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Man is Messy

There is this feminist notion that masculinity is a basket of “good” and “bad” characteristics that men can pick and choose from. The pleasant qualities are things like provision of food, provision of funds, providing a home, duty, honor and procreation. The “bad” or distasteful characteristics are things like intense strength, lust, violence and furious indignation.

The project of radical feminism has been to convince men, and women alike, that men must rid themselves of all the distasteful qualities and characteristics of their nature. If they don’t, they threaten, the “toxic male” will no longer find acceptance in the feminized world in which we now live.  The term for this is emasculation.

And yet, you cannot cherry-pick the parts of masculinity that you are happy with.  Just as an engineer cannot keep the abutments and dispense with the footings of a wall, bridge or building, the man is the totality of strength and weakness built in perfect tension and relationship to each other. The man is much like a high tension bridge.  You cannot have the strengths without the foundation spanning the weak points.

In every textbook or class on biology, the male and female of a species are dramatically different and can never be expected to act, interact or look similarly.  But, ask any woman and the majority will tell you that men are looked at from the female mind as a hairy, misbehaving woman.

When a man seeks to rid himself of the “nasty parts,” pointed out and perceived as “bad” by the female, the bridge collapses.  You cannot bridge an ocean without tension, without a mass of steel suspended in configurations of terrifying force and power, that steel welded together with white hot heat and molten flux.

The solution is not to rid yourself or conform. It is to admit, acknowledge and own every aspect of your gender, no matter how ugly, volatile or untidy it may appear to the opposite sex.

Man is messy.  He always has been. Try to bury that fact and your gender will bury you.

Denying the mess is a recipe for repression, misery, malaise, fatigue and heart disease.

Make no mistake, when you go off script and embrace the mess, you will feel, and appear, dangerous.

Feminism will treat your masculinity like a loaded gun because unapologetic fully-embraced masculinity IS a loaded gun.  You are dangerous.  That’s what it means to be a man.

Uncocking the hammer does nothing but emasculate you, and render you a useless tool, a dull blade, to your family and the world at large.

The lie is that you can get rid of the “nasty bits” and retain your masculine power.   In truth, you have two choices.

  1. Be dangerous, yet well disciplined
  2. Scale yourself down to a cap gun . . . shooting blanks.

Be warned, the second choice sounds great, and actually is initially pleasant to the females in your life, but it leads to depression and the modern male malaise.

Chose wisely.

If you’re reading this, trying make a choice barraged by voices on all sides . . .  If your reaching has reached its limit . . .  If all the tendons of your soul are straining to hold it together, feeling like their about to snap . . . You’re not alone, my friend.
I can’t fix it for you, same as you can’t fix it for me.  However, I can at least assure you that you’re no stranger to me . . . That your fears are my fears, your longings are identical to my own.
I see you not as some washed-up, broken down grizzly bear, but as one of our finest.  An honorable, noble, disciplined dangerous man yet in the fight, nose split, teeth broken . . . Spitting dust and blood for the hundredth time . . . Swaying in his boots, but still standing.
There is hope.  Read about it here.
Much love always,
DocMuscles

(Adapted from Bryan Ward’s Third Way Man)

Are You the King or the Second Queen?

When you were a boy, much like me, you likely dreamed of the day you would be a king.  You dreamed of the day you would marry a beautiful maiden, have children, own lands . . . You dreamed of the day you would be loved, feared, and venerated.
You saw the way of the king, and you knew in your belly that this was your call:
  • To build the kingdom that you dreamed about
  • To live a life of benevolent power
  • To be admired, respected and beloved.
But somewhere along the way, the dream was corrupted. For we saw that kings can be craven.
We saw that some kings can be cruel.
And when the queens of the land bristled in unison . . . men, seeking to appease them, broke their scepters over their knees. And, men, the world over, resolved not to be king, but to be a second queen.  They resorted to work in cheerful cooperation as a second wife, without the danger or the terror that lives within the man, that husband king.
Thus, the path of misery for man, and wife alike, was paved. . . the emasculated king, living his life as a second queen.  Yet, man was never meant to take a wife and father children only to relinquish his God given dominion to become the “second queen.”
You and I, we come to marriage and family for kingship:
  • To provide safety and shelter for your queen and her cubs
  • To ravish the queen and see the animal heat in her eyes
  • To live in glory and honor
  • And when called upon, to willingly go heart-in-mouth into the fray
You may not have servants or lands or chests of gold. But, if you have a wife, if you have children, if you have an audience to serve . . . you have everything required for true, abiding kingship.
For a king is king not by the command he claims for himself or the fealty others pay him.  He is king by pressing and wielding his dangerous power to the noble service of others in the creation of value and honor.
Kingship is the exercise of dangerous magic nobly.  It is an exercise in unconditional love applied. Through force of will and force of imagination, you make your visions manifest.
Kingdoms are not won, they are not granted, they are not inherited . . . Kingdoms are CREATED.
Do not wait for your wife to become the queen. Do not wait, grumbling, for her to adulate or serve you. The principle buried by the softened souls of this civilization, by generations of absentee fathers, by generations of fatherless homes, by generations of men without their scepters is this . . .
It is the KING that makes the queen, not the other way around.
You stare foggy and angry at the hole in your drywall, at the un-replaced light bulbs, at the broken fence in the yard . . . at the mind-numbing banality all around you.  Yet you want to feel alive again . . . deeply, lastingly, the way you dreamed as a young boy that you would feel when you became king.
That feeling doesn’t come from a manicured yard, a check in the mail, or even from some bestowed title from an Ivy League tower.  It comes from indwelling and OWNING the role you’ve already won. You “have” a family, but it will not glow until your breathe everything you have into it . . . until you animate it with all your might and mind and heart and lungs.
Why are you waiting for some outside appointment? Rise up. Stand up. Throw out the box of cereal.  Give the macaroni to the neighbor. Eat the bacon, fire up the smoker. Take on that task that’s been gnawing at you for months.
Create your kingship NOW.  Do it TODAY: one kiss, one meal, one light bulb, one filled hole-in-the-drywall, one meal, one poem-in-the-lunchbox at a time.  Stop sitting there braiding each other’s hair.
BE THE DAMN KING because the queen is already taken.  Whether or not she returns that love does not matter.  It is the act of loving her that actually fires you, it is not the reciprocation.  Any love or adoration she returns is immaterial.  The essential magic has already happened inside you.  The fire has already been lit.
“Why would I kiss that mouth?” you say. “Why would I gaze into those cold, bitter eyes? How could I treat as queen this woman who sneers and scorns so unbearably?”
And that, there, is the double-bind that has been holding your very kingship, holding your marriage captive.  This love, this respect, this adoration you long for her to give to you . . .
It is not hers to give, but for YOU TO CREATE within her.
You see, it is the KING that molds the maiden into the queen, into her best and highest self.  Not with silence or criticism or ultimatums, but with acts of imagination and love.  No matter how deep your disillusionment, it is the only way.  You must create the queen.
The power is within you . . .
Click Here Now To Learn How.
(Adapted from Brian Ward’s Third Way Man)

