Strategies for Breaking Up, Part 1 | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 8

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Why Can’t I Stay Broke Up? Because You Got Issues!

I’ve been a therapist for almost 30 years. It’s hard to believe.

In those early years, I trained as a Child and Family Therapist. Lots of parent trainings. For many of the children, I became a surrogate father. I would take them on walks through the city parks and throw frisbees. We would often stop for lunch or snacks at McDonald’s. Some of these children are in their late 30s/early 40s now. 

I remember one of my young client’s name was Nick. Nick was nine years old, and I had been working with him for a couple of years. We would go to McDonald’s for lunch, and on one outing, he was eating his chicken-nugget happy meal when he noticed another little boy running through the McDonald’s. 

“Mr. Mark,“ he said, “That little boy needs a therapist.“

“Why do you say that, Nick?” I asked. 

“Because he’s got issues,” He responded.

Geez. I wondered where he had heard that, but also remembered that Nick had been in therapy himself for years even at nine years old. 

I have thought a lot about what little Nick said and I think he’s right about lots of kids and lots of adults. When it comes to food, we all have issues, and those issues affect our breakup with food and makes it difficult to stay broke up. 

We’ve been examining ways to break up with food and stay broke up. We’re going to look now at strategies for breaking up in 6 separate parts. In Part One, I’ll share some cognitive strategies, changing how you think about food and about yourself and dealing with your issues. 

In Part Two (Episode 9), I’ll share some behavioral strategies called Self-Binding, because after all, I am a behavior analyst. 

In Parts Three and Four (Episodes 10 and 11), I’m also going to share another obesity, memoir, entitled, “hunger: lessons learned on the journey from fat to send,” by Alan Zatkoff. Here’s what the dust jacket says: “instead of employing, the diet, du jour, and other weight loss foods, he began to focus less on what he ate, and more on the physical and emotional underpinnings of what he came to understand as a disease.”

In Parts Five and Six (Episodes 12 and 13), I’ll share about a Twelve-Step Program called, Overeaters Anonymous.

Let’s get started!

1. If you’re going to break up and stay broke up with food, you must change the way you think about food.

I want to introduce you or re-introduced you to book I wrote about back into 2019. The book is, “The Beck Diet,” by Judith Beck. It isn’t really a diet book. It’s a book on strategies for following a diet using Cognitive Behavioral Strategy. “Cognitive therapy,“ she writes, “helps you identify your sabotaging, thinking, and effectively respond to it, so you feel better, and can believe in helpful ways.“ 

I call these sabotaging thoughts my “Inner Demons.” Several years ago, I was talking to my good friend, Sam, about working out five days a week at Premier Fitness, which included using a personal trainer, kickboxing, powerlifting, and spin. “Looks like you’ve become addicted to working out,“ He commented.  I informed him that I already have plenty of demons that I wrestle with, and I don’t need to worry about whether I’m becoming addicted to exercise. 

Here are some of my demons! 

  1. I work out so I can eat whatever I want.
  2. That one cookie isn’t going to ruin my diet.
  3. I can have a breakfast sandwich from Panera just this morning.
  4. I shouldn’t deprive myself from everything, YOLO!
  5. “I’ll work it off tomorrow.”

These are my demons. Beck’s book is splendid and helps you change how you think about food.

2. If you’re going to break up with food and stay broke up, you’re going to need help.

I used a Personal Trainer throughout most of my 50s. There are other professionals, Certified Health Coaches, that have trained solely for the purpose of helping people lose weight. There are support groups and 12 step groups that focus on overeating. Weight Watchers or WW offers weekly or monthly meetings, both in person and via online. And there are many therapists that focus on the body-mind connection and offer support for exercising nutrition.

There are churches that offer classes and support groups for weight loss and nutrition. Beck recommends that you find a Diet Coach. According to Beck, here’s what they can do for you:

  • Keeps you motivated.
  • Builds your self-esteem.
  • Helps you solve eating problems.
  • Keeps you accountable.
  • Helps you take a more positive perspective.

Ask, what would my coach say?

The Overeaters Anonymous Program includes a sponsor, or diet coach. Beck suggests recruiting a diet coach from close friends or family members. Or maybe someone that has been successful losing weight or breaking up with food and staying broke up.

3. Focus on Incompatible Behaviors.

Incompatible behaviors are behaviors that make it difficult to engage in what we generally call target behaviors. Target behaviors in this sense would be overeating or eating food that is inconsistent with your diet plan. What are some of those incompatible behaviors?

Exercise

It seems to me that if you’re exercising, you’re not eating. There are lots of things that you can do that are incompatible with eating. This means first looking at your eating patterns. Where do you eat, when do you eat, how much do you eat, and what do you eat, and then, develop a plan to change these variables.

In the Applied Behavior Analysis world, we call these contextual variables for eating your “trigger” foods as some define them.  If you know Behavior Analyst, they can do a mini Functional Behavioral Assessment that will help you uncover your contextual variables.

If not, just start writing down and looking at where, when, What, who and yes why you eat and then write a Behavior Plan.

If you find that you snack at night while watching TV, break up with food by doing something else at that time. Like learning to play the guitar or practicing Mario kart. Change it up in some way.

4. If you’re going to break up and stay broke up with food, you will need to develop a written plan and revise it often.

This isn’t a diet plan, but a lifetime. You’re going to look at all the aspects of your life and change them. If you’re going to change your relationship or break up with food, you need to change your whole life. Don’t think you can read a diet book, like a Mediterranean diet, and think that your relationship with food will change. Let me say something very important, a major takeaway from this blog: You are following a diet as we speak. I’m following the Mark Neese diet. You’re following the: fill in the blank diet. And you are deeply entrenched by it. It is a way of life for you. Your diet is a way of life!

Read that again, and if it is a way of life for you, then you will need a plan to change your life. The biopsychosocial model that we use as therapists looks at all aspects of your life. Relationships. Education. Health and physical aspect. Spiritual and mindfulness approach. Social aspects. Employment.  Hobbies. Recreation.

Compare this with it with the list of contextual variables that evoke or increase the risk of toxic eating. Develop a breakup plan. Example: my plan is 8 to 10 hours of exercise per week. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Decreased eating out. Increase time spent with time restricted eating. Increase fruits and vegetables. I use squeeze fruits and vegetables when I’m driving throughout the city. I have a life planned that guides me. I am revising it even now.

5. If you’re going to have a breakup with food, or with your old, toxic lifestyle, you need to practice this principle: Easy Does It.

Throughout my years of practicing as a Family Therapist, Personal Trainer, and throughout my personal life, I have used the principle of Easy Does It. Slow things down. Don’t push too hard be gentle.

Changing Your Life

Strategies for breaking up with food are basically strategies for changing your life, because your diet is really a reflection of your lifestyle.

I’ve suggested five strategies that will make breaking up more likely. I have a few more to share in part two of this blog. Stay tuned.

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

What’s the Hardest Thing You’ve Done? | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 7

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What’s the Hardest Thing You’ve Done?

Seven days. Six nights. 17000+/- ft. of elevation. 41 miles. 45 lbs. Minus 2 toenails. One of the hardest things I’ve done. The Grand Canyon.

I wanted to test myself. What a better place to do that than the Grand Canyon. It was 2009. I was 52 years old, and I’d been backpacking for four years and had gone down and come out of the Canyon four times. 

Nothing is easy about doing the canyon. If you think hiking down into the Grand Canyon is easy, you’d would be wrong. Think about walking down stairs for 8 to 10 miles. With 45 lbs. on your back.

You have to prepare by putting on a backpack and putting in the mileage with 30-40 lbs. in that pack.  

