The Other Christmas

A few more days until Christmas, and the holiday has already been going strong for several weeks with parties, holiday baking and once-a-year treats on the breakroom table that make it bow in the middle.

My family Christmas will be marked by tamales, toffee and eggnog so thick it could stand without a glass.  Corner Bakery coffeecake; if you haven’t ever had it, just don’t.  And a wicked concoction of chips, caramel and chili powder called “Freakin’ Awesome” which totally is.

That’s one Christmas. It’s characterized by overindulgence and things that (let’s face it) the body doesn’t need and can barely process.  The motto of this Christmas is: “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” (credit to Mick Jagger)  The whole idea is to treat ourselves so well that we nearly topple over.

(I understand that people who aren’t foodies do the same thing only with consumer goods, like iPads and X-boxes and other things they bought at Target with a credit card.)

But there’s another Christmas.  It’s austere and simple, lit dimly by firelight, and exquisitely quiet.  It’s a midnight of the senses.  It feels empty and lonely at first, but if I stay there in the quiet, while the noisy Christmas of food and things rushes past me, if I endure the unease of loneliness and emptiness, I begin to notice a tiny newborn hope inside me. 

I’m waiting for something much greater than food or things. 

They seem to be mutually exclusive, the two Christmases.  If I fill myself with the easy things, the things that don’t really satisfy, I will be too sated and distracted to stand watch in the night.  If that’s all Christmas is to me, then I’ll be asleep to the greater things when they come. 

 If I can just brave the emptiness, accepting the fact of my own inability to fill the hole inside me, then I will be standing quietly at midnight, awake to the hope that my yearning is about to be answered.

A joyful silent night to all.

Home Sweet Home

I’ve been “out” for a few weeks now, following a second surgery: out of action, out of contact and even a little out of full consciousness (pain meds).  

The process of recovery involves sitting still, all day long, moving minimally, and since I live alone, an unusual amount of solitude.

The first time, I managed to convince myself that it was a long, welcome retreat, a time for going deeper into prayer and study and self-discovery.  It actually was, but it was a huge effort to sustain my enthusiasm for it over several months.  I am an active and social person, trying desperately to love immobility and solitude. 

With the second surgery, I fell into a deep gaping well of self-pity.

About to drown in it, I finally roused myself to try a solution that’s always helped in the past.... affirmations, reading positive statements about myself that don’t really sound true but which I would like to be true, over and over until they become true. 

It’s hoky, but it works. 

So I started looking for affirmations, which at that point were so absurdly untrue, they made me laugh. 

Like: I am happily doing everything I can to recover.  Healing is flowing into my legs like a cascading river.  Every day I am getting better and stronger.  I cherish this period of solitude as I ready myself to take up my life again.

I found one that really popped my cork:

I take complete responsibility for everything in my life and therefore 

I am in a position to lead the life I want.

Complete responsibility.  COMPLETE responsibility.

If I’m self-pitying, that is my responsibility.  If I’m negative, my responsibility.  Whatever approach I take to my own situation and to the universe, it’s my responsibility.

That simple concept pulled me up from the bottom of my hole.

I think this applies to overeating, too.  Sometimes we overeat in a passive approach to life.  We’re bored, we’re lonely, we have bad genetics, tv commercials encourage poor eating, it’s the holidays, etc.  And instead of taking full responsibility, we eat. 

What would happen if, every time we took a bite of something or made a decision about food, we took COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY for it?

I personally am prone to a kind of magical thinking that says, “If I don’t notice the details, then it didn’t happen.”  So if I eat distractedly, those foods won’t have any calories or fat-building properties.  I get off scot-free as long as I don’t pay too much attention to what I put in my mouth. 

(It doesn’t work, by the way.)

But if I regard every food decision as my COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY, then it is utterly up to me which direction I’m going.  When I eat fresh vegetables and lean protein, I’m consciously choosing to give my body its best shot at quick recovery.  When I eat refined sugar, I’m consciously choosing an immediate gratification over optimal healing. 

I can eat whatever I choose, but I’m living in reality instead of FantasyLand. It may not feel quite as fun, but the inescapable truth is that FantasyLand closes at the end of the day and you eventually have to go home. 

So why wouldn’t I make “home” someplace I love to be?   When I make choices with COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY, I am building a reality for myself that is so good, I don’t want FantasyLand any more.  My reality will be better.