Eight Steps to Help You, Your Children & Your Family Thrive In Quarantine

Some of you are doing well.  Some of you aren’t.   There is a twisted part of some of you that actually like this “shut-down.”  Because, you’ve been in a mental/emotional shut down for years.  The pain of past failures punched holes in your heart.  You feel it and re-experience it when you try.  Your family sees it (they just don’t say anything).  Your friends see it. But, they are tactful and just smile.

With each failure, you lowered the fence.  With each betrayal, you widened the moat around your soul.

And now, life has caught up to you.

Part of you wants to double down and float corpse-like in the misery of the past.  Quarantine is an easy excuse to kill the last spark of your ambition, binge on Netflix and pop bon-bons on the couch.

But, COVID-19 just kicked over the game-board.  Life’s dice have just been changed.

Pull back the curtain of chaos around your life and the life of your family.  Realize that you actually set the rules.

The Eight Rules

There are eight rules that, if applied, will stabilize you and your family.  And, if you teach them to your children, you will solidify a generation.

Give your life and your children some structure.

We as humans have always needed guard rails, or banisters, especially the little humans.  A simple list of the top three things you and your children need to do today will make the day go so much smoother. Start at the top and go to work.  You don’t have to accomplish all three, but, just knowing the three most important things to accomplish today, gives you and your ” miniature carbon copies” satisfying direction.  If you don’t finish number 2 or 3, then put them on the top of the list tomorrow.

Delayed gratification is your true best friend.

This is a perfect time to place strategic rewards on pleasurable activities. I realize that spending the day in your pajamas watching TV, Netflix binge’ng, or playing video games can be very easy.  These activities are fine after the structure has been addressed.  Clean your room, then reward yourself with a video game. Fold the laundry, then surf the internet.  Mow the lawn, then watch Netflix.  Pay the bills, then reward yourself.

People, grown and those still growing, always respond better and gain self-confidence when experiencing delayed gratification.

Teach your family the how and why of working together.

Yes, the shutdown causes problems.  But, make lemon-aid out of lemons.  Teach your family to cook, plan and make meals together (I know a great book with 60 wonderful ketogenic recipes). Young children can clean up, feed the dog, take out the garbage and even do their own laundry.

My wife had our children doing their own laundry at seven years old.  Umm, yes, they actually can, and are capable of some complex chores at that age.  Anyone that can “Call of Duty,” “Super-Mario” or dress a Barbie can sort clothes and turn on a washing machine.  This is a perfect time to teach them and supervise.

Exercise as a family.

Daily family walks, runs, or weight lifting (body-weight exercises if you don’t have weights) will shake out the cobwebs.  Teach your kids great health habits and you fatigue them for bedtime sooner in the process.

Tell your children stories.

Share stories around the dinner table of your adventures, successes and failures.  They want to hear the how and why, it is educational for them and it is therapeutic for you.  Read to your kids before bed.  We worked through the entire Narnia series over a couple years and my kids still talk about it.

Or, better yet, tell them a bedtime story.  The crazier the better. You will never regret it, and it will be some of the most memorable things your family may experience.

Find a project that you and they can tackle.

My daughter loves to collect Medieval swords and loves to sword-fight (Probably because of the bedtime stories we read.)  We had this collection of swords that was hard to keep in a closet.  So, we made a wooden sword rack together.  My daughter found that she “loves to build stuff,” and this  brought out a creative side of her that my wife and I had never seen.

Carve out some adult time. 

You need time for yourself.  You also need time with your spouse.  Kids need to see that adults need some time for themselves.

I can still remember the time when my daughter called me at work in tears.  When I asked what was wrong, she told me, “Mom put herself in time-out, she locked herself in the bedroom and she won’t come out.”

My wife was homeschooling the kids, it had been a difficult year and didn’t give herself time to regroup.  She was frazzled.   To this day, my grown children and I have learned that each of us needs some personal time.  Or, we end up putting ourselves in “time-out.”

Learn and teach your family independence. 

If your family, your spouse, or those you are responsible for come to you with every little unmet need and want, this quarantine is going to  feel like it “lasts for years!” Train your family, and yourself, up front what they can do for themselves. And, teach them how to decide when they can do it on their own.  Help them be independent.  Tears and whining will probably occur, initially (probably, from your husband the most.) But, it is our job to take completely dependent infants and turn them into independent self-starting adults within 18 years.

So, dream big, take your white knuckles off the steering wheel, pull over and re-imagine your life.  These eight rules are the alchemy of the soul.

Long-term weight loss

Long-Term Weight Loss: Why So Many Fail

Over fifty years of data have demonstrated that creating energy deficit through the reduction in caloric intake is effective in reducing weight. . . However, it is only for the short term (1, 2).  The biggest challenge physicians face in the treatment of obesity is that calorie restriction fails when it comes to long-term weight loss.

Isn’t Fasting Effective in Long-Term Weight Loss?