The Canyon is one of my favorite places on the earth. I love walking up to the edge of the South Rim at Grand Canyon Village, after being away for a year, and feeling overwhelmed by the view. You can see nearly 20 miles from the South Rim to the North Rim, almost forever. It’s most beautiful when it’s just snowed and it’s cloudy. Especially in January and February when the clouds are hanging around.

I planned a 7 day, 6 night solo backpacking trip. All by myself.

Day One: 5-mile hike down to Havasu Campground and the loss of 3000 feet. 

On one of my trips to the Canyon one of the regulars that I backpack with had invited a friend to “do the canyon.” This was the year my son was graduating from high school, and he was invited. They were 15 of us. A ritual was to weigh our packs at Babbage’s, the outfitting store. My pack weighed 42 pounds and my son’s was 30 pounds. We had both trained hard for this trip. 

The new invitee was 50+ years old and had just quit smoking the year before and was celebrating it with the backpacking trip into the Grand Canyon. Her pack weighed 45 pounds. I glanced at my son, and we both had that, “She’s not gonna make it,“ look.  And in fact, she arrived at Havasu Garden Campground without a pack. She said her legs had turned to rubber. She had dropped her pack halfway down. The next day she and her husband chose to hike out and hired a teenager to haul her pack back up to the South Rim. The Canyon is unforgiving.
I arrived at Havasu Garden CG on this trip in 3 hours, set up my camp, and slept well.

Day Two: Eleven miles on the Tonto West trail to Monument Creek CG.

This is a long 11-mile hike because you were hiking in an out of side canyons. Easily a six- or seven-hour hike. Total exposure to the sun. Day two ends at Monument Creek Campground, which is the payoff for the long hike. The bathroom is three wooden walls. No ceiling. One beautiful view.

Day Three: Nine miles. 4000 feet of elevation gain on the Hermit’s Rest Trail.

It was grueling. Remember my pack was 40+ pounds.

I had planned to hike back 11 miles to Havasu Garden Campground but changed my mind and decided to hike out the Hermit’s Rest Trail back to the South Rim. The problem was that I was going to have to walk 10 miles back to the trailhead and to my car. When I arrived at the rim, I was absolutely, exhausted. Remember I had hiked 25 miles in the past three days. I was lucky to meet a man who agreed to take me back to the trailhead but made me agree to listen to his story about going through a divorce, and how he was traveling from city to city in an RV looking for a new city to live in and call home. You can’t make something like this up. So, I listened.  I stayed at the Bright Angel Lodge, took a shower, and slept in a bed.

Day Four: I hiked down the Kaibab Trail to Phantom Ranch.

8 miles. 5200 feet of elevation loss. The good news: I was fresh and rested. The bad news: I was wearing new boots that rubbed the top of my toenails and remember it was 8 miles of descent, and it resulted in blisters under my toenails. That’s right blisters, not on my toes, but under my toenails
I set up my camp at Bright Angel Campground at the bottom of the Canyon and went to bed.

Day Five and Six: My plan was to hike out to Ribbon Falls (13 miles round trip)

Instead, I popped the blisters under my toenails and laid around for two days.

The thing about the Canyon is, if you go down into the Canyon, you have to get yourself up out of the Canyon. There are mules. There are helicopters. But unless you’re almost dying, you have to get yourself out. So, I cut the toes out of my new boots and hiked 8 miles and 5200 feet up out of the Canyon.

Seven days. Six nights. 17000+/- ft. 41 miles. 45 lbs. Minus 2 toenails. One of the hardest things I’ve done.

“All Bets Are Off”

Betsy Hartley‘s book, “All Bets Are Off,” has a grueling story in it. Don’t let me confuse you here. She ran a 100-mile race in under 30 hours. I didn’t do that. 

I’ve done a couple marathons. And all the training to prepare for them, but not 100 miles. 

I was exhausted after reading about this race. Geez! It was one of the most grueling accounts of a race that I’ve ever read. But this is not the real story of her book. 

Her story is about losing 220 pounds. Not an easy feat. 

Her plan: Eat less, move more. 

She started this plan in July 2011. Five years later, 220 lbs. lighter. 

That was the most grueling thing she did. Imagine. Five years. 44 pounds per year. Then run 100 miles in 30 hours. 

Honestly, one of the most impressive things I’ve heard or seen was she broke up with food and stayed broke up. That’s what this season of Healthy Aging is about. How to break up with food… How to change your relationship with food. 

What was the turning point in her life? What were her agents of change? 

What Didn’t Help?

Hartley spent 40 years of her life living with obesity, and with the “well-meaning” comments from family and friends. People were concerned for her health and safety, but no matter how tactful, and no matter how loving the comments about her weight, none of them helped. It only made her feel more ashamed. 

Shame is not a good change agent! 

Here’s why: shame makes you want to eat more, because food has become your drug of choice to address your shame, your guilt, and your depression. We feel bad, we eat, we feel better. It’s a never-ending cycle of “food comforting negative feelings!!!!” 

Stop and read this again!

What Did Help?

If it wasn’t all the noise in her environment about her weight, then what changed her? It was that still small voice that came from within her consciousness, her shadow, her true self, and her authentic self, that evoked the change to lose weight and begin living.

The Push and the Pull

Betsy’s willingness to listen to the still small voice from within helped her decided that she had had enough. That was the push in her life and the pull was that she wanted a life without diabetes, a life of mobility, and a life of running. 

It takes a push and a pull to change. Change comes when you take some time and listen to the voice within. “The biggest mystery for me,” she writes, “in my whole crazy adventure is why I finally chose to listen to that little voice, which I smothered for so long. And I work every day on making that voice, stronger and louder.”  

The Still Small Voice

There are a lot of takeaways from her book, but the still small voice struck a chord with me. The voice was saying to her, “It’s time to love yourself. It’s time to lose some weight and begin caring for yourself. It’s time to become something else, a more authentic something else.”

What helped her stay broke up was not the love of running, but what running represented. Running represented her domination over her appetites and over her body. Running, summiting Mount Sherman in Colorado, doing the Grand Canyon, cycling across Indiana, or anything else you do is telling your body, “Eff you! You’re gonna do what I tell you to do!”

That’s what I was doing in 2009 on my Solo Backpacking Trip. 

It’s more than that. It’s the beauty and majesty of all you see and experience while dominating your body.

But that its core it’s about telling your body it’s going to do what you tell it to do and not the other way around.

It’s the process of total domination as Nandor from “What We Do in the Shadows,” says to the zoning commission on Staten Island. The total domination, not of you, but of your body! That’s what we admire about athletes. They have worked their bodies into almost complete domination.

We regular people, like Betsy Hartley, fall short of total domination, but attempting feats of strength is our way of joining the fray. This next weekend I’m headed to the Smoky Mountains to do Mount Sterling. It’s not for the faint hearted. Three days. Two nights. 18 miles. 7000+ minus feet of elevation, hopefully not losing my toenails. Not the Canyon but a challenge. The second day will be grueling. I do it in part because I can but also do it because I want to send a clear message to my body that it will do as it’s told. I struggle every day for total domination and to stay broke-up with food. Hartley is a wonderful example of the person who wrestled with obesity for 50+ years and continues to work toward total domination of her body.

Those are my takeaways from her book. Breaking up is all about listening to that still small voice and staying broke up is all about taking charge of your body and telling it what it’s going to do. It is a wonderful challenge and a wonderful strategy in life.

How about you? Are you a Betsy Hartley?

I have a hard time finding people to Backpack with me, especially as I get older. It’s rare for me to find people that are up to the challenge. But I keep pushing on, and I keep dominating my body, and I work very diligently at staying broke up with food. 

How about you?

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

To purchase or view “All Bets are Off,” By Betsy Hartley at Carmichael’s Book Store, click here

All Bets Are Off: My journey of losing 200 pounds, a showdown with diabetes, and falling in love with running (Paperback)

Why it’s so Difficult Breaking up with Food (Part Two) | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 6

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Keep It Simple Stupid

“What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

How many diets are there? Lots! Wikipedia has a page entitled, List of Diets.