If I take responsibility for my decisions, then my long-term reality becomes moving, running, loving life; I am lean and trim, I am all about the goal.  I am an arrow flying towards the bull’s-eye.  I am my best self.

There is no possible fantasy better than that. 

Fast Tracking

I could never say this when I was a Weight Watcher employee, but...

I think fasting for short periods is an excellent idea, for lots of reasons.

Now, fasting is probably NOT an efficient weight loss strategy on its own, and that is why WW does not advise it.  Fasting purely for weight loss almost never works because it causes a boomerang reaction when the fast is over.  Research even shows that fasting (as a strategy for weight loss) can make weight problems worse, slowing metabolism and producing a feeling of deprivation that leads to overeating. 

But it can be a small part of an overall health strategy, and that’s what I’m talking about. 

NECESSARY CAVEAT: Anyone who has an ordinarily highly-processed diet should probably not fast because your body is already short on necessary nutrients.  Similarly anyone with diabetes, heart, kidney or liver problems, compromised immunity or on medications, stop right here.  Fasting is not for you either. 

And I’m not talking about those colon-cleanse fasts which, let me just say... if they have to proudly post pictures on their website of the quality of human excrement resulting from the use of their product... the less said about that, the better.

So now we’re talking about healthy people with otherwise good nutrition fasting from solid food for a day or two.  I don’t recommend fasting from liquids unless you are on a medical fast before surgery or lab tests. 

The biggest benefit for you Weight Watchers is... YOU DON’T HAVE TO COUNT POINTS, provided you are only drinking zero-point beverages like water and tea.  It really is a nice way to take a day off from tracking. 

If you have an addiction to a particular food, a day of fasting is a good way to rise above it.  You might go back to that food again after your fast, but it will have less power over you because you just proved to yourself that you don’t need it to survive. 

If you’ve ever counted the pennies and dollars you spend on food in a day, you may have been surprised at how it all adds up.  When you fast for a day, that money becomes available for a Kindle book, a gift for someone or a charitable donation.

Fasting elevates your spirit, in a concrete way.  So many of the ills of the world stem from indulging the body over the spirit.  The things we really hate: human trafficking, abuse of the innocent, bullying, infidelities... aren’t they instances of someone indulging their appetites and passions to the exclusion of the spirit?

Fasting “indulges” the spirit, to the exclusion of appetites and passions.  In a sense, it unties the knot.  You become part of the solution, in a very personal way, over tragedies that you couldn’t otherwise affect.

Fasting humbles your body.  As we struggle to live this life well, our attention is so much on the body and its needs, and the needs of other bodies around us.  Fasting reminds us that we are more than a body.  If the sum total of our existence were our bodies, fasting would not even be possible and certainly not fulfilling.  When you fast and come out the other side feeling stronger and better than when you began, you experience the existence and well-being of your soul. 

Fasting tends to clear your mind and heart.  As you free yourself from pursuing the needs of your body for a day, you find that solutions to dilemmas may suddenly come to you.  You may suddenly see the answer to a long-uttered prayer.  You may see which fork of the road to take, after having stood at the crossroads for a long while. 

In the end, if you haven’t fasted before, you have to take the word of others, because it certainly doesn’t look like an appealing way to spend the day.  Since every major religion throughout human history has practiced fasting, you have the company of billions when you dive in and try it.

Built for Love

Who would be interested in something that increases your impulse control and ability to sleep restfully while decreasing your perception of pain? And oh, by the way, it slows down the aging process too.

How much would you pay for an over-the-counter product that promised such benefits?  

I’m happy to tell you, this drug is free!  And all the side effects are good. It’s dopamine, and your body produces it all on its own. 

“Increase in impulse control” sounds very abstract and clinical, but let’s make it real. 

You know when you come home after a long day and somehow between dinner and bedtime, a box of Cheese-Its or a pint of Ben and Jerry’s has mysteriously disappeared from the kitchen?  And you have a bloated feeling of disgust?  That’s where impulse control comes in. 

All the times you have regretted eating something that you totally didn’t intend to eat, and you marvel at how your hands and mouth can be so completely disconnected to your mind and heart?  Impulse control. 

Wouldn’t a little shot of dopamine come in handy for those times?

Dr. Vincent Fortanesce is Clinical Professor of Neurology at USC, with several decades of experience in neurological disease, addictions, and most recently, Alzheimer’s prevention.  He appears regularly in the news as a spokesman for the medical profession on these issues. 