With the craze and popularity of intermittent fasting, some have claimed that intermittent fasting is more effective in weight reduction.  Recent results demonstrate that this may also be incorrect.  In the short term evaluation of caloric restriction and intermittent fasting, reduction in 15-20 lbs of weight is effectively seen and the highly publicized Biggest Loser’s losing ~ 120 lbs.  Intermittent fasting and alternate day fasting have been shown to be more effective in lowering insulin levels and other inflammatory markers in the short term.

There is, however, controversy over maintaining weight loss beyond 12 months in the calorie restriction, intermittent and alternate day fasting groups. Forty different studies in a recent literature review, thirty-one of those studies looking at forms of intermittent fasting, demonstrate that the majority of people regain the weight within the first 12 months of attempting to maintain weight loss(3, 5).  This is, also, what I have seen for over 18 years of medical practice.

Is Calorie Restriction the Only Way to Lose Fat?

Numerous “experts” claim that the only way to reduce fat is “caloric deficit.”  Variations through the use of intermittent, long-term or alternate day fasts can be found all over the internet.   In regards to calorie restriction, these “experts” with nothing more than a personal experience and a blog to back their claims preach this louder than the “televangelists” preach religion.  Based on the faith that many place in this dogma, it could be a religion.  What causes belief in this dogma is that weight and fat loss actually does occur with caloric restriction to a point.  The average person will lose 20-25 lbs, however, within 12 months of achieving this goal, most people regain all the weight.  (No one ever mentions the almost universal problem with long-term weight loss, especially those “experts.”)

Prolonged calorie restricted fasts, intermittent fasts, and alternate day fasts are often grouped together into the fasting approach, causing significant confusion among those that I speak to and counsel in my office.  There is great data that alternate day fasts do not have the reduction in resting energy expenditure that prolonged fasting, intermittent fasting and calorie restriction cause.  However, none of these approaches appears to solve the problem of weight re-gain after long-term (12-24 months into maintenance) weight loss (3).  And, a recent study of 100 men participating in alternate day fasting showed that there was a 38% dropout rate, implying that without close supervision and direction, maintenance of this lifestyle is not feasible for over 1/3rd of those attempting it.

Long-Term Weight Loss Failure Brings Tears

Failure on calorie restricted diets, low fat diets, and intermittent fasting diets with weight regain at twelve to twenty-four months is the most common reason people end up in my office in tears.  They’ve fasted, starved themselves, calorie restricted, tried every form of exercise, and still regained the weight.  Trainers, coaches and “experts” have belittled them for “cheating” or just not keeping to the diet.  Yet, we know that calorie restriction and intermittent fasting cause a rebound in leptin, amilyn, peptid YY, cholecystikinin, insulin, ghrelin, gastric inhibitory peptide and pancreatic poly peptide by twelve months causing ineffective long-term weight loss (6).  The dramatic rise in these hormones stimulates tremendous hunger, especially from ghrelin and leptin.

Hormones after weight loss
N Eng J Med 27 Oct 2011. Mean (±SE) Fasting and Postprandial Levels of Ghrelin, Peptide YY, Amylin, and Cholecystokinin (CCK) at Baseline, 10 Weeks, and 62 Weeks.

Although less problematic in alternate day fasting, these calorie restricted approaches also cause dramatic slowing of the metabolism at the twelve month mark.  In many cases, the metabolic rate never actually returns to baseline, creating even more difficulty in losing further weight or even maintaining weight (6).

Weight rebound after loss
N Engl J Med 27 Oct 2011. Mean changes is weight from 0 – 62 weeks.

Is Gastric Bypass or Gastric Sleeve the Solution?

Gastric bypass and the gastric sleeve procedures have been touted as the solution to this problem, as they decrease ghrelin, however, 5-10 years later, these patients are also back in my office.  They find that 5-10 years after these procedures the weight returns, cholesterol and blood pressure rise, and diabetes returns.  These hormones kick into high gear, stimulating hunger in the face of a slowed metabolism, that to date, has been the driver for weight regain in the majority of people.  People find it nearly impossible to overcome the hunger. You may have experienced this, I know I have.

It’s the Hormones, Baby!

So, what is the answer?  It’s the hormones.  (WARNING – You’ll hear that when your wife is pregnant, too, gentlemen).  We are hormonal beings, both in weight gain, and in pregnancy.  Trying to preach calorie control to a hormonal being is like showing up at the brothel to baptize the staff. You might get them into the water, but you’re probably not getting them returning weekly to church or pay a tithe.

Respect My HormonesSo, how do you manipulate the hormones in a way to control the rebounding hunger and suppression of metabolism?  This is where we put a bit of twist on the knowledge we’ve gained from alternate day fasting.  Recent research shows that “mild” energy deficit in a pulsatile manner, that has the ability to mimicking the body’s normal bio-rhythm’s is dramatically effective in reducing weight and maintaining normal hormonal function without cause of rebound metabolic slowing (4).

Pulsed Mild Energy Restriction

What does this mean in layman’s terms?  It means that if we provide a diet that maintains satiety hormones while providing a period of baseline total energy expenditure needs and a period of mildly reduce caloric intake in a pulsed or cyclic manner, greater weight loss occurs and there is no rebound of weight 1-2 years later.

The main reason I’ve not jumped on the intermittent fasting band wagon is the shift in leptin, amylin, ghrelin and GLP-1 signaling that regularly occurs at the 6-12 month mark.  The rebound of these hormones causes weight re-gain and is what prevents successful long-term weight loss.  A number of people come to my office and tell me they couldn’t follow a ketogenic diet, so they’re doing intermittent fasting and it works . . . for a while.  Then, they end up in my office having hit a plateau or fallen off the wagon and regained all the weight.  They are completely confused and don’t understand what happned.  Most of them are convinced it’s their thyroid or cortisol and they’ve seen every naturopath and functional medicine doctor in town.

What people really need is a simple approach to long-term weight loss without having to spend the night in the physiology lab every two weeks sleeping under a ventilated hood system.