 There are belief-based diets. Buddhist diet. Jain diet. Islamic diet. Kosher diet. 70 Adventist diet.
There are low-calorie diet. Time Restricted Eating. Cookie Diet. Nutrisystem’s. Weight Watchers.

Very low-calorie diets. The Last Chance Diet, I love that. Tongue patch diet.

Low fat diet. McDougall Starch Diet.

Crash diets. Beverly Hills Diet. Cabbage Soup Diet. New Trophic diets. Subway Diet.

Detox diets. Juice Diet, Master Cleanse Diet.

Geez. I could go on and on.

Four or five years ago, I read 75 to 100 books on nutrition, but really they were all about diets. 

I haven’t even mentioned, Paleo, Carnivore, Whole Food Diet, Keto, or Dash Diets. After reading many, many books on most of the diets that are out there, what did I learn? 

Two things: They all work and none of them work

Most of them have some truth, some effectiveness. Most of them help you lose weight. But all of them fail to help you sustain your weight loss. In other words, they help you break up with food, but failed to help you maintain that break up.

Honestly, the Diet Industrial Complex has confused the hell out of me and I’m sure you too.

Take eggs. I am so confused about eggs. Should I eat them? Should I avoid them? Thing is, eggs have almost every macro and micronutrient you need. 

That leads to the question about foods high in saturated fats like red meat. Eat, or avoid, or as some would say, limit red meat.

And there is a question about grains. Can I eat any kind of whole grain? Should I avoid them?

How about simplicity? I was reading an email from AllTrails about Global Dog Day. Who knew? It was entitled, Trails and Tails Belong Together.

They gave what they called petiqutte.

Three simple guidelines. 

1. Respect leashing rules for everyone’s safety. 2. Leave no trace means scoop that poop. (This reminds me of my hikes in Broad Run Park where I walk past flowerbeds and it smells like a dog toilet.) 3. Don’t forget to bring water for your dog. I’ve seen people break this rule when they’ve been attempting to climb The Incline in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It’s a 1-mile trail that gains 2000 feet of elevation. I would shake my head wondering what people were thinking when they brought their dog and no water.

What’s a simple way of looking at nutrition? Michael Pollan gives three rules that I think help simplify the matter. His rules are: 

Eat real food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

This past week I read, “Nature Wants Us to be Fat,” by Richard Johnson, MD.

Honestly, it had some good stuff, but it was a convoluted mess. In the interest of simplicity, I’ll share two takeaways.
Both takeaways are important in understanding why it’s difficult to break up with food, and stay broke up.

Just a reminder, this is part two of “Why is Breaking up with Food so Hard to Do?”

Here is my first take away in Johnson’s book:

The reason why it is so difficult to break up and stay, broke up with food is because we are genetically engineered as a species, to easily and quickly put on weight. And we are genetically designed to keep that weight on.
Imagine if that weren’t true. Humans would be extinct.

We had to be able to put on adipose tissue, which is fat, easily and keep it on during those times of famine or lack of food.

The human species spent six months a year putting on weight by seeking out calorie dense, rich food, which included fat and sugar in the form of fruit. This genetic predisposition also included having an appetite for those calorie dense foods.

Our bodies have a regulatory system comprised mainly of hormones. That system worked very well with our early ancestors. Today it is a curse!

Almost no civilization today in the modern world has to deal with famines. But because food is abundant year-round, it’s as if the “weight gaining function” of our survival system is stuck in the on position.

The survival system is so strong that most of us could put on 10 pounds in two weeks. It is so strong that it will overwhelm your willpower, your reason, and your moral values. Richard Johnson is right, we have a difficult time breaking up with food, and staying broke up because every part of your genetic engineering and evolutionary make up is working against us. “It wants us fat,” as Johnson states in his book,  “and it wants us to stay fat.”
That’s my first take away from Johnson’s book which he takes three chapters to describe.

My second take away: Johnson tells us to stop eating sugar

I’ve written a lot about sugar and all its forms, to include added sugar, in several blogs 3-4 years ago. I could not agree more with Dr. Johnson. If there is a culprit in the awful history of obesity, it’s sugar. Johnson traces the increased manufacture and consumption of sugar and its associated increase in obesity.

If our history was from The Lord of the Rings, sugar would be Sauron. Sauron is the stuff of nightmares throughout that trilogy.
Sugar is our Darth Vader, except sugar will never come back to the side of the Force like Vader did.
Sugar is the Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men.” I cringed when I think of him.
Sugar is the Voldemort from the Harry Potter series. Voldemort’s command of dark magic is so complete he can fly without a broom. A bad dude.

KISS

Back in my Air Force days the acronym KISS came up a lot. There are several versions of what this acronym expresses. Maybe it’s not PC to express it in the USAF way, but it communicates well.

Keep it Simple Stupid

And so, here is my KISS diet, which could be stated in more simple terms, “Eat Real Food.”

1. Quit eating sugar in all its forms, except for fruit
2. Eat fruits, and vegetables. This is where we get micro-nutrients or vitamins and fiber. How much should we eat? I don’t think anyone gets enough, so eat as much as you want. How simple is that?
3. Easy lean protein. What kind of protein? Lean protein (Pork, chicken, beef, or plant-based). Most people don’t get enough protein. You should be getting .36 g for every pound. I weigh 195 pounds. That means I should be getting at least 70 g of protein. Keep it simple. Eat lean protein.
4. Get plenty of omega-3 fats. In other words, stay away from vegetable oils.
5. Stay away from processed food. All of it!

No sugar. Fruits and vegetables. Lean proteins. Omega-3 fatty acids.

Keep it Simple Stupid.

That’s the KISS Diet. It’s free. It’s been around for centuries and millennia.  You can tweak your diet with time-restricted eating. You can abstain from alcohol. You can do all kinds of things that you want to do to make your diet work, but keep it simple stupid!

Honestly, Johnson has a plan in his book that is very similar to the plan that I’ve just mentioned. It just took 270 pages to explain it. And $26.95.

It looks a lot like the Mediterranean diet. Check it out.

There is so much background noise and confusion out there about nutrition, and I believe Johnson contributes a little bit to that background noise.

One of the reasons we have a difficult time breaking up with food is all the noise and over-complication that’s been created because of peoples need for notoriety.

Everyone wants attention so they come up with a new diet.
Everyone wants a click or “like” so they come up with a novel nutritional idea and post it.
Everyone wants to make a buck so they write a book.
Everyone wants to be in the spotlight so they create a fine point that frustrates everyone, like telling you to not skip breakfast!

If you want to break up with food, and stay broke up, my recommendation is KISS!

Keep it Simple Stupid!

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

To purchase or view “Nature Wants Us to be Fat” by Richard J Johnson, MD at Carmichael’s Book Store, click here.

The Best “Breakup Strategy” You’ll Ever Use: The Push and Pull Principle! | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 5

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Why is Breaking Up with Food so Hard to Do? (Part One)

I confess. I love the series, The Office. In the past, Rommie (my wife) and I would start watching it on December 21, the first day of winter and try to stretch it out throughout the winter until March 21. We hated the dark winter and I’m sure experience, SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. The office was the Sun that we needed to survive the dark evenings.

Jim and Pam. That’s the series in a nutshell. But before there was Jim and Pam, there was Pam and Roy. For the first three seasons, Pam and Roy were on again, off again. Pam and Jim finally kissed in season 2 episode 22. I’m sure that the whole country was cheering on February 9, 2005 when they kissed, but it takes another complete season for Pam to break up with Roy.

