bearing blog

Post-mining complete for printable version.

OK, I've been through my ENTIRE blog since the beginning of 2008 and I have stuck every post that had anything to do with weight loss into one or more of four provisional categories:

1. Weight Subtopic Other Writers (where I do links to other people or sometimes book reviews)
2. Weight Subtopic Recipes Menus (self-explanatory)
3. Weight Subtopic Tips (also, I hope, self-explanatory)
4. Weight Subtopic Personal (which was going to be "my personal story" but also which got "personal philosophy" in there too and so is very bloated compared to the others.)

I am still not sure what form to put everything in.  I guess the biggest question is, should I take the "personal" subtopic and divide it up into two or more separate threads?  There seems to be a difference between "just telling my own story" and struggling to articulate principles that might help other people, but the dividing line is difficult.

I could just leave it as it is now, put together chronologically.  If you'd like to see roughly what that would look like, only backwards, you could start with the earliest posts (which as of today appear at this link: http://arlinghaus.typepad.com/blog/weight-subtopic-personal/page/19/), go to the bottom, and read upwards/page backward.  

(Note for the future:  As I continue to post in that category, the "earliest" posts will move to a page with a higher index page number.  So that link may go out of date.)

If you've an opinion, let me know in the comments.

Seeking.

I just had to pull this analogy out of the comments to the last post, because I think Tabitha hit it out of the park.  I had written that I didn't think cutting back on habits and  "just maintaining" the numbers on the scale was a good goal, because going back to old habits isn't "maintaining" behavior, it's "gaining" behavior.  Tabitha wrote:

I see what you mean, Erin. It's like when my NFP teacher told me that if you "take chances" your behavior says you are seeking a pregnancy.

The eating behaviors aren't a perfect analogy, of course, but it makes sense that you either have the healthy habits or gaining habits.

I remember encountering that language in NFP class too, and I thought it was a very helpful and realistic way of thinking about it.  There is no such thing as "avoiding pregnancy" and "taking chances" at the same time.  The criterion of whether you're "seeking pregnancy" or "avoiding pregnancy" is to be judged by what your ACTUAL REAL BEHAVIOR is consistent with.  

That's not to say there's not room for an oops, as in, an honest mistake interpreting a chart, or medication screwing up your fertility signs -- that's a time when you might say "I was avoiding pregnancy but I got pregnant anyway" --- although a better way of phrasing it would be "I THOUGHT I was avoiding pregnancy but I got pregnant anyway."

But see here, if you have sex during your fertile time, you're "seeking pregnancy" even if you don't want to get pregnant.  Your biology doesn't care one whit about your intentions, or whether you have your fingers crossed.

And yeah, Tabitha's right -- regaining weight is kind of like that, although it can be a little more complicated because there are more behaviors involved.  If you change enough of your habits from "new weight-maintaining habit" to "old weight-gaining habit," well, you're trying to gain weight, whether you want to or not.  

That's why I want to point out that it's much better to think in terms of permanent change to new, low-weight-maintaining behaviors, and eliminating the old, high-weight-maintaining behaviors.

Just maintaining.

I'm almost done going through and finding all my weight loss posts and categorizing them into broad categories so that I can maybe, eventually, produce a printable version.    

Along the way I'm re-reading some of them, remembering where I was at each stage, and occasionally thinking of interesting updates.  (Remember those cookies on my dresser?  Guess what?  They are STILL THERE.)

One thing I've been trying to figure out is whether there is really anything original or unique about my own approach and philosophy.  I know that I have an original and unique personal experience and an original and unique voice, because everyone does, sheesh.  But what is there in the meat of what I did and what I write about that is different from all the other gazillion books out there?  If not, why bother?  (Of course, the other way of looking at it is -- if so many other people can publish and self-publish the same old advice over and over again, why not me?  But I digress.)

The part that seems to me like it might not have been done (much) before is the notion that what we really can control is the habit-changing, not the numbers changing.   To let go of the numbers and embrace the desirable habits whether they "pay" in numbers or not.  Add that to the idea of measuring and celebrating success in habits, not in numbers -- and the idea of adding habits slowly, systematically, and deliberately ---and I'm not sure I've seen that anywhere else.  