The Ketogenic Lifestyle is a Pulsed Energy Lifestyle

  • First, it is essential to turn off the insulin load. Insulin is the master hormone.  This is done by a ketogenic lifestyle that restricts carbohydrates.
  • Second, providing adequate protein to supply maintenance of muscle and testosterone is key.
  • Third, providing adequate fat is the simple way to maintain leptin, ghrelin, amylin, GLP-1 (among the others) and long-term weight loss.  Can you eat too much fat?  Of course you can.  But, because each of us have differing levels of stress and activity each day, this fat intake becomes the lever for hunger control.
  • Fourth, the use of exogenous ketones ensures easily accessible ketone (short chain fatty acids) to modulate adipose (white fat) signaling of the liver without large caloric intake through the portal vein by first pass of liver metabolism.  The ketones also help stabilize the gut bacteria.  The combination of hormone balance between the liver and fat cells and improvement of gut bacteria suppresses key hunger hormones and aids glucose regulation between the fatty tissues and the liver.  Ketones, both endogenous and exogenous, suppress production of TNF-alpha, IL-6, resistin, and stabilize production of adiponectin and leptin from the adipose cells (7, 8, 9).

In my office, once we calculate the basic protein needs daily, we start with a 1:1 ratio of protein to fat.  Then, the fat is adjusted up or down based on hunger. Remember, hunger occurs, because your body produces hormones.  The addition of fat to a diet that is not stimulating large amounts of insulin resets the hormone patterns back to normal without causing weight gain.

Give Obese People Fat Ad Libitum?

“Sure, Dr. Nally, but what about those people who don’t know if they are hungry, bored, stressed or just have a bacon fixation?  You can’t just give them all the fat they want?!”

Why not?  Implying that people aren’t smart enough to know when they are full is a bit of a fascist philosophy, don’t you think?

Do people over eat?  Sure they do.  But, I’ve found that when you give people an antidote to hunger (using fat intake in the presence of stabilized insulin levels) over a few months, people begin to recognize true hunger from other forms of cravings.  This is especially true when they keep a diet journal.  This gives people the ability to begin listening to their own bodies, responding accordingly and governing their stress, eating, exercise and activity.  Keeping a diet journal is key to long-term weight loss.  And, isn’t helping people use their own agency to improve their health really what we’re trying to do?

Interestingly, doing this over the years seems to line up with the findings of this year’s MATADOR study in the International Journal of Obesity.  They found that mild intermittent energy restriction of about 30-33% for two weeks, then interrupting this with two weeks of a diet that was energy balanced for needs improved both short and long-term weight loss efficiency (4).  In looking at my, and my patient’s diet journals, this energy restriction of about 1/3 of needed calories cyclically seems to happens naturally with a ketogenic lifestyle, without even counting calories.  (Calories are a swear-word in my office).

What does the correct long-term wight loss program look like in a diet or meal plan?  Well, you’ll have to join the Ketogenic Lifestyle 101 Course to see what that really means to you individually.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Want to find out more about the Ketogenic Lifestyle 101 course?  CLICK HERE.

 

Have you read my book The Keto Cure?  Get a signed copy from me by clicking HERE.

References:

  1. Bronson FH, Marsteller FA. “Effect of short-term food deprivation on reproduction in female mice.” Biol Reprod. Oct 1985; 33(3): 660-7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4052528?dopt=Abstract&holding=npg
  2. Connors JM, DeVito WJ, Hedge GA. “Effects of food deprivation on the feedback regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis of the rat.” Endocrinology. Sep 1985. 117(3): 900-6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3926471?dopt=Abstract&holding=npg
  3. Seimon RV, Roekenes JA, Zibellini J, Zhu B, Gibson AA, Hills AP, Wood RE, King NA, Byrne NM, Sainsbury A. “Do intermittent diets provide physiological beneftis over continuous diets for weight loss? A systematic review of clinical trials.” Mol Cell Endo. 15 Dec 2015. 418(2): 153-172. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303720715300800
  4. Byrne NM, Sainsbury A, King NA, Hills AP, Wood RE. “Intermittent energy restriction improves weight loss efficiency in obese men: the MATADOR study.” Int J Obes. 2018. 42:129-138.  https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2017206
  5. Trepanowski JF, Kroeger CM, Barnosky A. “Effect of Alternate-Day Fasting on Weight Loss, Weight Maintenance, and Cardioprotection Among Metabolically Healthy Obese Adults.” JAMA Intern Med. Jul 2017. 177(7): 930-938. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2623528?redirect=true
  6. Sumithran P, Prendergast LA, Delbridge E, Purcell K, Shulkes A, Kriketos A, Proietto J. “Long-term persistence of hormonal adaptations to weight loss.” N Engl J Med. 27 Oct 2011. 365: 1597-1604. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1105816
  7. Asrih M et al., “Ketogenic diet impairs FGF21 signaling and promotes differential inflammatory responses in the liver and white adipose tissue.” PlosOne. 14 May 2015. Open Access. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126364
  8. Veniant MM et al. “FGF21 promotes metabolic homeostasis via white adipose and leptin in mice.” PlosOne.  Jul 2012. Open access. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0040164
  9. Whittle AJ, “FGF21 conducts a metabolic orchestra and fat is a key player.” Endocrinology. 1 May 2016. 157(5): 1722-1724.
Triggers #DocMuscles #KetonianKing Habits Self-Control Self-Discipline

Willpower & Self-Discipline in a Ketogenic Lifestyle

Hundreds of people come to my office each month desiring to lose weight.  Among the challenges they experience is the complaint that they lack willpower and/or self-discipline.  Many people feel they cannot lose weight because they don’t have the self-control to do so. However you define it, willpower, self-discipline, or self-control, is an elusive and mysterious thing.  Scientists have been trying to find out what willpower & self-discipline is and how to improve it since the early 1960’s. “If only I had more self-control,” people lament, “I could . . . lose weight, exercise regularly, eat right, avoid drugs and alcohol, save for retirement, enjoy more bacon, stop procrastinating, . . . . or even achieve the noble peace prize.”  A 2011 American Psychological Association study reveals that almost 30% of those interviewed felt that their lack of willpower was the greatest barrier to making a change in any of these areas.