The Push and Pull Principle

I want to introduce you to a concept that I learned 40+ years ago from a wizened professor at the college I attended, which is now Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon. I was having a difficult time leaving a church that I was attending. I was a pastoral student and the church I was attending just wasn’t nurturing me. My Professor’s advice: seek out new opportunities to serve throughout the city. He said you’ve experienced a push, but you don’t have a pull. I sought out new opportunities and found a church that was more suited to my spiritual needs.

Push and Pull with Pam and Roy. 

What were the things that pushed and pulled Pam into finally breaking up with Roy:

The Push: Roy’s mockery of her desire to go to art school. His failure to encourage her to have other relationships. And ultimately his aggression.
The Pulls: Living her dream, being independent, and being free to pursue healthy relationships.

Breaking up with people, places, and things is difficult because it takes time, energy, self-awareness, and experience to recognize the pushes in the pulls, the dysfunction versus the well-being.

I want to focus on the push of breaking up with food in this blog. Why is it so difficult to break up and change your relationships with food? It’s because our relationship with food is at times, dysfunctional and difficult to change and sometimes it’s difficult to see that dysfunction.

When we have a clear picture of the push, then we are able to respond to the pulls of a healthy lifestyle.

Here are some of my thoughts about why it’s so difficult to break up with food and recognize that dysfunction.

1. Food is everywhere. It’s everywhere and it’s abundant. For most people reading this, food is on the feast side of the feast/famine, continuum. And it’s cheap. Especially food that is full of sugar because sugar is cheap to raise.

Food is at most social functions. We are having a 10th anniversary of our company, Sage Support Services, and guess what? There will be food at the reception. Food is at weddings, birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, family, reunions, company trainings, wakes, baptisms, baby showers, and I can go on and on. It’s like you break up with your partner and see them everywhere you go, every day. That’s why it’s so hard to break up with food.

2. It’s hard to break up with food because food is engineered to taste so damn good. Sugar, salt, fat. If you add one or all of these three ingredients to food, it is irresistible. The food industry knows this. Maybe you’re one of those people that doesn’t like fast food. I don’t eat it because I know it’s a trap. I love eating out but limit how often I eat out because I would weigh a ton after six months. I love restaurant food. I love Panera breakfast sandwiches. I love McDonald’s sausage biscuit with egg. I love microwave popcorn. I love chocolate candy bars. Which one? All of them! The reason that food is hard to break up with is because it taste so damn good. Maybe there was that boyfriend or girlfriend that you had a really big crush on when you were young. Being with them was an adrenaline rush . But you broke up and you were tempted to call them and get back together 1000 times. Food is that person.

3. Why is it so hard to break up with food? Partly because it requires willpower and believe it or not, you have a limited supply willpower. I wrote about it in a blog in October 2019, entitled, Seduced by Sugar. Read it here.

I share a couple of books on willpower in that blog, and here are my takeaways.

Willpower is more affective if you’re not tempted by the presence of sugar. This is the Out of sight Out of mind principle.

Willpower is less effective when working on more than one task. Willpower over food is weakened because you have a life. Duh!

There is a reservoir of willpower, but it usually it’s exhausted by the end of the day when you need it the most.

Dieting can affect your blood sugar levels which lower your willpower. How ironic. Trying to display willpower over food will make it more difficult to break up with food.

4. It’s hard to break up with food because of our emotional connections with food. Food is a mood stabilizer. Food comforts us. That’s why we call some food, comfort food. Food makes us happy. We eat when we are bored, when we are anxious, when we are lonely. And it makes us feel better. It’s hard to break up with food because food is like our BFF. No one breaks up easily with their BFF.

5. The fifth reason why it’s difficult to break up with food is because of the delayed negative results of being in a toxic relationship with the thing we eat. In other words, just like with cigarettes, there is no immediate punishment for our over consumption of food. It takes months and years to develop a weight issue. My son and I were out hiking in the Jefferson Memorial Forest this past week and we both think we could put on 10 pounds in a week if we weren’t careful. I’m going to have a separate blog on this topic based on the book, “Nature Wants Us to be Fat.”

But that’s still a week delay in the consequence of overeating. If you consume 500 extra calories during on a given day, guess what? No punishment. Nada. Nothing. We probably won’t even feel guilty, which would be a form of punishment. 

I’m guessing that if you felt pretty bad, I mean “Covid Bad” or death-of-a-pet-bad every time you over consumed food, or ate sugar, you would, or might cut back, or eliminate sugar all together.

 Because the negative consequences are delayed, 2 to 3 pounds a turns into 20 or 30 in a decade, and because the positive consequences are immediate, as in it taste so damn good, it makes breaking up with the food very difficult.

So what’s one to do? Being overweight is very prevalent in our North American culture, but not everyone is overweight, in fact, many people have escaped their dysfunctional or toxic relationship with food and maintained a healthy weight.

I’ll be sharing eight or 10 strategies in an upcoming blog.

But first, there is a part two to this blog entitled: Keep it Simple Stupid

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Image of tattoos showing a map; a theme in the Healthy Aging Series by Mark Neese

How to Climb Mount Grow-The-Eff-Up | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 4

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“The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America,” by Tommy Tomlinson

 I have tattoos. Don’t ask me why. I started getting them in my early 50s. Maybe I am a bit of a rebel. My son gave me my first two tattoos. He was learning to be a tattoo artist. He thinks one looks like a prison tat. I love them both. I have one that’s a quote from Larry McMurtry’s book, “Lonesome Dove.” It’s the Latin quote that Gus McCray put on the livery-stable sign, “Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit.” People ask me what it means, and I answer, “It doesn’t mean anything.” That’s why I love.

The tattoo that I get asked most about is on my left forearm. It’s the solar system. The earth is blue. People ask, “What is it?”  I answer, “It’s a map for when you get lost. Just look for the blue planet.” They smile.

I love maps. I have close to a hundred. My office has them hanging from several walls. I have never felt more helpless than being lost without a map. I tried hiking a trail a few years ago in the Jefferson Memorial Forest. The trail was the Mitch McConnell Trail (no kidding). It had been decommissioned in lieu of a new horse-friendly trail. I had no map. I got lost.

Maps help me find order. Maps comfort me. They help me plan my hike and not only tell me where I’m going but tell me where I’ve been.

The Elephant in the Room

Tommy Tomlinson’s memoir, “The Elephant in the Room“ was a kind of map for me. The map might have been in titled, “How do you Find a New Thinner You?” Maybe not thinner, but at least healthier. Tomlinson weighed 460 pounds on December 31, 2014. He ends with his “Destination Weight” on Thanksgiving of 2017 at 375 pounds.

Food is an important topic of his book. I underlined every mention of and I’m guessing I underlined food in over 200 of the 243 pages. He writes a lot about food.

But his memoir is not a map for weight loss. It’s a map for self-discovery.

That’s what makes this such a good map. Tomlinson was lost in the obesity wilderness for 50+ years. He had a destination marked on the map: Mt. Weight Loss. He started out on that trail to the summit. He lost weight, but he ended up at a place that was unexpected. In the process of writing his story of obesity, his “fat story“ (his words), Thomason finds healing.

This is the second obesity memoir I’ve read for this season. I have three or four more to read. Thus far they are stories of healing from past trauma, and they are stories of personal growth that eventually lead to weight loss. What Tomlinson discovered was that he had  difficulty adjusting to the idea of being an adult.

“This in the end,“ he writes, “is what it’s all about for me. To control my weight, to get in shape, to become the person I am supposed to be, I have to shake the habits that I had clung to me since I was a kid.”

Tomlinson points out what Thomas Wolfe called a “loose life“ meaning, a life with shaky morals, bad habits, and ready-made excuses or a life that is lived without any concern for consequences.

For Tomlinson, the loose life, meant that all he wanted was with food, because food had given him more pleasure than anything else. “I knew how much it would cost me later,” he writes, “but I craved that moment of joy now.”

