Comments on Existence is Wonderful: On The Feeding of Quirky Mammals, Part 2

Taylor: Yeah, that mixup seems to be fairly...

2009-07-03T17:29:37.143-07:00

Taylor: Yeah, that mixup seems to be fairly common in people who have body awareness issues, etc. I have found (with help from people who've made suggestions and observations of when I am in that kind of icky "am I hungry or about to yack?" state) that the best thing to do in that situation is get hold of some kind of sweet juice or ginger ale, etc.

If the problem is a drop in blood sugar (which can happen not just to diabetics on too much insulin but on non-diabetics with eating issues or people who are fasting), then you will likely feel better very quickly after a few sips of juice (at which point your goal should be to get something more substantive in your system, preferably something with a low glycemic index).

If the problem is (however unfortunate) that you are actually sick...well then you will probably know that soon enough afterward as well, albeit less pleasantly!

And, also, sort of along the lines of Fleecy's comment re. being too warm: for me, the sensation of being overheated blurs right together with the "very hungry" and "nauseous" feelings, meaning that another thing I've come to try when trying to "troubleshoot" that highly unpleasant state is take off any extraneous layers I might be wearing (such as a sweater) and drink some cool water. This is a "trick" I did not learn until I was maybe 25, and I learned it only because of someone else being able to look at me and sort of figure out what was probably going on, and let me know about it. But it's been very handy!

Fleecy: Funny you should mention the too-wa...

2009-07-03T17:21:41.450-07:00

Fleecy: Funny you should mention the too-warm thing...my partner commented today that I seemed to be looking "skinnier than usual" even for me and while I am sure part of that may be due to the fact that I am still recovering from my period of really small crappy lunches from a month ago, part of it might also be that it has been hotter here lately (as it's June), and for some reason warm weather makes all kinds of foods seem "heavy" and less appealing. So I've been eating a lot of salads, etc., just because they're light and not hot!

I have the exact same problem with mixing up "...

2009-07-02T21:32:42.092-07:00

I have the exact same problem with mixing up "very hungry" and "feeling sick".

I also have trouble distinguishing between "v...

2009-06-28T06:31:34.034-07:00

I also have trouble distinguishing between "very hungry" and "might throw up." Took years to figure out that when my stomach feels like that, it means it needs something in it, not that putting something in it should be avoided. Though, it's very counterintuitive because it's about that point that I sometimes actually start gagging, especially if it's too warm as well.

Hmm. I definitely have a lot of body-awareness iss...

2009-06-27T18:04:44.170-07:00

Hmm. I definitely have a lot of body-awareness issues, but luckily I don't seem to have any trouble telling if I'm hungry or thirsty.

My biggest problem seems to be telling if I'm sick, or, if I am sick, knowing how bad it is. Some of this is because nausea is pretty normal for me (I always wake up with it, and it almost always happens when I ride in a vehicle), some of it is because as an athlete I learned to "push through" pain and discomfort, but I think most of it is just that bodily sensations are really vague and hard for me to recognize. Easiest for me is "Is it ('it' being whatever sensation --- hunger, thirst, pain, nausea, dizziness) there at all?" The value judgments, where I have to judge how bad it is compared with my baseline, are a lot harder.

(I do totally share your unwillingness to eat when there's even a chance of vomiting, though! This, for me, is not out of emetophobia (great word) so much as a history of nausea and vomiting. I eat too soon after waking up, I feel horrible. I exercise too soon after eating, I throw up. I eat before traveling, I throw up. Even menstrual cramps used to make me throw up. So, given that, I'd say it's reasonable for me to be more cautious than most about the state of my stomach).

now you're being unnecessarily blunt! there ...

2009-06-27T17:46:33.045-07:00

now you're being unnecessarily blunt!

there seem to be some definite points of miscommunication between us; i'll presently attempt to enumerate them in a terse and reasonably unstylized way.

firstly, i suppose you're having a hard time determining the conflict between the "checklist system" and the oddly-sounding "engineer's approach". especially since an engineer could very well employ a checklist; that is, some extra-somatic technology to remember a sequence of steps, or to remember to engage the problem in question from various perspectives. maybe it appears that i see your scheme as somehow unsuccessfully aspiring to be rational and methodical. that would be a misreading.

