Carbless Happiness

I'm sure it has been like this throughout the time of Man: acts of cruelty that defy explanation. I've read so many in the news lately, and I wondered, how unhappy do you have to be to throw your four children over a bridge? How displeased with life do you have to be to drug your child to go see your mistress in the evenings while your wife is at work? How terrible does your life have to be that you will beat your thirteenth month old baby to death because it won't stop crying?

I understand it isn't a simple matter of the level of happiness that leads people to do such senseless things. However, as I read these stories, I'm starting to think that I don't know and never want to know the complete void of emotion where these people exist. I might feel a void of happiness for an hour or two, or even a day or two, but I can't fathom the depth and darkness of the void that enables a man to kill his child.

What is it? Do some people simply and slowly lose touch with reality until the day where they no longer recognize their connection to the human race? Is it, as the movie Crash suggests (a great movie that makes everyone feel a little bit dirty), a matter of how little we "touch" those around us in today's American culture, but how much we as humans have the need to touch and be touched, so that when we do touch, we crash into each other? Do we make our biggest mistakes, do we hurt those we are supposed to love, do we commit senseless acts of cruelty, because we disconnected ourselves from our feelings of what is right and wrong?

It's late at night. I don't think I'm making much sense. I'm going to bed.

It's every Fattie's dream (as the resident Fattie on this blog I can use the word Fattie), food equals better sex! I chuckled a bit at first as I read this article, and then I started to wonder: can it be that while attempting to be good about the Atkins diet, I'm unknowingly depriving my body of the foods that tend to improve my "mood"?

Let's see what the recommendations are in this article. A short warning, if you don't like to read the word orgasm or lubrication, I recommend skipping the following:

Warning: "Without an adequate amount of it (Nitric Oxide), guys can’t get erections and women can’t become engorged and lubricated".

Recommendation: "Bags of almonds and walnuts into your cart, then cast your eyes toward the seafood counter for salmon, cod and halibut."

Warning:“They (Antioxidants) keep your plumbing clean and your cells healthy by mopping up free radicals, molecules that wreak havoc on the body in a process called oxidation,”

Recommendation: "Her advice is to load up on antioxidant-rich produce in all colors of the rainbow, including tomatoes, red peppers, garlic, spinach, broccoli, beets, berries and red grapes. Another good source is dark chocolate."

These and other advice can be found in Great Food, Great Sex. The point of the book, which I haven't read, appears simple: if your body is healthy, you will have a greater chance of feeling fulfilled and pleased with the way you are and the way you live and you will want to share that with other people. And food can help that process or hinder it, depending on our choices. So food can equal happiness and sadness. But what to do now? It would appear that increasing my Nitric Oxide rich intake through fish on Atkins, would be an appropriate way to implement some of these recommendations, along with more red peppers and spinach...spinach, as a function of great food for great sex...Popeye anyone?

Although, this idea of tying food to sex to happiness is a good one. Anything that makes us less inclined to want to share our lives and ourselves with each other, is something that can take away happiness. I'm surprised they haven't written Bad Food, Bad Sex: the Guide to Losing Happiness One Carb Coma at a Time.

Better circulation equals Happiness? I found this article, during my typical morning dig for interesting news, which reminded me of a particular cycle of happy times. And just think, we only need a 6ft by 6ft section of our house and we can have hot water nirvana. While I'm sort of joking, I do wonder if our happiness is a function of our environment?

Just like the farce that begins, "well, I'm grossly obese but I'm happy", it makes me wonder if we can really be happy if the environment is not one that provides the necessary triggers in our bodies to release our well-being chemicals. In other words, is a consistent sense of happiness a function of identifying and surrounding ourselves with those events, places, and people that send out the signal to our body to have a sense of well being?

For example, a few years back, we were in a hotel and we had time to swim before the pool closed. I hadn't brought a suit, nor did I like to envision taking my shirt off and jumping in a pool. But, looking in, I noticed no one was there, so I grabbed some shorts and went swimming. I recall the peace I felt lying in the water, which in turn reminded me of the above ground pool we had growing up. I write this as I ponder the idea that environmental happiness may also be a function of what made us happy early in our youth, such as floating in water. I doubt swimming is a peaceful, stress-less, happiness creating event for everyone. So...maybe, for me, that hot tub would be something that would allow me to put away the stresses that are masking my desire for more day to day happiness. Something for me to consider.

Eww. Mondays. Had some cravings this morning thanks to my over abundance of snacking and all things carblicious. I wonder if the food-happy sensations were just masking my personal disgust with my weight. Once those are gone, I have to face the depression that has been dulled by a carb high here and a carb high there. It's hard to remember, but when I lost a good third of my body weight a few years back, I felt really happy, or is that just a green grass memory?

Maybe it will help to document it, but will we really keep this going for years? It's hard to think an online journal will not suffer the same fate as my childhood journals that chronicled the beginning and the end of each year, with hollow promises predicting different future behavior. Plus, these days, how honest can you be on the Internet without risking your future earning potential?

Is the key to finding happiness in finding positive, healthy moments that have a marked affect on improving my mood? Is it just a matter of chemical compositions? I wonder if it helps to have a negative internal reaction to sugary crap, like I did yesterday when I had a glass of Cran Grape Juice. Although, maybe my brain was saying, "yuck", as my body and the chemicals in my body were saying, "yay!"

My wife has watched me go on and off the Atkins diet for years, and recently I convinced her to try it. I know that it works, and it does something I thought to be impossible without some form of drug: Atkins shows you it is possible to get rid of food cravings in a natural way. Growing up a fat kid, this continues to be a unique and enjoyable experience. But, unfortunately, I have come to the realization that I equate Happiness with the well known sensations of a carb high.

So, while I'm on Atkins, weekends are the wonderland I dream of touching with my hands. My smile creeps out from its hiding place and my hands get reacquainted with sensations they haven't felt for days such as grabbing a knife and slowly cutting through the soft sides of a wonderfully smooth and firm bagel. Moments later, my eyebrows rise and my nose picks out the delicious smell of warming/burning bread, as my mind imagines slathering the golden brown toasted "skin" of the bagel with an unhealthy layer of cream cheese... Ah, the simple pleasures of the life of a carb addict.

And then, every Sunday, I consider giving up carbs for another five days, and I wonder, what is happiness without carbs?

No, I'm not saying that I don't experience happiness. I love my life. My wife is great. She is smart. She makes me smile and laugh and I can't imagine the next forty years without her. She grew up poor and has an appreciation of family and friends that has nothing to do with the pursuit of things. She is beautiful, and she has thankfully delivered three healthy, funny, happy kids. We are the type of people that make other couples sick. We win at Pictionary. Most of the time we are "in sync". Of course, everything isn't perfect. Parenting is tough. Bills suck. Being fat brings sadness.

However, that isn't the point. I'm talking about the day to day happiness that goes missing when the carb addiction subsides. No more highs. Eating is perfunctory. And where eating used to be something we could depend on between the work, and the parenting, and the other responsibilities of life, on Atkins, it just becomes another responsibility.