On top of that mountain with the thin air and 50 mph winds, with the unencumbered, 360° vista, he discovered, “That’s the way a child thinks.”

The name of this mountain: Mount Grow-the-Eff-up.

“I have lived to realize,“ he writes, “that Adulting is the only way I can beat my addiction to food.“

All of this is on pages 222 to 223. Brilliant insight. It took a year of wandering, or maybe 50 years of wandering. For Tomlinson, it felt like a year of hiking through those mucky sloughs and struggling through all those wicked switchbacks and backtracking to re-acquire the trail, and finally summiting the mountain that only those with courage attempt.

This past week I hiked Mount Sherman, which is 14,043 feet in elevation.

Afterwards, while changing clothes in the parking lot at the trailhead (people have no modesty at trailheads), I spoke with a couple about my age about the hike. We all agreed: 14ers, suck especially the last half mile. But afterwards, when you’ve finished, when you’re back at the trailhead, high fiving each other, you feel such a sense of pride in yourself, and may stronger. And then you start planning for another!

I’m not going to summarize Tomlinson’s memoir. He’s a professional writer. It’s good stuff. Lots of insight. Lots of pain. Lots of shame and embarrassment.

I am not obese, but I do struggle with weight management. I also struggle with personal growth. I struggle with not acting like a child sometimes. I’m 67 but act like six or seven at times. I’m at the mercy of the moment. Most of our problems, most of our addictions, most of our pain and turmoil our produced by self-manufactured misery, rooted in our childish appetites, and expectations or maybe what Wolfe calls, loose living.

Maybe it’s time to take out your map.

Mark a trail that leads to a place of growth. A mountain maybe.

Maybe a mountain called Mt. Grow-the-Eff-up!

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Dysfunctional Relationship With Food Characteristics

Is your Relationship with Food Dysfunctional? | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 3

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It’s not easy to determine when a relationship with food or even with people is dysfunctional.

Why is that?

First, there are different kinds of relationships. You have friendships, and family relationships, 

and romantic partnerships, as well as business partnerships. If you use the amount of intimacy to determine whether they are dysfunctional, many of these would likely be dysfunctional.

Second, there are no assessments to determine what is dysfunctional, especially when it comes to food. We will look at some criteria that will help with this.

Third, there’s a continuum of dysfunctional when it comes to relationships. In other words, your relationship with others, and with food could be mildly dysfunctional or severely dysfunctional.

Of course, there are extreme examples of dysfunctional, which would include abuse, an out-of-balance power differential, conflict, disloyalty, and chronic resentment.

That’s not an exhaustive list, but I hope you get the point.

The Intuition Test

There is an intuitive way of determining whether you’re in a dysfunctional relationship with others or with food, and that is simply to ask, “Are you happy with that relationship?”

If you’re not happy with your relationship, then it’s likely dysfunctional.

Many years ago, one of my mentors shared why their first marriage failed. They had been part of a book club, and we’re reading. “As I Day dying,“ by William Faulkner. Not an easy read. “We separated, because I just didn’t agree with his interpretation of the book.“ I’m guessing that there were many other issues and it’s likely that this was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

What does a dysfunctional relationship with food look like? I think the place to start is, are you happy with that relationship.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Am I frustrated by constant overeating and weight gain?
  • Am I frustrated that I eat the types of food that I know aren’t good for me?
  • Do I feel guilty regularly because I impulse eat?
  • Am I dissatisfied with my body? Note: most of us would say yes, but it’s still an important question to ask. 
  • Do I feel helpless avoiding sweets regularly?
  • How do I feel about food?

The answers to these questions provide data points that are more intuitive and would provide insight into the type of relationship that you have with food.

Bio Metrics Tests

What about other more concrete data points? Are there biometrics/biomarkers that indicate that your relationship with food is dysfunctional?

BMI

First, the most obvious biometric would be your BMI. I know, BMI seems to be geared toward insurance companies and their desire to keep people thin, lowering their risk factors for early death, but still, it’s not a bad biometric.

My BMI is over 25. If you look at the weight charts, a BMI over 25 put you in the overweight category. Most people would look at me and laugh if I told them that I was overweight. Yes, I am carrying around some extra fat around my waist, but I also think as you age, you should carry a little bit more fat. In fact, having a lower BMI  can create a situation that put you at risk for some neurological disorders. I’ll share more about that later when I share some other neurological disorders. 

Having said that, if you have a BMI of over 30, you are likely overweight. Some charts would even put you at obese.  So, one biometric that would indicate a dysfunctional relationship with food would be your BMI.

Type 2 Diabetes

Second, Type 2 Diabetes, or an elevated A1C. Typically, Type 2 Diabetes is an insulin-resistance metabolic disorder, and it is most likely the result of a dysfunctional relationship with food. I know there are exceptions, but, if you have a high A1C, or have been diagnosed with either pre-Type 2 Diabetes, or Type 2 Diabetes, you need to seriously consider changing your relationship with food. We all have a love affair with sugar. But that love affair is killing you.

Blood Work

Third, blood work. I see my doctor twice a year and she orders bloodwork once a year. Sometimes twice depending on the results from the previous bloodwork. I don’t want to get into the details here because I’m not a medical professional, but your bloodwork is likely to indicate whether your relationship with food is dysfunctional. This would include things like your blood glucose levels, triglycerides, and HDL\LDL cholesterol results.

Your blood work will not lie about whether you have a dysfunctional relationship with food. Just ask it. And then listen.

I know there’s a lot of controversy around a lot of these types of measurements and biometrics, but they reflect what you eat. My close friend, Sam, is constantly reminding me of Barry Sears’ book, “The Zone,” and likes to point out that Barry Sears sees food as medicine.  I like that comparison. But I also like looking at the relationship I have with food. Dysfunctional relationships with people often display physical markers, unfortunately. And your dysfunctional relationship with food will show up in your blood work .

Vascular Screening

Fourth, vascular screening. About three years ago my doctor recommended a vascular screening because my cholesterol was indicating that I was at a high risk for a cardiac event within the next 10 years. There’s a lot of controversy about cholesterol and longevity, and the need for statins, but I want to respect her advice, so I agreed to the vascular screening. The vascular screening is rated from 0 to 400. My vascular screening was below 100, probably in the 30 range so it put me at mild risk for cardiac event. Therefore, she said that she would simply recommend a Staten but would not push it.  Vascular screenings are another biometric that indicate the relationship that you have with food. It looks at blood flow through your carotid arteries and how much calcium or plaque is built up in and around your heart. If you want to know if your relationship with food is dysfunctional, a vascular screening might help.

Your Fitness Level

Fifth, although your level of fitness is not directly tied to your relationship with food, your relationship with food can influence your total level of fitness. So, it might be a good biometric to test yourself physically to see where you are. Here is a link for an online fitness test from the Mayo Clinic:   https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/fitness/art-20046433

My Fitness Biomarkers

I have a couple of fitness exams that I give myself. One is in the Smoky Mountains. I  hike Mount LeConte each summer and then ask myself, “How did I do?” The other test I put myself through is a hike in Colorado near my son’s home called The Manitou Incline. It’s a 1-mile hike which has an elevation gain of 2000 feet. I generally can do it in 75 minutes.  I might add the Grand Canyon as well. I do a general assessment of myself after hiking out of the Grand Canyon to determine my level of fitness. These “test“ indicate how well am I taking care of my body. There isn’t much difference in having a dysfunctional relationship with food.  A dysfunctional relationship with food generally would indicate that you’re not taking care of your body.