The closest thing I've seen is in The Beck Diet, which is a cognitive-behavioral therapist's take on it.  I am not a cognitive-behavioral therapist, but it seems like a good approach (or at least, it seems similar to mine).

Is there something I'm missing, or does that sound about right?

This occurred to me a couple of weeks ago when a friend who has been changing her habits and who has dropped 20-odd pounds in the last several months posted that she was changing her goals during an upcoming stressful time.  She was going to work on maintaining her weight rather than on losing weight during that period of predictable high stress.  

It is the sort of thing that years ago I would have said "Great goal!"  about, but these days I just don't believe that anymore.  I commented that I didn't think maintaining the scale was a "goal."  The reason I gave is that it's not directly under your control the way habit is.  (Post and comment are here.)

It bugged me and bugged me for a few days because there was something else about the notion of easing up on yourself, and just maintaining weight rather than continuing to lose it, during a stressful time that bugged me. Even though on the surface it sounded perfectly reasonable.

And then this morning I think I figured it out.  Here on the other side of weight loss, it's perfectly obvious that "how I lost the weight" and "how I maintain the weight" are THE SAME.  There is not a  significant difference between my behaviors as a weight-losing person and my behaviors as a weight-maintaining person.  

Oh, sure, I must be consuming more calories.  (Especially since I am breastfeeding an eight-month-old.)  But the habits are not very different.  At least, if you compare these three versions of me:

•  (A) stable-but-heavy, pre-2008 me; 
• (B) 2008, weight-losing me; 
• (C) stable-but-normal weight, current me

... well, (A) and (C) behave very, very differently.  (B) and (C) behave much the same.  

(Whereas conventional energy-balance wisdom might seem to imply that (A) and (C) would behave similarly, and (B) is the one who would be behaving differently.)

I guess I now believe that maintaining is just as hard, or just as easy, as losing weight.  I guess I now believe that you can't really save much effort and stress by changing from "trying to lose" to "trying to maintain."  Going back to old habits is not "maintaining" behavior, it's "gaining" behavior.

What you can do to ease up on yourself, to make things less stressful, is to temporarily stop adding new good habits and "maintain" the ones you have.  

Like much that I've learned, it's kind of bad news.   But it's good news in a way too, I think.

Food critic.

If you have a child with food issues, or if you just like good food writing, check out this essay by Dara Moskowitz Grundahl in Minnesota Monthly.  It's from last year but somehow I've missed it till now.

Dara M. G. is the best food critic in the Twin Cities, hands down.  She used to write for the free weekly City Pages and now writes for Minnesota Monthly.  Her reviews are always more than just a review -- I look forward to them every week.   Anyway, her essay is about what happens when a food critic has children with, er, different priorities about food.

I’ve based most of my professional identity on this idea, that if you want to know what the best doughnut in town is, you simply go to 12 or 20 of the likeliest places and find the best. And you want the best, don’t you? That’s self-evident, right? Everyone wants the best. 

I do. Or I did. Before I got pregnant, before I had kids. Now I’ve got a one-year-old who will eat anything—shabu shabu, red curry, sand—and a three-and-a-half-year-old who will eat almost nothing. Conseqently, this food critic has learned a few things about food. 


...If you read the foodie press, you’ll know it’s a point of pride among today’s parents to brag about what arcane foods their child delights in: Japanese nori paper, capers, Roquefort cheese. Ideally, the sentence you want to drop at the playground runs something like this: “Little Gabriel is such a snob, he won’t eat cassoulet with truffle oil—only real truffles. I’m going to go bankrupt!” 

Not us. 

This is painful. As a food critic, it destroys the dream I had when I first got pregnant, that of running around to obscure taco holes and barbecue dives with my little sidekick. More urgently, as a parent, it means I have no way to bribe him. 

Read the whole thing, which includes some reviews of children's picture books about doughnuts:

Perhaps what I like so much about [children's book] Who Needs Donuts is that, aside from imagining a world in which children are unafraid of the city, it features the only professional doughnut-gatherer I’ve ever run across—besides myself. 

Dara and her son-who-won't-eat take a trip through the Twin Cities in search of the best doughnut, a journey which (of course) functions beautifully as a food-critic's column.  Read it -- and tell me what you think.

Prayers for LeeAnn and her family.