in this instance, what i'm actually trying to say is that you may need to become more intellectually engrossed with the very task of feeding yourself. not, mind you, the peripheral preoccupations about that task. so that you may be failing to connect with your feeding needs even when you are already quite absorbed by the problem of caring for your health and doing all the pertinent research. i find that by immersing myself in a problem, by actually playing around with its parts, i'll begin to subconsciously develop an internal schedule, one by which my entire engagement with the problem is governed.

in the realm of silly examples, say i start getting worried about my lack of constancy in playing videogames; and that this concern emanates from the fact that i've observed a decline in my coordination skills or whatever. instead of trying to discover a mental hack to prime my right hand to pick up the controller, i just find a game that i really like and get hooked on it. thereby developing a real desire, albeit an obsessive one, to play video games. the obsession just needs to adapt a realistic schedule based on my daily obligations. presto!

ooo dinner! i'll continue this some other time.

namaste

Tact? Heh I certainly did not intend any tact, but...

2009-06-27T16:13:18.875-07:00

Tact? Heh I certainly did not intend any tact, but my usual writing style seems to be a tad more formal than a lot of people's (or so I'm told)...I mean it would be terribly out of character for me to say something like "YOU SUX, GO AWAY AND DIE" or the like.

Anyway I am still not entirely sure I know what you are saying, but maybe my next few posts in this series (there will be at least 2 more) will give you more of an idea of what I'm on about. I am basically trying to break down the various forces that might exist as obstacles between a person and good healthy eating into semi-distinct types and then (with full acknowledgment that they can coexist or that some people may experience more or less of them) write a bit of what I've found useful in dealing with them.

Also, incidentally, I have actually cared very deeply about health since I was about 19 years old (which is the age at which I realized I was not in fact invincible and developed something of a sense of danger), and I started reading with great interest on nutritional topics at that point, but even so that intellectual knowledge did not "fix" my eating habits. It is quite possible to really know something very well and still experience barriers to actually doing it, and I think it is important to explore those barriers.

In other words, not everyone who has poor eating habits just "doesn't care about their health enough", and honestly (and I am NOT saying you were accusing me of this, just pointing it out in a more general sense) the idea that that is always or mostly the case has actually been somewhat of a barrier to figuring out a lot of what I've since managed to figure out and actually improve aspects of my functionality with. For a while I got stuck in that "oh look I must be somehow subconsciously self-sabotaging" mode, but that never really led to anything useful, whereas doing the kind of brainhacking and analysis and such I am describing in these posts *has* helped. I think I stated multiple times already that what I was writing would not necessarily apply to everyone, and I maintain that to be the case -- I am just figuring maybe *someone* will be able to relate and hence possibly learn something they didn't think of before, etc.

it's not unusual that half way through a readi...

2009-06-27T15:59:58.654-07:00

it's not unusual that half way through a reading i'll get a little pebble in my shoe, some incipient idea of a potentially concrete disagreement. but by the time i actually stop to write something down, all i can come up with is a disparate, stream-of-consciousness rant that is exasperatingly vague and difficult to decipher. so thanks for pointing that out.

you were awfully euphemistic about it too, so thanks for the tact. it helps me when people don't just pretend they understood. also, you could've been a tad more specific about it...

ok... so basically i'm suggesting that instead of outsourcing your dietary discipline to a checklist system because of a malfunction with your physiological cues (i.e. "i'm hungry, let's eat"), that you simply approach your health as you would an engineering problem -as if you were... hmm... giving maintenance to a complex machine so that it can function optimally.

that's what i meant by "enthusiasm" and "intellectually explicit goals".

anyway...

namaste

morsincerta: I don't know what you mean...

2009-06-27T15:08:03.646-07:00

morsincerta: I don't know what you mean by this comment, you are using language in a somewhat confusing way.

lack of body awareness can be the result of a gene...

2009-06-27T14:11:38.053-07:00

lack of body awareness can be the result of a generalized aloofness about personal health -and not a cognitive quirk that one would be better off just working around. based on the info you've given, it is nevertheless important to assume that your case is, in fact, sliding down the bell curve. still, a greater measure of enthusiasm toward the health benefits of eating well should take care of forming the habit; if for no better reason, because the self-reminder system is reassigned from a set of autonomic signals (which are ambiguous to you, at best), to a higher cortical network in charge of intellectually explicit goals and ambitions (which you seem to manage mellifluously).

namaste