Excellence Comes From Habit

DocMuscles #KetonianKing Excellence Act Habit ActionExcellence is not an act . . . it is a habit of repetitive action.  To understand willpower & self-discipline, you have to understand habit.  Habits emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort or conserve energy.   Left to it’s own devises, your sub-conscious brain will attempt to take any routine and turn it into a habit.  Our brains do this to conserve mental effort and energy. This allows us to stop thinking about basic behaviors like walking and eating, so that we can devote mental fuel to doing important things like making spears, finding bacon, creating irrigation systems, building airplanes and, for some, designing video games.

The brain creates time saving patterns in it’s thought processes in a similar way to what happens when a few drops of water are dropped on the top of a mound of dirt.  As each drop hits the top of the mound, the water runs down the side where it finds the least resistance.  Each drop of water erodes a little channel down the side of the mound of dirt.  The more water drops you release, the deeper the channel is carved in the little hill, and after a while all the water runs down the same path over and over.   To get the water to run down the path, the water has to drop on to the top of the path. This starting point for thought is actually a “cue” or a “trigger.”  Once the water, or in our example the thought, hits the trigger point, it always follows the same path.  Always.

Habits are Repetitive Thought Channels

It takes great effort to turn the water out of the path.  This can be likened to our habits.  Habits are neural impulse channels in our brain that follow a path leading to the same outcome every time without much effort.  All that is necessary is to trigger the neural impulse.  The neural impulse follows the channel in the brain effortlessly causing a mental or physical routine to occur leading to a end point or reward.  Some researchers call this a “habit loop.”  Trigger-Routine-Reward.

What is Willpower?

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So what is willpower & self-discipline? It is the ability to resist the unproductive patterns of though and redirect the neural impulse that was triggered down the channel.  Redirecting this habit takes a great deal of mental energy.  The first studies on willpower like Walter Mischel’s famous study of Four Year Olds & Marshmallows gave the impression that willpower was a learned skill.

Henry P Liddon said, “What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.”  This means that willpower or self-control can be learned or improved.   The more you repeat a task, the easier and less effort it takes to complete it.  Thus, excellence isn’t an act . . . it is a habit of repetitive action.

But, this doesn’t explain why one day you eat healthy, and the next day, when you are tired, you raid the freezer and down the entire quart of ice cream.  You may find that you exercise one day without any problem, but the following day you can’t seem to get yourself off the couch.  If exerting willpower to exercise were a skill, it wouldn’t be so difficult to do it everyday, once the skill is learned.  The problem with the self-discipline theory is that you don’t forget a skill overnight.

Willpower is Like a Muscle

More recently, Mark Muraven found that willpower is actually more like a muscle.   He wondered, as we did above, that if willpower was a skill, then why doesn’t it remain constant from day to day?

Muraven decided to conduct an experiment by placing a bowl of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies next to a bowl of radishes.  The room containing the bowls was a closet with a two-way mirror, a table, a wooden chair, a bell and a toaster oven.   Sixty-seven undergraduate students at Case Western were recruited and told to skip a meal.   One by one, the students filed in and sat in front of the two bowls.  They were told by a researcher that the experiment was about taste perception, which was untrue.   The experiment  was to force half the students to exert their willpower & self-discipline.

DocMuscles #KetonianKing #KetoCookies #ChocolateChipCookie

Half of the students were instructed to eat the cookies and ignore the radishes.  The other half were instructed to eat the radishes, but ignore the cookies. Muraven’s theory was that it was difficult, requiring mental energy and willpower, to ignore the cookies.   Ignoring radishes takes absolutely no energy when there is a full bowl of warm cookies overflowing with chocolate chips.

“Remember,” the researcher instructed, “you can only eat the food that has  been assigned to you.” Then the researcher left the room.

After five minutes, the cookie eaters were in heaven and the radish eaters were experiencing mental agony.

Researchers stated that one of the radish eaters went so far as to pick up a cookie, smell it longingly, and put it back in the bowl.  Another grabbed a few cookies, wolfed them down, and licked the chocolate off of his fingers.  Muraven estimated that after five minutes, the radish eaters willpower would have been fully taxed by eating a bitter vegetable and ignoring treats, where the cookie eaters hardly used any of their self-discipline.

The research then entered the room and asked them to “wait 15 minute for the sensory memory of the food that was eaten to fade.”  To pass the time they were each asked to complete a puzzle that looked fairly simple.  They were to trace a geometric shape without lifting the pencil from the page or going over the same line twice.  If you want to quit, the researcher left a bell to ring. The researcher then implied the puzzle wouldn’t take long.   In truth, the puzzle was impossible to solve.

The puzzle was the most important part of the experiment.   It took enormous willpower to keep working the puzzle. Particularly after each attempt failed.

What they found from behind the two-way mirror was that the cookie eaters with their reserve of will power and self-discipline worked the puzzle even after hitting road block after road block for over 30 minutes.

The radish eaters, with their already depleted willpower, muttered, showed immediate signs of frustration, and complained loudly to themselves.  A few of them even closed their eyes and put their heads on the desk.  One even snapped at the researcher when she walked back into the room.  On average the radish eaters lasted only eight minutes.  When asked how they felt, one complained that he was sick of such a dumb experiment.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Fatigue

By forcing the use of willpower & self-discipline to ignore cookies, it placed the radish eaters into a state of willingness to quit much faster.   More than 200 studies like this have been completed since this test was done.   All of them found the same conclusion – willpower is like a muscle.  It’s not just a skill.  Willpower fatigues.

This may explain why people, who succumb to extramarital affairs, are usually likely to start them late at night, after a long day of work.  It explains why good physicians make dumb mistakes after a long, very complicated task that requires intense focus.  It also points to reasons why people are more likely to lose control over their drinking or cheat on their ketogenic diet.

I meet and work with people every day who feel they have no willpower.  In actuality, will power and self-control are learned behaviors that develop over time, but are greatly effected by fatigue.  Anyone can have willpower, you just have to understand how willpower can be strengthened and what makes it weak.  

Willpower is More Important than IQ

2005 study showed that willpower & self-discipline was more important than IQ in academic successes.  This study also found that increased self-discipline lead to less binge eating, higher self-esteem, higher grade point averages, better relationship skills and less alcoholism. Fascinating isn’t it!?