Sugar, Salt, Saturated Fat

Six, your choice of foods. Fat. Salt. Sugar. I’ve read a lot about all three of these macro and micronutrients. Sometimes, hanging out with people can be dysfunctional, even though we enjoy their company at times. I think the same thing holds true for food. Salt, sugar, and fat make us feel good. They make everything taste better. Unfortunately, they aren’t good friends. Sugar for sure. Saturated fats as well. And excessive amount of salt is unhealthy. If you regularly choose to “hang out“ with these foods, it’s likely that you have a dysfunctional relationship with food.

OK, that’s a good starting point. Is your relationship with food dysfunctional???

The next question that I want to ask, which I’ll answer in Episode 5, is: Why is it so difficult to break up with food?

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Our Country’s Greatest Scourge – Reflections on “It was Me all Along: A Memoir,” by Andie Mitchell | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 2

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I am a cyclist. I don’t ride as much as I used to ride because my primary sport is backpacking and I’m usually preparing for backpacking trips to places like the Red River Gorge, the Smokies, the Grand Canyon, Colorado, or Utah.

When I was 55, I rode my bicycle across the state of Indiana in one day. They call it the RAIN Ride. It was on my birthday, and it started in Terre Haute, my birthplace. Pretty cool.

A year later, I flew to DC, took my bike, and rode the Vernon trail from Mount Vernon to DC, about 20 miles. I rode through the District Columbia and hooked up with a couple of local cyclists that guided me to the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, and finally to the Tryst Coffee Chop next to the Madam’s Organ Bar. Also, a cool trip.

It was a memorable trip, because of the conversation that I had with a musician I met near downtown Alexandria, just off the Vernon trail. I had stopped to take a bathroom break and struck up a conversation with a gentleman setting up his glass harp. He shared information about his life. He had immigrated as a young child from Eastern Europe. He told the story about how his father had a problem with alcohol. That they lost the family home and everything they owned because of his drinking problem. “Alcohol is the scourge of this country,” he declared.

My heart broke for him. It’s not the first time I’d heard a story like this. My son’s great-great grandfather lost his ranch to alcoholism.

But I beg to differ with him. 

The Real Scourge in this Country

There’s no doubt that alcoholism is a devastating social problem in our country and in the world, but I have come to believe that there is a more devastating scourge in this country, and that is childhood obesity.

According to the Center for Disease Control, for children 2 to 19 years old, from 2017 to 2020, 1 in 5 are obese or about 14.7 million. We are not talking about being overweight but being obese or having a BMI of over 30. Compare that to the obesity rate of 1 in 20, in 1974, the year I graduated from High School. Some of the reasons for this increase are easy access to high-calorie junk food, few opportunities for physical activity, a lack of parks and playgrounds, and at least one parent who is obese.

Here’s a kicker: obese children and adolescents are five times more likely to be obese adults then those who are not obese as children or adolescents. And obesity can leave emotional as well as physical scars.

I recently read, “It was Me all Along,“ by Andie Mitchell, a story about growing up obese and overcoming it in her early 20s.

One take away that I gleaned from this memoir, and it confirmed my beliefs, was that childhood obesity is a scourge in this country. There is an increased risk mortality in early adulthood for individuals who were obese as children. Obesity in adolescence is significantly associated with increased cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders, such as Type 2 Diabetes in adulthood. There have been recent studies that show a higher BMI during adolescence increases the risk for several malignancies, such as leukemia, Hodgkin’s Disease, colorectal, cancer, and breast cancer in adulthood. These are some of the physical scars.

Andie Mitchell’s story has a difficult trajectory, but she struggled through years of trauma and shame as a child and adolescent suffering from obesity. 

I want to separate this blog into two episodes. Part one will look at childhood obesity through the eyes of Andie Mitchell. I think it’s helpful not just to look at the data but look at the damage caused by childhood obesity.

Part two will look at Andie’s break up with food. First, what motivated her to break up. I think her break up reinforces everything I write about in this season, and second, how did she maintain her breakup.

Andie Mitchell’s Childhood
Childhood obesity left an impression on Andie Mitchell that has continued throughout her life, even though she’s no longer obese. Obesity changes you and it is difficult to escape the physical and emotional scars.

Andie, in her 20s, had surgery to remove the excess skin that resulted from years of accommodating her obesity. Those scars are with her today at 32. But the emotional scars that obesity left, I’m certain, are deeper and at times painful reminders of her shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. She suffered at a time when social inclusion and acceptance by her peers was so important.

“The boys in my class called me fat,” she writes, “while the girls looked on, smiling.” 

Here’s what she learned as a child and teenager.

“I learned that if I made fun of myself for being fat, then the other kids couldn’t do it first. I learned that being funny, especially with the boys, made it much less likely they’d call me things like “wide load” or “lard butt.”

Recalling those moments, she writes, “The sadness I felt then and even sometimes now blares within me. It’s an all-encompassing, piercing sound – a fire alarm. It shrieks so loudly, I cower. I seek refuge by covering my ears. I think briefly about ducking beneath the stairwell, hoping its shrillness will be muffled if I hide from it. But it finds me always. It finds me when I am in the shower or walking on a treadmill; it wakes me suddenly in the night. It forces me to uncover my ears. And I hear it while trying not to listen to what it means. The pain, the sound – it’s deafening.”

“Eating,” she later rights, “made me forget.”

Through these years, Andie developed a relationship with food. She depended on it, not as fuel, but for companionship, someone to be comforted by and feel connected with. “Food came to exist as the only thing in my life that was mine, and mine alone.“

Andie’s most heartbreaking story happened as a freshman at the University of Massachusetts. I’ll share the story in her words.

“We decided to take a different route back to the dorm and in doing so, passed by a row of off-campus houses, hosting rowdy parties of their own. Inside the house, just ahead of on our right, people could be seen in every window and rap music thundered out of the front door. A group of guys stood out front. Feeling friendly Nicole called out,“Heey!“ As we slowed our stride, the guys turned around, and the tallest one stepped forward, immediately returning Nicole‘s enthusiasm. What are you girls up to? We stopped here on the sidewalk while Nicole explained in her friendly way that we just left  SigEp and that we were on our way back to our dorms. It was a gift of hers to create conversation with anyone, and it seemed her charm had found us a new party to Rock. That is, until one of the guys on the lawn shouted to us. “Hey you!” His eyes were on me. I smiled and started to toss a hello back his way. “No Fatties allowed!!“ It was a swift kick to my stomach.“

There are many, many things that affect us as children. Crooked or discolored teeth, facial scars, or birthmarks, a cleft palate, not to mention skin color, a gender assignment that mismatches with one’s identification, a first or last name, and I could go on and on. 

People can be Thoughtless, Mean, and Cruel

Children, high school peers, and adults can be thoughtless, mean, and cruel. Their actions dehumanize us. They make us into that one thing that is different about us. 

With childhood obesity, children begin seeing themselves as a body, not as a person with feelings, hopes, needs, intellectual gifts, whit, and other amazing interests. Consequently, everything is seen through that lens. They see themselves as powerless to change and learn to hate themselves. They begin to equate beauty with thin and become obsessed with the idea that they will never be beautiful. They begin to hate food. 

Complexes

The inner scars from childhood obesity can run deep. Dr. Carl Jung, the founder of Analytical Psychology describes this as a complex, an unconscious, organized set of memories, associations, fantasies, expectations, and behavioral patterns or tendencies around a core theme, which is accompanied by strong emotion. 

Childhood obesity develops a complex within a child’s unconscious that possesses and controls them throughout their life, which can lead to neuroses, depression, and self-loathing, if not treated . 

Getting Help with Obesity

Andie Mitchell got help from a therapist and a nutritionist. They didn’t heal her because individuation, the process of becoming your true self, is a lifelong process. She lost weight, changed her relationship with food, changed the way she looked at food and is now helping people through her website, “Can You Stay for Dinner.“

Part two will come later in the season and look at how Andie broke up with food and maintained that breakup for years.

