Carbless Happiness

As a parent that once proclaimed to all that would listen, that he was going to attempt to raise responsible, well-adjusted kids without using physically, initimidating punishments such as spanking, this article/study is priceless.

The analysis of four studies by Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire-Durham, suggests that children whose parents spanked, slapped, hit or threw objects at them may have a greater chance of physically or verbally coercing a sexual partner, engaging in risky sexual behavior or engaging in masochistic sex, including sexual arousal by spanking.

Wow. Heh. I bet no one thought this could be true. It's fun to watch people get so upset when the use of spanking is assailed. "I was spanked and I learned real quick, not like these kids today that don't respect their parents" Blah. Blah. Blah. I've always felt spanking, unless it was a matter of life and death, was a weak, selfish means of achieving instant compliance. However, I didn't imagine that making the choice not to use spanking, slapping, or hitting, may lessen the chance that my children would have sexual problems.

Straus found that those who had experienced corporal punishment had increased probability of coercing sex, risky sex or masochistic sex.

Then, are children that have experienced corporal punishment, more likely to associate Happiness with aggressive, dominating actions? Is the way we think of Happiness a factor of choices made by our parents, and their parents and their parents?

I guess it isn't odd to consider that our parenting decisions will affect the quality, quantity, and type of Happiness that our children seek out. I'm glad I didn't give in to the natural urges that Man feels that leads to corporal punishment. I'm pleased that I have been firm in my desire to treat my children as I would have them treat me, and everyone else they meet. When I see the bullies around our neighborhood, and listen and watch the way my son acts and speaks, I'm tickled that all of the skeptics (parents, friends, and other family) have been wrong.

I made it Doug!

What? What did they say? Health costs of the healthy are the highest? How ironic. This reminds me of a passage from a book I’m writing about being fat:

But, fatness or the medical term for really damn fat, obesity, is another excuse for assholes to discriminate.

Short, concise, and true. In a sad way, this study supports my conclusion. Over the last few years, it has been fun to watch the Skinnies try to come up with reasons why they should be able to hold on to their distaste, dislike, and societal disapproval for Fatties. One of the main weapons was “cost”. It became this mantra: look how much fat people are going to cost us, this country, our world! People on the street, when interviewed, would say they didn’t want to have to pay for another’s disease, especially something so preventable as being Fat. While Obesity is something I think is important to discuss, most of these people are not well intentioned. Deep down inside most people find disfiguration so repulsive, it is difficult, if not impossible, not to be biased against it. I wrote something along these lines in my book, but have since removed it…but for your reading pleasure, I was able to resurrect it:

Besides African Americans, Latinos, Arabs, Indians, and those with some mental handicap, the obese are the most discriminated group of human beings. At least in native countries, most of the other groups mentioned above find acceptance. As a whole, while fatness used to be something historians tell us was culturally admirable (the fat ones were the rich and powerful, they had to be admired by their populace!), it is ridiculous to suggest at any time that being fat is something good and admirable. Similar to other functions of the body, obesity is a dysfunction; it is too much of a good thing, and terribly disfiguring. Maybe it is the disfiguration of the human body that is so repulsive. Similar to the clubbed foot, disfiguration of the body outside of what each of us considers normal is grounds for cultural shunning, and the occasional biting joke from comedians who are, in many cases, obese themselves. But wait, you think, handicaps happen, but my fat friends should just stop eating two Big Macs with Biggie Fries and a Biggie Coke seven days a week and they wouldn’t be so grossly humungous and I wouldn’t have to think such terrible things about them. This thought, of course, is your way of justifying your discrimination, because, after all, they do it to themselves! The nerve, our fellow human beings disfiguring their own bodies by their own free will and choice, without even asking for permission, we protest!

While science has helped make myth and prejudice take a back seat over the last few hundred years, I never imagined it would help the obese like this. My great thanks goes out to all of my fellow human beings that spent time on this study. Who would have thought we could lower healthcare costs by all becoming obese and smoking…

Teri said something the other day that is quite profound, something that went like this: Matt and I don’t like each other much these last few weeks, but we’ve never stopped loving each other. As I contemplate Happiness and our society’s obsession with creating a day of relationships celebration, I’ve discovered that as I look for the happy things in life, I'm doing just fine. I’ve tried to explain to myself what I’m looking for these last weeks, and I think Teri just gave my search new meaning.

