply because we were not genetically programmed during a time when massive fat storage was possible. We don't have the programming to respond to it and so the succeeding messages are wrong. Our bodies therefore behave as if fat didn't exist, and this vastly compounds the problem.
The work of weight loss and weight maintenance is the work of putting our bodies in the position to give us the correct messages. This means pulling ourselves out of the modern food environment and the sedentary world in which we live. It is a tough task indeed, and one that involves accepting the role of "pilot" that Ms. X aptly describes. But my argument would be that neither you nor your body is in ultimate control. What ultimately controls us is the effect of the environment we live in. Control your environment as much as you can and you will effectively control the messaging of your body, making the job of pilot a much easier one.
I've often used the analogy of an island when I've talked about the life of successful weight maintainers. To master weight once and for all, don't be a sometime visitor, pick up and move to the island with all your belongings and with a happy heart.
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http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...in-control.html
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