Willpower strengthens with use, but has a daily “shelf-life.”   It is always greater or stronger in the first part of the day.  Willpower declines over the course of the day as you fatigue.

How Do You Improved the Self-Discipline Muscle?

First, you must establish and write down a reason or motivation for change.  In addition, that change must fulfill a clear goal. Just wanting to lose weight isn’t good enough.  You have to be motivated because of a consequence that arises from the obesity or overweight.  Just “losing weight” isn’t a clear goal.  You must set a (1) specific weight reduction goal. It has to be clearly written down with your (2) motivational reason. “I will lose (1) 30 pounds to prevent (2) diabetes,” is a great written goal.  Willpower or self-control cannot begin to form until these two steps occur. Writing the goal with these two specifics and re-reading the goal regularly is the essence of multiple drops of water running down the hill forming the channel.  This also creates a trigger by setting specifics about the goal.

Second, you must begin to monitor your behavior toward that goal.  When it comes to weight loss, I ask all of my patient’s to keep a diet journal.  In your journal, write down every thing you eat and drink.  This evening, write down your plan for tomorrow’s meals, then the next evening, you account to yourself for your success or failure by journaling on that same page what you actually ate and drank. Tomorrow evening, compare what you did, as you plan for tomorrow and journal why you were successful or why you were not successful.  It’s that last part that is so powerful, a short 3-5 minutes of self-introspection. Self-introspection is the key to behavioral change.  It is the key that allows a person to see their habits, and then make very small changes that break bad habits, solidify good habits and strengthen willpower.  This time of self-introspection is re-enforcing the desired channel of flow.

Third, willpower is developed and strengthened over time.  It is developed by being accountable to ones-self on very little things every single day.  But it MUST be written down. If I planned to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast and I didn’t, why?  When I look at my day, I may realize that I went to bed too late to get up early and cook bacon and eggs. So, instead, I ate a yogurt that was in the fridge. I am accountable to myself.  If I plan to eat bacon and eggs tomorrow, I must either go to bed earlier, prepare them the night before, or throw out the yogurt . . . so not to be a temptation again.  Planning re-enforces the triggers, and takes away the mental energy required to have self-discipline when you lack sleep, are feeling stress from waking up late, or running out of bacon in the fridge.  it also provides more willpower to be available for other decisions later in the day.   Pre-planning by writing down tomorrows tasks provides you strength for future willpower and eliminates fatigue when needing to make a large or small change tomorrow.

kid-musclesOver time, this self-introspection becomes easier and easier, to the point that you do it sub-consciously.  It is this sub-conscious self-introspection and change will be seen by others as self-control or willpower.  Just like exercising or strengthening a muscle, recording short goals and and accounting for them makes your self-discipline stronger.  The self-discipline muscle becomes more powerful. In time, you’ll be able to make a split second decisions about a piece of cake.  Strong willpower will be perceived by those around you. You’ll recognize that it’s just flexing your well rested self-discipline muscle.

Fourth, plan or attack the hardest decisions of your day, those things that require the greatest energy, in the morning when your fresh.  This allows you to have the strength to maintain willpower.  In the evening, when your willpower muscle is the weakest, have rescue foods available so you’re less likely to cheat. Pre-cooked bacon, pork rinds, guacamole, macadamia nuts (the highest in fat), rolled meats and hard cheeses are in my fridge and pantry for this reason. This is where fat bombs in the fridge at the end of a long day allow you to snack when you’re hungry at the time willpower is weakest.

A great way to pre-plan is to go to the KetoKart and order your pre-packaged 1, 3, or 6 month program that will provide you with the supplements necessary to stabilize insulin and ketones on a daily basis.  This is one decision you don’t have to try to make ahead of time.

So, my question for you is which KetoKart package did you choose and . . . where’s your diet journal?

(Stay tuned for the second part of this series: Fixing the Habit Loop Cycle.)

Does Jung & Myers-Briggs Typology Effect Obesity?

Sitting around the dinner table this evening we began discussing personality types.  As a fun exercise, we each took the Jung Typology Test based on Jung and Myers-Briggs findings about personality.   If you haven’t taken this personality test, you might find it quite interesting and the topic of hours of conversation around the dinner table  . . . as we did this evening. The test is free on-line and takes about 10 minutes.

jung
Carl Gustav Jung – Swiss Psychiatrist & Psychotherapist

The actual Myers-Briggs Type Indicator costs about $50.00 and includes an interpretation by someone trained in giving the test. It differs slightly in its questions and the way the testing is interpreted.

Both tests provide an interesting insight into your individual psychological preferences regarding four categories.  According to Carl G. Jung’s theory of psychological types published in 1971, people can be characterized, first, by their preference or general attitude about the source of and how they express their energy:

  • Extraverted (E) vs. Introverted (I)

The second preference is one of the two functions of perception, or related to how they perceive information coming from either the external or internal world:

  • Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)

and the third preference relates to how one processes the information that they have received, acting as one of the two functions of thought or judgement:

  • Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)

Isabel Briggs Myers, a researcher and practitioner of Jung’s theory, proposed that the fourth preference related to how one applies or implements the information that he or she processed above.  She proposed a judging-perceiving relationship as the fourth dichotomy influencing personality type in 1980:

  • Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

Each of these dichotomies represents an opposite pole of preference and each of us have a dominant pole toward which we gravitate.

Based upon your dominant traits, a personality type index is assigned.

PersonalityChart

Kim and Lee studied these personality preferences and how they relate to diet, health and propensity toward obesity.  Their findings were interesting in that expression, perception and judgement did not seem to have any bearing on  health or obesity. However, the application of judgement vs perception did play a role in health. Judging (J) means that a person organizes all of his or her life events and, as a rule, sticks to those plans. Perceiving (P) means that he or she is inclined to improvise and explore alternative options.

Significantly better dietary and health behaviors were identified in those preferring Judging (J) versus those preferring Perceiving (P) traits.  Those preferring the Judging (J) behaviors included eating breakfast, regularly eating three meals a day, smoking less, exercising more and having a lower tendency to nocturnal eating.