You may remember one of my commenters, LeeAnn, who blogs at Apostle to Suburbia.  I found out this morning that LeeAnn recently lost her husband David in a tragic accident.  She has posted an obituary on her blog here.  

Truly we do not know the day or the hour.  Please add your prayers to mine for her and her four children.

30 variations on the push-up.

I haven't started yet, but I'm pondering adding push-ups to my exercise routine.  This video may help me get in the mood.

As for me, an old wrist injury makes "normal" pushups pretty hard to do, so I think I might try the trick with the barbells or possibly the bosu half-ball thingy.

Introduction to the Devout Life, 4-8 and 4-9: Remedies for small temptations.

This is part of a continuing series.  An index of all posts on St. Francis de Sales' work Introduction to the Devout Life is here.  A post outlining part 4 of the book is here.

Whereas Chapter 7 of part 4 deals with comparably rare tempations to serious or grave sins, Chapters 8 and 9 together deal with the onslaught of many, many temptations to lesser sins.

[T]o fight well against small temptations may be more profitable still.  Though great temptations may surpass them in quality, small temptations are far more numerous and so the victory over them is comparable.  

Recall that in Chapter 7, Francis told us that in the face of temptation to grave sin we should "follow the example of children... when they see a wolf or a bear at large" and "fly to the arms of God and implore his mercy and his aid."  The analogy continues here:

Wolves and bears are obviously more dangerous than flies yet they are less irritating and do not try our patience to the same extent.

Some examples:

• It is easy to refrain from murder but hard to refrain from the anger which we are constantly tempted to express; 
• easy to refrain from adultery yet hard to refrain from loving glances, expressions of mutual love, from soliciting favors and from flattery.  
• It is easy to keep one's body for one's husband or wife but hard to keep one's heart; 
• easy not to violate one's married love but hard to avoid what might injure it; 
• easy to avoid stealing but hard to avoid envy; 
• easy to avoid perjury but hard to avoid lying; 
• easy never to get drunk but hard always to be temperate; 
• easy not to wish the death of another but hard never to wish him harm; 
• easy never to defame him but hard never to despise him.

Noteworthy here is Francis's emphasis on the positive.  He hardly writes of the harm caused by giving in to such temptations.  Focusing on that might discourage us (since the onslaught never stops) or cause us to rationalize them away (since the harm is comparably small).  Rather, he emphasizes the value of resisting them, couched in military terms:

...every small victory will merit another jewel in the crown of glory which God prepares for you in heaven.  Fight valiantly against great temptations when they come your way but in the meantime defend yourself diligently against these smaller ones.

Now, some advice for what to do about these universal irritations.  Back to the analogy of flies (rather than wolves):

Treat such small temptations like flies and gnats which flutter about us and sometimes settle on the face; as we cannot be entirely rid of them our best defence is to remain undisturbed; they can annoy us but never harm us so long as we are firmly resolved to serve God.

Some scrupulous people imagine that their many temptations prove their own depravity.  Francis reminds us that "we cannot be entirely rid of them."  Everyone has this problem, which means that anyone can deal with it.

Despise such temptations without listening them; treat them like flies; let them hover all around you and buzz about your ears as much as they like; 

when they settle on your heart and try to sting you, do not attack them or argue with them but merely drive them away quietly by making acts of love of God or of any other virtue; or if you have had time to recognize the real nature of the temptation, by an act of the contrary virtue; 

then turn your heart to Christ Crucified and in spirit kiss his feet by an act of love, for to persist in acts of the contrary virtue would be to dispute with the temptation.

I notice that St. Francis follows a pattern of advising people not to "dispute with" or "argue with"  or "reply to" a temptation.  I had been a little disappointed that Introduction to the Devout Life didn't appear to contain any advice about overcoming a tendency to rationalize one's behavior, or to be overly scrupulous about it, or to scrupulously worry that one's seemingly good reasons are only rationalizing.  Now I wonder if this advice against "disputing" might be a bit of a commentary on that.  I will have to think about it some more.

In any case, I thought that previous paragraph had an interesting point about not erring by "persisting" in "acts of the contrary virtue."  You might think that you could not go wrong in, i.e., fighting pride by making acts of humility, but Francis has a different view.  One act of the contrary virtue is enough, then head straight for an act of love of God --- which, of course encompasses all virtues, and so prevents us being mistaken.