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Breaking Up (with Food) is Hard to Do – The Mark Neese Version | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 1

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[Verse 1]
Don’t take my food away from me!
Don’t you leave my stomach in misery?
If it goes then I’ll be blue!
‘Cuz breaking up (with food) is hard to do.

[Verse 2]
Remembering how it taste so good.
I even dream of full plates of food.
Think of all that we’ve been through.
And breaking up with food is hard to do!

[Chorus]
They say that breaking up with food is hard to do,
Now, I know, I know that it’s true!
I lost some weight, but now it’s back!
Instead of breaking up, I think I’ll have another stack (of cookies)!

[Verse 3]
I beg of you, don’t say goodbye!
Why can’t I have another piece of pie?
Come on, donuts, let’s start a new!
‘Cuz breaking up (with food) is hard to do!

[Chorus]

They say that breaking up with food is hard to do
Now, I know, I know that it’s true!
Why can’t I keep off all those pounds!
Instead of breaking up, I think I’ll have another Mounds (Bar)

[Verse 4]
I beg of you, don’t say goodbye!
Can’t I have another order of fries?
Come on, sugar, let’s start anew!
‘Cuz breaking up with food is hard to do

The original “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” is a song recorded by Neil Sedaka, co-written by Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. Sedaka recorded this song twice, in 1962 and 1975, in two significantly different arrangements, and it is considered to be his signature song. -Wikipedia

Why is it so hard to lose weight AND keep it off? 

You know the drill. Over the course of 3 or 4 years, you put on an extra 20 lbs. You get tired of seeing yourself in the mirror. You muster up the motivation to start a weight reduction diet, something healthy like the Whole 30 Diet. There are several healthy diets, but the Whole 30 has worked for me.

You set a goal to lose 20 lbs. and give yourself 8 to 12 weeks to lose those pounds.

You struggle. You experience diet fatigue. You add an exercise regimen to the weight loss plan. And slowly, you lose the weight. As each week goes by, you’re amazed that your clothes are fitting better and you’re able to wear clothes that you never thought you’d wear again. You feel great. You’ve been able to show discipline over your appetites and control over food.

Now comes the depressing part. 

A year later you gained all the weight back. All of it. In fact, you settle in at the same weight that you were when you started the diet.

And this isn’t the first time you’ve done this. You’ve lost weight before. Six months or a year later you’re back at the same weight. It feels like a yo-yo.

There are some that refer to this weight that you always come back to as your Set Weight Point (SWP).

There was a recent Ted Talk that attempted to explain the SWP. The speaker explained that the SWP is mostly genetic and is “hard-wired” into our bodies. 

“The set point theory says that the body will settle at a specific weight where it likes to be,” says MD Anderson Senior Exercise Physiologist Carol Harrison. “And it will defend itself so that it stays at this specific weight.”

“The set point is established over a long period of time,” says Harrison. “It’s a very complex thing, but it appears that it is your body’s attempt to regulate itself, and that attempt results in a certain weight.”

I want to propose a different way of looking at SWP. Your SWP reflects the kind relationship that you have with food.

Your SWP reflects the patterns and routines that you develop with food over the course of your life. These patterns include what you eat, how much you eat, where you eat, how often you eat, who you eat with.

Food comforts us. It brings us pleasure. Much of our social life revolves around food. We think about it even when we’re not hungry. We eat when we are angry, or sad, or happy. We have an emotional attachment to food.

At times, we have a toxic or dysfunctional relationship with food! And it’s a difficult relationship to change. 

If you want to change the how, what, when, where, and why about food, then you must change your relationship with food.

Maybe we need to have a “break up” with food and by break up I mean changing how we live our lives with food.

Think about being in a toxic friendship. You can’t simply keep seeing the person, talking to them, and spending time with them and then expect that it’s going improve without addressing the things about that friendship that make it toxic.

Maybe your relationship with food isn’t toxic but, at a minimum, it’s dysfunctional.

This season was originally intended to be one episode in Season 9 but as I read and wrote, the episodes grew and there will be at least 12 episodes. 

I’ve included several episodes from “obesity memoirs,” from people who struggled with obesity, had a breakup with food and maintained that breakup.

There are two books that I devoured (sorry for the pun) during my reading this season. One helps you change the way you think about food and yourself, “The Beck Diet.” And the other is “Dopamine Nation,” which will help you understand that you can be addicted to food.

In Episode 3, I explain what it means to have a dysfunctional relationship with food.

In Episode 5, I explain why is so difficult to break up with food.

Starting with Episode 7, I give several cognitive-behavioral strategies that will help you in the breakup process.

In Episode 2, my next episode I share an “obesity memoir” entitled, “It was Me all Along,” by Andie Mitchell. A wonderful story about a woman’s breakup with food.

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Alcohol and Aging Bodies

Alcohol is Poison: At Least That’s What Some Experts Are Saying | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E8

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Pat Morita, who played Mr. Miyagi was an alcoholic, and his alcoholism contributed to the loss of his health, the loss of a career, and eventually contributed to a shortened life. 

We looked at his life in a previous blog. I want to expand this topic of alcohol and aging and see what light the Harvard Grant Study sheds on it. Later this year, I will expand the topic of alcohol and aging by looking at the effects of alcohol on the brain, on sleep, and on our aging body. 

What did the researchers from this study discover about the effects of alcohol on aging when they looked at the men of the Harvard Grant Study? Let me first state that the study did not find significant issues with social drinkers. In fact, 72% of the social drinkers lived to be 80 years old, but there were two lessons that we learned from the effects of alcohol abuse.

Two Lessons on Alcoholism and Aging

Lesson One: Alcohol prematurely ages the body.

Of the 54 identified alcoholics in the study 19 or 35% were dead at 70 and only three lived or were alive at 80. “Their average lifespan,” Vaillant writes, “had been 17 years shorter than those of their social, drinking study peers.” 

I listen frequently to a podcast called “The Huberman Lab.” In a recent episode, Dr. Huberman, a neurologist, I asked the question: What does alcohol do to your body, Brain, and Heart. I did not enjoy this episode because throughout the episode, he referred several times to alcohol as a poison. But as I’ve reflected on the podcast, and as I’ve investigated the research, and I’ve concluded that he is right. Alcohol is a poison. There I said it. And again. Alcohol is a poison. Here’s what researchers say:

First, if you only consume one or two drinks daily, you will lose white and gray matter in your brain as you age. 

Second, consuming alcohol interferes with the brain-gut axis. We are only beginning to understand the role of the gut microbiome, but more and more evidence suggests that the relationship between the brain and gut is very important for our overall well-being. How does alcohol affect the gut? Alcohol consumption alters various chemical processes in our bodies, and creates a disharmony between our internal systems, including our brain  as well as our nervous system, and digestive track.

Third, alcohol affects our sleep architecture. I’ll speak more about this in upcoming blogs.

Forth, consuming alcohol increases our sleeping heart rate. I have been meticulous about following my heart rate over the past few months. I’ve been on an alcohol sabbatical and have noticed a dramatic decrease in my resting heart rate. Even one drink affects my sleeping heart rate.

Lesson Two: Alcoholism and Aging Marriages.

It’s difficult to determine a single cause for divorce. Marriages and long-term relationships are complicated and the reasons they fail are numerous. Add to that, the issues of aging, religion, and economics. They are complicated. The Harvard Grant Study looked at the effects of alcohol abuse on marriages. Of the 59 divorces that occurred throughout the study, 33 marriages or 57% occurred when at least one spouse was abusing alcohol. Vaillant writes, “It looks very much as though alcoholism within marriages often caused not only the divorce, but also caused failed relationships, poor coping styles, and evidence of a shaky mental health.“

Alcoholics Anonymous, The Big Book

If you want to understand the effects that alcoholism has on relationships and on people’s lives, I suggest reading Alcoholics Anonymous or what has been called the Big book. I reread it again this week. It gives you a glimpse into the life and death struggles that alcoholics have with alcohol. 

