Romancing the Diet

Quitting smoking was not easy, but in retrospect, it was far easier than losing a measly 15 pounds and keeping it off. To stop smoking (seven years ago), I had to change my thinking and my desires.

It turns out, though, that I had help I wasn't aware of. And I now believe that made all the difference, a difference that doesn't exist for the process of weight loss.

From two different perspectives, the article "Beating Obesity" by Marc Ambinder in the May 2010 issue of The Atlantic, and the book Savor, by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lillian Leung discuss the issue. Both discuss the interconnectedness of everything. Because of this interconnectedness, we are fat. Only together with everything, can we become healthy and less fat.

First, the bad news -  according to Ambinder, the forces of society, technology, industry, government policy, culture, genes, and demographics work in concert to make and keep us fat.

Technology changes work, changes behaviour, changes patterns and amount of movement; Industry constructs food - food molecules actually - that some suspect create virtual "neurochemical addiction...change our brain chemistry in ways that make us overeat;" non-food industries expose us to chemicals that correlate with obesity.

Society's demands create stress which leads to obesity; society's expectations affect sleep patterns which can help make us fat; society's planning and design of towns and cities affect our level of exercise; business production and distribution models make fast food not only the most calorically dense, but the cheapest and most widely available.

"Agricultural production and subsidies"  - corn fed beef, high fructose corn syrup, for example - increase our waistlines. Advertising with its images of food and the normalization of food as entertainment and acceptance help make us fat. Cultural norms regarding portion sizes have increased dramatically.

It's a wonder that anyone can lose weight and keep it off with all of this, and more, ranged against the individual. According to Ambinder, "America has erected two lines of defense: name-calling, and hectoring about diet and exercise."

Both of these defenses put the entire responsibility for health and weight loss on the individual - rather silly when you think about it. Even with Olympic-class will power, the individual fights a losing battle.

This is the point at which the Thich Nhat Hanh/Leung book Savor enters the picture. Drawing on Buddhist practices of mindfulness and meditation, the authors stress how we are not alone, how weight loss, like anything else, is together with everything. We cannot lose weight in isolation; people have to work together to create an environment that is healthful for all. We have to be mindful of eating - and of living.

That unseen help I had to stop smoking came from society - policy, regulation, advertising, education, technology, culture - many of the things ranged against the individual when it comes to weight loss. Society is against cigarettes in ways that it is not against cheap food, fast food, hypertasty food, large portions of food, junk food, processed food.

Right now we expect each single, tiny will to stand up to the whole of society. Many will say that the game isn't rigged, that each person can make a rational decision about what's beneficial. It doesn't work.

Only collective will power can get this done. And it's so easy to discuss it over a nice bowl of something and a supersized drink!

Soiree's Past Week

At My Soiree - October 12 - 16/09

Enjoy the celebrities, elephants, and tomatoes from the week's posts!
 

October 12/09 - Elephants at a Soiree
October 13/09 - Autumn Ode to Tomatoes
October 14/09 - The Long and Winding Path
October 15/09 - Educating Millennials for Fun and Profit
October 16/09 - On Celebrities and Soirees

The Long and Winding Path

My first introduction to Buddhism in the 1970s was a series of books by a Tibetan lama who called himself Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. Whether or not Rampa was either a Tibetan or a lama is the subject of considerable controversy, but he and his writings still have serious followers. At the time, I was captivated.

Rampa as Cyril Hoskin, or Cyril Hoskin as Rampa (part of the controversy) came to Canada in the early 1960s, to my hometown Saint John, New Brunswick.

I found this out with a jolt while reading one of Rampa's books in my new hometown in British Columbia. He mentioned the kindness of a woman in Saint John who lived in a little house behind the church that I had attended from birth to 18. I knew that woman.

It was an oddly surreal dose of reality amidst the astral travel, transmigration of souls, and talking cats. I'm no longer sure what I believe from within those pages (except for the church and the woman!), but they did influence me greatly and push me to investigate further.

Over the course of many, many years, from Rampa's books, to Alan Watts's The Way of Zen, I found the work of Jack Kornfield and the more western face of Buddhism.

I am still captivated, but more at home, and no one questions Kornfield's credentials or authenticity.

Kornfield is a Buddhist monk, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and the Spirit Rock Center in California. He has a Ph.D. in psychology, a sense of humour, and a fine writing style.

Two of my favourite's of Kornfield's books are After the Ecstasy, the Laundry and A Path with Heart.

I look forward to reading Kornfield's latest book The Wise Heart. If it's as good as his other books, then I am in for a few days of good teaching and pleasurable reading.

I would like to invite Jack Kornfield to my soiree.