An act of the love of God is the surest weapon against temptations great and small; for the love of God contains to an eminent degree the perfection of all the virtues and is the most perfect remedy for vice.  Learn to seek peace in this remedy whenever temptations trouble you, and you will have no need to examine or consider them...

No need to examine or consider them, eh?  Which makes me wonder if that rationalizing and scrupulosity I have been thinking about couldn't be ameliorated by stopping to make a sincere act of the love of God before diving into the rationalizing and/or scrupulous worrying.

...moreover, the devil will be so terrified when he sees that these temptations lead you to make acts of the love of God that he will cease to trouble you.

To that, I say, it's worth a sustained try, anyway.

p>So much for these countless small temptations; to give more attention to them would only be a waste of time.

Which shows you how much Francis thinks they deserve your attention too.  I've never before been advised to diligently disregard something, but there you go.

For reference, here is a common text for an "Act of the Love of God."

***

O my God, 

I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because you are all-good and worthy of all love. 

I love my neighbor as myself for the love of you. 

I forgive all who have injured me, and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured.

***

I've always thought it pretty cool that we had these handy, simple, small things, these "Acts" of love, faith, hope and so on.  Having them at our disposal means that some tiny act is always in our reach, a tiny act of real virtue.  You don't have to feel love, faith, hope, to willingly speak these words.  It is a small act, but it is indeed an act of body and will, and we can know that it is real no matter how little we feel ourselves in accord with it; however weak and wretched our heart, we CAN make these acts, and that can be the first stumbling step in the right direction.

More on this very same topic when I discuss chapter 10, "How to strengthen your heart."

Co-schooling: Migraine edition.

Yesterday over at Hannah's, just after lunch, I was felled by a mighty migraine.  I haven't been carrying my Imitrex because I haven't needed it in so long -- I don't get migraines during pregnancy or most of lactational amenorrhea -- and I had thought I probably wouldn't start taking it till the baby was nursing less.  I've had two migraines since giving birth, and they hadn't been so bad, so I thought maybe I could handle the occasional migraine without drugs.

This one was a good-old-fashioned pre-Imitrex whopper, though.  I had just enough time to quickly lay out the world history and Latin lessons I'd planned -- then I wobbled over to the couch and curled up on it, whimpering.  Occasionally I would stagger to the nearest bathroom and retch for a while.  But it took me out for a good, oh, three or four hours.

Hannah dropped my baby in the sling and taught the other eight kids through the rest of the afternoon without any more help from me.  (Really, I hadn't any choice.  I couldn't possibly have driven home.  I just had to stay on the couch.)  Fortunately, we have the system working smoothly enough that either one of us could teach any of the subjects without very much extra preparation.  She skipped a couple of subjects -- there is room in our schedule for a few missed days in each, expressly for days such as this -- but everything essential got done.

I emerged from a headachy fog after it was all over and sent the two oldest boys to the grocery store to buy me a couple of real Cokes.  Then I surveyed Hannah's house, considered that her husband wasn't going to be home for dinner, and neither was mine -- and offered to buy pizza for everyone.  The two moms, eight kids special:  one extra-large pepperoni, one extra-large cheese, and one medium pepperoni-jalapeño-greenolive-blackolive.  

As long as we're willing to trade pizza for guilt, we will be able to keep this thing going.

Education assumptions.

Instapundit pointed to this think-tank piece today that, I think, is worth reading:

Americans borrow roughly $126 billion a year to pay for college...This heavy debt load is causing much suffering...there is plenty of blame to spread around.

The piece discusses the government's portion (encouraging people to go into debt to start degrees they likely won't finish), the financial institutions' portion (structuring the loan system poorly) and the universities' portion (spending enormously, mostly with student debt), as well as the part that's the fault of students and their parents:

While earlier generations that paid only a few hundred dollars a semester can perhaps be forgiven for continuing to believe that college is a nearly risk-free decision financially, today's students do not have that luxury. Exploding tuition and the related horror stories about crushing debt loads appear regularly in the media. Yet students and parents largely ignore these warnings. The views that more (formal) education is almost always a good thing and that the loans needed to finance it are "good debt" since it is an investment are both widespread and contribute to the problem. While true to an extent, these views can be and are being carried too far by some, blinding some individuals to the dangers of debt.