Vaillant writes, “Prospective study has consistently shown alcoholism to be the cause, not the result, of many personal and social problem. Alcoholism is the cause, not the result, of unhappy marriages. Alcoholism is the cause of many deaths, too, and not only through liver cirrhosis and moto vehicle accidents -suicides, homicides, cancer, heart disease, and depressed immune system can all be chalked up to this serial killer.”

Whole 30 Diet and Alcohol

I started the whole 30 diet the week before Christmas. If you’re not familiar with this diet, it involves not drinking alcohol during that 30-day period. As I write this blog, I’ve completed five weeks and I’ve lost 15 pounds. There are other factors that helped to include: one hour a day of exercise. No sugar added to any food. No grains. No dairy. And time restricted eating which is also called. Intermittent fasting. I’ve lost weight and feel better. Is it because of abstain from alcohol? Maybe. I’m not sure how to interpret the data, but my hypothesis is, most likely.  I recently listened to a podcast that discussed the topic of dopamine and how chronic alcohol use can affect our dopamine levels, which, of course affects our mood. Therefore, I’m going to extend my whole 30 lifestyle through the rest of this year at least the abstaining from alcohol part. I’ll consider this a one-year sabbatical from alcohol. I’ll share my progress and results in upcoming blogs.

To see more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

The Healthy Aging Series by Mark Neese at True North Counseling

How to Finish the Race of Life | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E4

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This blog will continue examine the work, “Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study,”  written by George E. Vaillant.

How do we sucessfully finish the race of life? 

Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence see life as a competition. Johnny is “jelly” because Daniel has a beautiful family, a very successful car dealership, and frankly Johnnie thinks Daniel believes he’s better than everyone else. Johnnie, is it an alcoholic and has a strange relationship with his son, and doesn’t have enough money to pay his rent.

They spend the first five or six seasons, literally fighting each other, miserable, and both languishing out the year. They not only failed to flourish, but failed to thrive. They both seem confused about what it means to flourish and what successful aging looks like.  The Harvard Grant Study followed 268 men (the study, included a number of the other men that were part of the study, called the Inner-City Study) throughout their lives in over a period of 85 years.

Instead of depending on Johnnie and Daniel’s idea of aging, let’s look to this study and consider what the Harvard Grant Study determined as flourishing.

Decathlon of Flourishing

From age 60 to 80…

  1. Included in Who’s Who in America
  2. Earning income in the Study’s top quartile
  3. Low in psychological distress
  4. Success and enjoyment in work, love, and play since age 65
  5. Good subjective health at age 75
  6. Good subjective and objective physical and mental health at age 89
  7. Mastery of Ericksonian task of Generativity
  8. Availability of social supports other than wife and kids between 60 and 75
  9. In good marriage between 60 and 85
  10. Close to kids between 60 and 75

Take a look at this picture of aging. Keep in mind that this is not about longevity. We will look at longevity in our next blog. This is more about quality of life. If you’re like me, you’ll immediately dismiss the first two criterion, income and professional status. In my opinion, these do not always equal flourishing in our modern world. But the last four or eight assessments they boil down to:

1. Psychological well-being. Generally speaking, this criteria means good coping strategies and mental resilience.

2. Physical well-being. This means the ability to do the things that most people need to do to take care of themselves. This would include shopping, chores, self-care, and other things that we call activities of daily living.

3. Social supports. I think this means our connectivity to people, family, and friends.
Flourishing simply put means doing well, physically, mentally, and socially.

What Predicts Successful Aging?

The Director looked at several factors that contribute or were possible contributing factors to successful aging. I’m not going to go through that lengthy list of things they looked at, but I am going to share one identifying factor that strongly predicted successful aging. Can you guess what it was? Of all the factors that they looked at, which included things like: a warm childhood, overall college, soundness, and coping strategies, the fact that predicted successful aging, the most, was the ability to find and maintain friendships at middle age.

When the study looked at the Decathlon of Flourishing, finding and maintaining friendships had the highest predictability for scoring high on this standard for successful agent. Here’s what the study did. They took a snapshot of men at age 47 years old. Those men who had developed friendship skills flourished. Here is my take away: the skills that you need to maintain good friendships, are also the skills that promote healthy aging, or help you flourish as you age. It isn’t necessarily the friendships that lead to flourishing but the skills that you need to maintain those friendships.

So what skills promote making and maintaining adult friendships? Here is my list:

1. The ability to tolerate other people’s opinions.

The world is full of opinions. I reminded of the saying that I overheard often while in the military: opinions are like assholes, everyone has won it. And I might add: everyone is entitled to their opinion. Learning to tolerate, appreciate, come, and respect the opinions of others serves as a type of Teflon for your sake, and is essential for good friendships.

2. The ability to see other people as multi-dimensional beings.

Labels are a curse to friendships. No one is just Democrat, Republican, Christian, Muslim, atheist, mother, or father. No one is just one thing. We are all multifaceted, multi-dimensional people. People are complicated. We are better equipped to age and flourish if we see everything about the people in our lives.

3. The ability to forgive and forget when people have wronged us.

Friendships are healed by forgiveness. People who do not or cannot practice forgiveness become prisoners of the resentments. I know that forgiving others isn’t easy but harboring, resentment, and anger almost always turns into depression. If we can learn to forgive others, we can learn to forgive ourselves from that internal cancer that eats away at our sake.

4. Being generous with yourself, and with your things.

Your friends need you and benefit from the gift of yourself to them. I never loan money to a friend or family member. I give them what I have as a gift. My friends, my family, my world, is better, I am better, when I give them all generous portion of my cell.

5. Seeing everyone as a peer.

Nothing disarms, others better or more effectively than treating them the way you would want to be treated. Nothing disarms others better or more effectively then treating them the way you would want to be treated. We live in a world of status and we are made to feel less than others because of that. I have two masters degrees, a license, and several certificates, but everyone I meet I treat like a fellow traveler, fellow, struggler, and a fellow explorer. I’ll never forget the interview of Norman Lear when he was 93. The interviewer asked him how he maintain his youthfulness and he responded “I treat everyone like my peer.”

6. Being humble.

Putting others before yourself. This is a hard one, but egocentrism, self-centeredness is a constant threat to our friendships and to us. Learning to think not what your friends can do for you, but what you can do for your friends is a skill that promotes peace and harmony.

7. Balancing being a giver and a receiver.

There must be a balance in a relationships in the world. We cannot always be the giver, and we cannot always be the receiver. Those who are always giving become bitter, and those who are always receiving become a burden.

8. Reach out as often as you can.

You cannot have a relationship with others if you refuse to initiate your get togethers. Pick up the phone. Send a text. Set up a coffee, date or dinner, or a walk in the park. Reaching out ensures that you experience the richness of others. It allows others to infect you with their hope, optimism, and love.

9. Avoid giving unsolicited advice.

Stop giving your family, friends, children, spouses, partners, neighbors, employees, and for that matter anyone else unsolicited advice. Giving unsolicited advice is a subtle form of disapproval. It’s a subtle form of being judgmental. People hate it. You become a conditioned punisher, and people will avoid you. There is that old principle that I have heard many, many times that applies to this and all other friendship, skills, and it’s this: live and let live.

If you want to be a person who is aging successfully, then look at your life and determine what your adult friendships look like. I think as we age, we tend to be more intentional about our relationships and therefore we don’t linger with relationships that are toxic or dysfunctional. But we do nevertheless, have friendships and those friendships will indicate how well you age because of the skills that you have used to maintain these relationships.

Friendship skills are, in essence, successful aging skills.

To see more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.