From his research, we know that diet and exercise do all these wondrous things for our body and mind, make us feel younger, more energetic and happier.   The trouble is, if you’re stuck in a cycle of overeating and underexercising, the prescription of “diet and exercise” taunts you like a shiny toy held just out of your reach.

So let’s get there by a different route: prayer.  Dr. Fortanesce has found in his research that when you pray, it stimulates the parts of the brain (infrafrontal and singulate gyrus, if you must know) that cause an increase in dopamine.  Prayer also causes a decrease in cortisol, the stress hormone. 

Prayer can decrease our pain perception and increase our ability to stay in control.  Don’t you want some of that?

You may think, “I can’t pray just because it helps me bypass the refrigerator!  That is insulting.” 

It’s not, really.  We are built in a particular way, and the fact that we function best when we pray is a built-in design characteristic, like a homing device.  It only makes sense that if we were made by Love, then we would function less well apart from that Love, and best when we are strongly connected.

It’s like sending your first child off to college.  You miss him terribly, while he is off discovering the great wide world.  He comes home for a visit after a month, but it’s mostly to see his hometown girlfriend and go to a football game.  But do you care?  No! You’re just overjoyed to see him!  It doesn’t matter why he came home; just that he did is enough.  That’s love for you.

It’s the same with prayer.  No matter why you undertake it, even if it’s only a quest for dopamine at first, it’s the seed of a stronger connection with Love.  Love doesn’t measure why we came; Love is just happy that we did. 

No News is Good News

Some of the biggest weight-loss breakthroughs I've witnessed were in people who came to realize that they had to LET GO.  Let go of the idea that they could get a different body without any major changes.  Let go of cultural norms.  Let go of childhood notions about the body.

I have interviewed and examined lots of people who've had great weight loss, trying to find out how that “switch” works, why some people get to a point where they are willing to let go and how others can get to that same point. 

It has something to do with surrender.  (And by the way, a negative reaction to the word “surrender” is  a good indication that you might want to consider it further.)

Over ten years of employment with WW, I have noticed that a good many of us have control issues; in fact, I would say that it’s our primary common denominator.  We’re angry that we can’t seem to control our weight; someone else has controlled us in the past so we’re desperately trying to control our present; being out of control frightens us; being in control defines us.

Nothing wrong with control, of course; we just seem to over-do it. 

The truth is, we’re not. We’re not in control of most things around us, and we’re not designed to be.  When we try to control what is not ours to control, we end up in a state of chronic stress. You know the clinical picture without being a doctor: you’re irritable, bloated, your joints hurt, you skip exercise, you catch colds easily, you can’t sleep through the night, your craving for sweets is constant, you overwork to distract yourself and then you eat to relax, you drink more wine than you’d intended and your sleep is disturbed even more. 

Inside your body, where you aren’t seeing it, your blood pressure is going steadily up, your adrenal glands are over-producing cortisol and adrenaline, insulin resistance is rising and your body is burning less fat.

Those are the effects of chronic stress.  We make ourselves crazy when we try to control stressors that we simply can’t.  Like the economy, our adult children, politics, and why England gets the new episodes of Downton Abbey four months before we do.

Let go.  Seriously.  Let it go, no matter how big it is.  If it’s not something directly under your control, the only sane thing to do is let it go.  If that requires turning off your computer or television, then pull the plug. 

Try going for a week without getting any news.  No news at all.  Like fasting from the news.  Don’t worry, I’ve done this before and it's not fatal.  I guarantee the world will go on even though you’re not hearing the latest.  Just try it for a week and see what you discover. 

How does “the news” have anything to do with weight loss and health??  You try it and let me know.  If you’re a genuine news-hound, you’re going to find this difficult to do. But how many of those things on the news do you have actual, hands-on control over?  Unless you’re a senator or congressman, the answer is probably “none.”

For most of human history, there was not this constant influx of news.  The Sistine Chapel was painted. Dante wrote the Divine Comedy.  The great Library at Alexandria was built.  Civilization managed to muddle on just fine without the nightly news.

Of course, the news is not the only source of stress in our lives.  You may even say it has nothing to do with your stress.   I nevertheless invite you to go on a week’s News Fast.  Just see what happens and post your comments here.  

More about this subject: Curb Your Addiction to News