I have been following the student-debt story with some interest, I suppose because I can feel it changing my mind.

I was graduated from high school in 1992.   When I was in high school and college -- public high school, state university -- I believed that college was a risk-free decision, with a few caveats.  I understood that if circumstances forced you to drop out, your money and time might be wasted; and, in my mind, you had to major in something "useful," otherwise it was your own darn fault if you couldn't get a job afterward.  I also found it really hard to understand why anyone would spend so much money going to a private school when there was such a thing as a state university, but I chalked that one up to taste.  So I had some pragmatism, but really, I completely bought the "thou must attend college or be a loser" line.

Hardly anyone in my peer group chose not to enroll in college the same year we graduated.  A few ran into hardships that prevented their enrolling, but I would have been rather scandalized if any of my friends were to say "Sure, I could go to college, but for me and what I plan to do, it's just not worth the cost."  I would have been thinking, I thought you were a contender, but I guess you're just a bum.  

And hey, it wasn't too long ago that I wrote this semi-famous post (the Anchoress linked to it, and it's still one of my highest-traffic posts ever).  I am not repudiating what I wrote there about whether education is "wasted" on a stay-at-home mother -- and you'll note that it contains a caveat about not going into debt -- but it is pretty clear that I come at the subject with an underlying assumption that more education is generally better.

I had the luxury of attending college and graduate school on scholarship, which undoubtedly affected my opinion.  Hey, if someone offers you free money, it changes the calculation.  But I find myself with different thoughts these days.  We expect our kids to go on to some kind of additional training after high school, but I try to talk about it in a more open-ended way.  Four years at a four-year college doesn't automatically make sense for every  bright and motivated high school graduate anymore.  Especially not if you would have to go into debt for it.  There are other ways to be.

Maybe it's the homeschooling habit.  You see all the opportunities for real self-education that are out there.  You get used to thinking that a lot of the time, credentials are not much more than pieces of paper.  You understand the value of your family's time, and you get used to saying "no" to some admittedly cool-sounding enrichment opportunities because they make it hard for everyone to sit down to dinner together, or because you'd have to drive across town in rush hour traffic.  You want the best for your kids, and it turns out that your idea of "the best" is different from what you expected it would be.

Update:  Don't take on debt to go to culinary school.

Added:  I seem to be getting some feedback that assumes I'm saying that all degrees are meaningless paper, or that private college is a waste of money, or that liberal arts degrees aren't worth it, or  that loans are always a bad thing.  Not at all.  But there seem to be a heck of a lot of people taking out loans and shelling out cash who don't understand the concept of return on investment.  I think some of them don't understand the concept of "loan."

Some people may be carrying assumptions that were valid a generation ago but aren't anymore.  Once, *any* college degree was a ticket to a good paying job.  Guess what.  Now so many people have college degrees that the value of a college degree has been diluted.   Once, college was less expensive.  It's more expensive now.  Ergo, some prices are too high to pay for some degrees.  

A lot of it depends on what you expect to get out of it.  And if you are seeking higher education not because you expect it to help you earn more money (or to earn acceptable money but at a job that you might enjoy more), but just to make yourself a more well-rounded person, well, let's just say I'm not really happy about my taxes funding your defaulted loan...

Introduction to the Devout Life, 4-7: Remedies for temptations to grave sin.

This is part of a continuing series.  An index of all posts on St. Francis de Sales' work Introduction to the Devout Life is here.  A post outlining part 4 of the book is here.

Chapter 7 of the "troubleshooting guide" of St. Francis's handbook -- that is, of Part 4 -- is entitled "Remedies for Great Temptations."  By "great temptations" he means temptation to particularly grave, serious, or dangerous sin -- the "greatness" doesn't have to do with how strong the urge or how difficult to resist, but rather, with the seriousness of the sin.  Later, I'll write about Chapters 8 and 9, where St. Francis discusses temptation to less serious sin. 

It seems straightforward to suggest that Francis means to separately treat mortal sin (in chapter 7) and venial sin (in chapters 8-9), and yet in this translation the terms are not there, it is merely "great" and "small."  I suspect a different sort of classification is in order, which may become clear as we read.