The findings show that the use of  Jung Type or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator may be helpful in identifying and index those with a Perceiving (P) trait that would benefit from dietary and exercise education, nutritional counseling and/or behavior modification programs.

It has been my experience that those with a “P” type dichotomy preference would benefit greatly from daily food planning and journaling.

So, what is your Jung/Myers-Briggs type?

Just for fun, and because my kids were very curious about what each personality type would appear as in character, I’ve included the Jung/Myers-Briggs Disney typing.

I’m an ENFJ, just in case you’re curious.

Disney Character Personality Types

References:

  1. Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types (Collected works of C. G. Jung, volume 6, Chapter X)
  2. Briggs Myers, I. (1980, 1995) Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type
  3. Kim BS, Lee YE. College Students’ Dietary and Health Behaviors related to Their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality Preferences. Korean J Community Nutr. 2002 Feb;7(1):32-44. Korean.

 

Principles of Life for Consideration

automn image

Over the years, I have collected quotes, bits of wisdom, quips of life and principles of living.  I have taken them from a number of sources, friends, family and thoughts that have just come to me while reading, pondering or out riding my horse with my family.  I have made a point to try to write these down and I thought that I would share them with you today.  Some of them apply to health, obesity, weight and others just apply to being a gentleman. Some of these I struggle with and maybe you do too. Some of them I am good at, and some of them I need to work on.  Let me know what you think:

  • Ponder each night upon the events of the day, and make a goal for tomorrow.
  • Never cancel dinner plans by text message.
  • Every action in public should be done with some sign of respect to those present.
  • When entrusted with a secret, keep it.
  • When in the presence of others, do not sing to yourself, hum to yourself, or drum fingers or feet.
  • If you cough, sneeze, sigh or yawn, cover your mouth.
  • Being old is not dictated by your bedtime.
  • Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point.
  • Of all the things a leader should fear, complacency should head the list.
  • The great man is not only responsible for harvesting his own success, but for cultivating the success of the next generation.
  • Vitality is shown not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.
  • Smile when you pass a stranger.
  • Know the words to your national anthem.
  • Even if your dance moves aren’t the best, making a fool of yourself is much more fun than sitting on the bench.
  • A suntan is earned, not purchased.
  • Don’t sleep when others are talking, don’t sit when others stand, don’t talk when you should hold your peace, don’t walk when others stop.
  • Don’t remove your clothes in the presence of others or leave the privacy of your home half dressed.
  • Don’t bite your nails in the presence of others.
  • Avoid turning your back on someone who is speaking.
  • Don’t lean upon or kick the table upon which someone is reading or writing.
  • Always be the first to remove your hat, salute, or extend your hand to your equal or superior.
  • Let your speech with men of business be short and comprehensive.
  • Whenever writing or speaking, give to every person his due title according to his degree and the custom of the time.
  • Let your recreation be manful, not sinful.
  • Don’t talk with food in your mouth.
  • It is the duty of the senior ranking official within the group or company to unfold his napkin and begin eating first; however, that same official should begin with-in time and demonstrate enough dexterity that the slowest may have the necessary time allowed him to partake of the meal.
  • Avoid strife in disagreement with a superior, but always submit your judgement to others with modesty.
  • Associate yourself with men and women of good quality if you esteem your reputation, for it is better to be alone, then in bad company.
  • Don’t point.
  • Keep your promises.
  • The only things that evolve on their own in any organization are disorder, friction, and nonperformance.
  • Morale is really only faith in the man at the top.
  • No great invention was ever made without true exercise of imagination.
  • All bleeding stops . . . eventually.

New Year Resolution Project

A few of my patient’s have fallen off the carbohydrate restriction waggon this last year.  In celebration of restarting your low-carb lifestyle and resolutions to improve your health, I propose the following celebration.

1) Go home right at 5pm

2) Pull out your favorite skillet (mine is a well used Lodge Cast Iron pan)

3) Remove your favorite full fat sausage from the freezer.

4) Look up your favorite cream cheese waffle recipe.

5) Make your self a Sausage Sanctuary, a Bacon Bungalow or a Low-Carb Cabin (whatever tickles your fancy) in celebration of restarting your carbohydrate restriction and removing the carbage from your life.

Sausage House

I suggest you use a Low-Carb cream cheese waffle you can find here for the roof.

Good Luck! And, may the ketones be with you!

Don't Fear Fat

Dont Fear Fat

 

Don’t fear the fat.  If you haven’t seen the movie Cereal Killers, you should watch it by clicking here.   D.J. O’Neill ditches wheat and sugar in a food plan consisting of 70% fat – under the guidance of legendary South African Sports Scientist Prof. Tim Noakes.

The Fire Within

I recently read this counsel given at the Northland College by Principal John Tapene in 1959.  It still applies to us today. It is a state of mind that applies to life and to all that we do, including our approach to weight loss.  I paraphrase it below.

We frequently hear the cry from our teenagers and young adults, “what can we do, where can we go?”

My answer to them and to you is this: Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons and after you’ve finished, read a book. Your city or town doesn’t owe you recreational facilities and your parents don’t owe you fun. The world does not owe you a living.

Fire WithinOn the contrary, you owe the world something.  You owe it your time, talent and energy so that no one will be at war, in sickness and in loneliness as we have been in the past.  In other words, grow up, stop being a crybaby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone and not a wishbone. Motivation is a fire from within.  If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are, it will only burn very briefly.  Start behaving like a responsible person.  You are important and you are needed.  It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday.  Someday is now, and that somebody is you.

 

Relapse

FallOffWaggonDid you fall off the low-carbohydrate wagon this week?  Did those donuts just call out your name as you walked by the bakery in the grocery store? Maybe you feel like you were shot out of the carbohydrate cannon, landing in the nearby Potato County? If so, you probably had a relapse.  You were doing so well, then all the sudden, your will-power caved.

Relapse is not uncommon when making a dietary lifestyle change. What causes relapse? I often see people relapse back to the Standard American Diet, the SAD diet, because of a number of reasons.