Let me explain:

It's not about learning to love my life or the finding of happiness being an end. Simply, I want to like my life a little more from day to day...it's cliche-ish: find the silver lining, improving my quality of life, making the best of it, living in the moment, smelling the roses...ugh. I feel like the last man in a marathon, attempting to sip the final drops of water from the smashed paper cups littering the asphalt.

I guess I'm searching for the day to day things that put me out of sync with what I know is real. Take the Atkins diet. I know it changes how I think about my life day to day. It affects how much I like my life. It makes abnormal out of normal. My weight does the same. My need to be right. A surprise love note on my car seat at 6am does too. Happiness and sadness will come and go. Big things will happen. But it's life in between those moment, life in the cracks that means the most to me, and making those small, forgotten moments happy ones seems very possible to me. It's funny, when you think about it, you are reading straight from a crack in my life.

Is dieting something happy people do? I read this study done in 1996, by David Lykken and Auke Tellegen, from the University of Minnesota Psychology department on Happiness. They came to a somewhat perplexing conclusion:

If the transitory variations of well-being are largely due to fortune's favors, whereas the midpoint of these variations is determined by the great genetic lottery that occurs at conception, then we are led to conclude that individual differences in human happiness - how one feels at the moment and also how one feels on average over time - are primarily a matter of chance.

This was another key summary of their study:

Myers and Diener suggested that people who enjoy close personal relationships, who become absorbed in their work, and who set themselves achievable goals and move toward them with determination are happier on the whole than people who do not. We agree, but we question the direction of the causal arrow. We know that when people with bipolar mood disored are depressed, they tend to avoid intimate encounters or new experiences and tend to brood upon depressing thoughts rather than concentrating on their work. Then, when their moods swings toward elation, these same people tend to do the things that happy people do. This is undoubtedly a James-Lange feedback effect: Dysfunctional behavior exacerbates depression, whereas the things happy people do enhance their happiness. We argue, however, that the impetus is greater from mood to behavior than in the reverse direction. It may be that trying to be happier is as futile as trying to be taller and therefore is counterproductive.

A happy mood leads to behaviors that encourage a continued sense of elation? It makes a sick kind of sense. When I'm in a good mood, I start dieting and begin to lose weight, and I will choose healthier foods and activities (like working out, or getting in contact with a friend). Whereas, when I'm in a negative mood, I insist on not dieting and tend to gain weight, and I will choose more unhealthy food and unhealthy activities (like watching t.v. all day). Mood affects and feeds behaviors, which then support the mood.

So, has anything been solved? How does the switch happen? Is it just a cycle, partially based in genetics? I'm happy, making good choices. Then something happens. I become upset, negative, and begin making poor choices. Then something happens. I become happy, and make more good choices. Is there a way to avoid the switch? Is there a way to minimize the depression?

It's interesting, we fat people try to "switch" by overwhelming the negative mood with food, which interestingly enough provides some elation...but then leads to more negative behavior. Hmm! This would "seem" to support our initial hypothesis that carbs lead to a false sense of elation...elation, but an elation that tricks us into a false sense of happiness.

Okay - now that I'm back at the beginning...

Coma: it is an accurate description. I can remember when it happened, but I can't remember much of the last ten days while I fed my body an steady diet of sweet, simple carbs. It happens, and then I'm back where I started. It's like Chutes and Ladders and that slide down the ladder is a bitch. It all begins with the decision to put something before physical well being. But, I can say, I wasn't as non-emotional as I had been while I pursued a low carb diet. The connection seems like it must be a product of my mind. However, I read this the other day which made me wonder if our journey for happiness without carbs, really is a difficult one. Here's a quote from the webpage:

"The MIT researchers found that the brain only seemed to make serotonin after a person ate carbohydrates.[199] By starving the brain of this essential mood elevator, the researchers fear that the Atkins Diet may make people restless, irritable or depressed. They noted that women, people under stress, and those taking anti-depressants might be most at risk.[200]"

Now, scientific research that comes to a conclusion that states "seems to make", is suspect to me to make any conclusive arguments. Although, from my personal experience, I would say my mood seems to support the conclusion that serotonin levels are affected by Carbohydrates. However, as the research states, "seems" is the operative word. I know that my sertotonin levels also seem to be affected by how I perceive myself. In other words, I have been on the Atkins diet and lost lots of weight, and felt quite wonderful. I agree it isn't wise to simply load up on fats, nor to stay on Atkins for a prolonged period of time. However, a half gallon of ice cream, no matter what other food you are eating, is not good for you.

So, it's back to eating better, keeping my carb intake and calorie intake low, along with exercising...how depressing. :)

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.