Before going on, let us guard against the mistake of thinking that the "serious sin" bit isn't something we're personally imperiled by.  It might be instructive for each of us to spend a moment considering what really grave sins she might really feel a temptation to -- not necessarily on a regular basis, not necessarily a besetting temptation, but some imaginable and realistic circumstance of  temptation to commit some really grave sin against God or neighbor.  I know I can think of a few for myself;  one I am willing to admit is "deliberately missing Mass without sufficient reason," and believe me, there are plenty more where that came from.  Of course, if you suffer from a besetting temptation to any serious sin, that will do.  Put yourself mentally in that place where you know you would be tempted, and stay there for a moment.   

Having a realistic picture of temptation to serious sin in mind, and an awareness that you and I are both at risk from it, let's go on and hear what Francis has to say about "great temptations."

As soon as you find yourself tempted, follow the example of children who when they see a wolf or a bear at large run at once to their parents' arms or at least call out to them for help and assistance; in other words, fly to the arms of God and implore his mercy and his aid, for this is the remedy recommended by our Lord when he says:  Pray, that you may not enter into temptation (Mt 26:41).  

If you find that the temptation still continues, or even grows stronger, hasten in spirit to embrace the Cross as if you saw Christ Crucified before your eyes:  protest that you will never yield, ask him to help you, beg him to strengthen your resistance, and continue to do so as long as the temptation lasts.  While doing so, never look at the temptation itself but only at our Lord; otherwise, if the temptation is a strong one, it may cause you discouragement.  Divert your mind from it by every good and lawful means you can; let them so occupy your heart as to drive out the evil suggestions arising from the temptation.

So the first thing to do is ask God to take the temptation away.  If that doesn't work, focus on Christ and the Cross.  Francis adds that we can also try to distract ourselves from it in other ways besides praying and contemplating God ("divert your mind... by every good and lawful means you can").  I guess he knows that most of us can only think about God for so long.

We should also take them to the confessional:

The best remedy against temptations, whether they are great or small, is to open our hearts to our confessor, making all these suggestions, temptations and feelings known to him, for silence is the first condition the devil makes with a soul he wishes to seduce... God, on the contrary, requires above all that we should make them known to... our confessors.

The act of speaking even "unspeakable" temptations -- and we have a great gift in the privacy of the confessional here -- I am convinced, gives us a natural strength and confidence that we can resist them.  Once spoken, they are robbed of some of their power over us.  Add to this the grace of the Sacrament, which transcends the natural, and the ability to overcome temptation is placed well within our reach.

If, having done all this, the temptation still obstinately persists in troubling us and making us anxious there is nothing to do but remain obstinate ourselves

"F*&k you, temptation."

in our refusal to consent, for as a girl cannot be married so long as she says 'no,' so the soul, no matter how harassed, can never be harmed so long as it refuses consent.

Basically, Francis is reminding us  that no matter how strongly we are tempted, the final decision to stay out of trouble is really ours.  Great temptation may mitigate our guilt, but it is no excuse; and that means that we always retain one tiny spark of free choice.

What all this requires, of course is enough self-awareness to know when temptation is happening, AND enough knowledge to recognize serious sin when we see it.

A final tip from St. Francis is not to waste our attention on this kind of thing.  He employs an excellent analogy:

Never argue with the enemy; give him no answer save that of our Lord:  Away with thee, Satan; it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve none but him (Mt 4:10).

A pure wife should answer not a word to one who makes an impure proposal to her, nor even look him in the face, but leave him at once, turning her heart towards her husband and renewing her promise of fidelity to him.  

In the same way, a devout soul when assailed by some temptation should waste no time in replying or arguing but simply turn at once towards Jesus Christ her Spouse, renewing her protestation of fidelity and her desire to be entirely his for ever.

As soon as we realize that we're experiencing "temptation to a grave sin," our reaction needs to be quick and merciless -- like a woman who realizes that, yes, she's not imagining it, that weirdo acquaintance of her husband is in fact hitting on her.  I rather think that a little dose of contempt and a willingness to laugh at the soon-to-be-foiled attempt might help.  Lo-ser.