Neurohormones of Hunger
Neuro-hormones of Hunger

First, it is important to recognize that there are a milieu of neuro-hormones that drive hunger cravings or suppression. Anything that triggers a change in these hormone levels can cause the carbohydrate cravings to kick in . . . and you find yourself stuffing yourself with “carbage.”

Second, is boredom.  Many people find an increased nervousness when they get bored.  They find that eating, with it’s calming parasympathetic nervous system effect,  diminish the nervousness that arises out of boredom.  They often create a near Pavlov’s type trigger to eat when they experience boredom and it is quickly interpreted as hunger. There is actually a release of endorphin associated with eating and chewing that suppresses stress and or anxiety.  Reduction of stress, exercise, and journal writing have been found to help patient’s reduce the food cravings associated with boredom.  It is important to have “rescue foods” like string cheese, a handful of almonds, beef jerky, or “fat bombs” available that can be used when you experience these symptoms.

Following the line of triggers, Pavlov demonstrated that repeated actions associated with rewarding consequences will form a physiologic trigger.  Frequently. our desire to eat carbohydrates (“carb cravings”) are often tied to triggers. For example, growing up in my home as a child, our family frequently would relax by watching prime-time television while eating a large bowl of popcorn and a Pepsi.  To this day, whenever I turn on the television in the evening, I get cravings for carbohydrates.  It is important to look at what you were doing or what was going on around you at the time the craving occurred. Substitution of foods has helped to solve these cravings by replacing the popcorn and Pepsi with pork rinds and Diet Dr. Pepper. (Don’t cringe, pork rinds and guacamole tastes fantastic and is a very low carbohydrate substitute that works for me.)

Lastly, many patients fall off the wagon when they visit or have a meal with family. They are often made to feel guilty if they don’t eat Aunt Velda’s homemade chocolate chip cookies.  They are afraid of offending their relatives if they don’t partake of those tasty cookies.  The challenge is that cheating by eating the cookies causes an insulin spike and leads to 24-72 hours of carbohydrate cravings thereafter. Are those cookies worth 72 hours of carbohydrate cravings?  Maybe. But it is important to consider helping Aunt Velda to understand what those cookies will do to you, and that you still care for Aunt Velda even if you don’t eat her chocolate chip cookies.

In many families, food is often associated with love.  “If you don’t eat the food I made for you, you don’t really love me” is an underlying tone that can be found in many family dynamics that I see in my office.  Some times bringing your own low-carb chocolate chip cookies, and offering one to Aunt Velda, will stimulate a conversation about your dietary changes and diffuse the guilt and offence that might arise.

Often, knowing what will cause you to fall off the wagon, helps to keep you on the wagon.  What challenges have you had staying on the wagon?

The Self-Discipline Muscle

Many patients come to my office desiring to loose weight, but complain of no self-control.  They feel they cannot loose weight because they don’t have the willpower.  Willpower, or self-control, is an elusive and mysterious thing. “If only I had more self-control,” I hear people say, “I could . . . ” exercise regularly, eat right, avoid drugs and alcohol, save for retirement, stop procrastinating, achieve a noble goal, or loose weight.  A 2011 American Psychological Association study reveals that almost 30% of those interviewed felt that lack of willpower was the greatest barrier to making a change in any of these areas.

So what is “willpower” or “self-control?” It is the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to fulfill a long-term goal. Image

I meet and work with people every day who feel they have no willpower.  In actuality, will power and self-control are learned behaviors that develop over time.  Anyone can have willpower, you just have to understand how willpower in certain areas can be strengthened and what makes it weak.  In fact, a 2005 study showed that self-discipline or willpower was more important than IQ in academic successes.  This study also found that increased self-discipline lead to less binge eating, higher self-esteem, higher grade point averages, better relationship skills and less alcoholism. Fascinating isn’t it!?

The answer can be found in a quote from Henry P Liddon, “What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.”  This means that willpower or self-control can be learned or improved.  How, you ask?

First, you must establish and write down a reason or motivation for change.  In addition, that change must fulfill a clear goal. Just wanting to loose weight isn’t good enough.  You have to be motivated because of a consequence that arises from the obesity or overweight.  And, you “loosing weight” isn’t a clear goal.  You must set a weight reduction goal. It has to be clearly written down with your motivational reason.  Willpower or self-control cannot begin to form until these two steps occur.

Second, you must begin to monitor your behavior toward that goal.  When it comes to weight loss, I ask every one of my patient’s to keep a diet journal.  In this journal they are asked to write down every thing they eat and drink.  The night before, they are to write down their plan for tomorrow’s meals, then the next evening, they account for their success or failure by journaling on that same page what they actually ate and drank, then after comparing what they did, they plan for tomorrow and journal why they were successful or why they weren’t.  It’s the last part that is so powerful, a short 3-5 minutes of self-introspection. Self-introspection is the key to behavioral change.  It is the key that allows a person to see their habits and then make very small changes that break bad habits, solidify good habits and strengthens willpower.

Third, willpower is developed over time.  It is developed by being accountable to ones-self on very little things every single day.  But it MUST be written down. If I planned to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast and I didn’t, why?  When I look at my day, I may realize that I went to bed too late to get up early and cook bacon and eggs. So, instead, I ate a yogurt that was in the fridge. I am accountable to myself.  If I plan to eat bacon and eggs tomorrow, I must either go to bed earlier, prepare them the night before, or throw out the yogurt . . . so not to be a temptation again.  This is written down and I make a very small change tomorrow.

kid-musclesOver time, this self-introspection becomes easier and easier, to the point that you do it sub-consciously.  It is this sub-conscious self-introspection and change will be seen by others as self-control or willpower.  Just like a working or strengthening a muscle, recording short goals and and accounting for them makes your self-discipline stronger.  The self-discipline muscle becomes more powerful. In time, a split second decision not to binge on that piece of cake will be seen as strong willpower by those around you. You’ll recognize that it’s just flexing your self-discipline muscle.

So, my next question to you is . . . where’s your diet journal?