Why Live?

I am of two minds when it comes to "Fat Acceptance." Treating people like human beings is one thing. Pretending that obesity isn't a disease is a grotesque disservice to our children. I don't quite know how society walks this line.

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I haven't read the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" but I've read an article written by the author, and heard the author, Gary Taubes, interviewed. He sounds like an intelligent man with much to say. I don't argue that there isn't some merit there--I'm saying that, in terms of fat loss, Physics Supercedes Biology. There is nothing simple about the process of weight management, but the simplest is the incontrovertable truth, completely undeniable scientifically, that if you take in fewer calories than you burn up, you lose weight. PERIOD. No argument is possible, because any argument would disagree with or violate the basic laws of physics, laws of conservation of matter and energy.

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Now then...grasp something. My position is that people who are carrying enough additional weight that it would make another human being are dealing with emotional issues more than lifestyle issues. Just a matter of observation and conversations with these folks, over the course of fifty years. The amount of physical and emotional pain, the lack of energy, the discrimination...I'd have to believe that people are much dumber than I believe them to be not to think there is a secondary pay-off, a REASON for the armor.

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Now, then...if I'm right about that, then you're talking about ego survival needs that are huge, and mostly subconscious. What will it do to stay where it is? The process of weight loss ALWAYS involves creating a caloric deficit. As hard as it may be to do this, it is brutally simple.

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And the part of you that wants to keep the weight on has a simple solution: it complicates it all. Rather than look at the physics, let's look at the biology! Fast and slow metabolisms, genetic, food allergies, processed food as opposed to unprocessed...wow! How can we possibly sort through all of this?

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How about the biochemistry of it all? "Good Calories and Bad Calories"--if I can just get the right balance of fats and carbs and proteins, I don't have to reduce the number of calories, I can just...

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How about my social networks! Peer pressure, social obligations, advertising, supersized drinks...

How about relationships, horoscopes, the area you live in, your birth order...I've seen all of these factored in. And many of them have merit. And all of them are irrelevant compared to Calories In, Calories Out. You can eat the very worst calories in the world, and if you don't get enough of them, you will lose weight, starve, and die. And you can eat the very "best" calories, and if you eat too many of them, you'll get as big as a house. Until you have dealt with the physics of it, all you are doing is avoiding confrontation with the actual demons driving you. We've all got them, yours just parade in public.

"So while the general idea that you need to reduce your input, increase your output, or do both has some merit, it's not that simple."

"Has some merit"? You must be kidding. You're saying, in effect, "well, conservation of matter and energy has some merit, but..." No. It is exactly that simple. You cannot find a single animal that can take in fewer calories than it burns up without losing weight. Yes, there are additional levels of complexity--but look at ANY other factor and your efforts will dissolve into a welter of competing opinions. Everything else is insanely more complicated, which is why there is a new diet book published every week. Most of them tries to obscure this truth. And they make hundreds of millions of dollars because people don't want to face this truth. And truth it is. If you disagree, find me a single instance of an animal or human being taking in fewer calories than they burn, and gaining fatty tissue, or even maintaining. Go ahead. Please. A single case.

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You would be making medical and scientific history, friend. Physics supersedes biology.

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Oh! And the Tibetans are great for kids. But I ask Jason if he wants "easy" or "hard" and about half the time he wants "hard." Most bad behavior (in my mind) is an ab-reaction to stress. Teach them to control stress response, and the behavior improves. Learn to manage your breath under stress, and integrate that response to the level of habit, and stress just doesn't hurt you any more.

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Marty S. said:

"For instance, lets accept that being overweight will shorten your lifespan. A longer lifespan may not be a goal of every individual.
Your three criteria for being happy/successful are
1) a great body
2) a great relationship
3) Financial success

if you live too long the body goes, your partner passes and unless financial success implies Bill Gates type money your money goes. So why would you want to live that long."

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O.K., Marty. In essence, you're asking the most important question a human being can ask: "why should I bother? Why get out of bed at all? What's the point? It all ends in the grave..."

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I think that any thoughtful person has asked themselves these questions, and if you don't find a good answer, why, you do just vegetate or retreat from life.

Let me be clearer before I answer. I say that the safest way to approach life, and to access our greatest growth potential, with safety, is to work on all three major aspects of life simultaneously.

1) Body. Feel good in the morning, have enough energy to work all day and party on the weekend, if you look at yourself naked in the mirror, you match your own criteria for an attractive body--you'd want to boff yourself. I guess that means 'a great body" but that's not necessarily an underwear model.

2) A great relationship. Soulmate. Absolutely.

3) Financial success. Enough money to support yourself and two other people, doing something you love doing. Money as a tool, not an obstacle.

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I've never met a single human being who didn't want one of these three. And more than 95% of people want all three. They may not say it directly, but their actions, unguarded complaints, and voiced frustrations say that they are lying--to others, and to themselves. They want these things, they are just afraid that admitting it, or having it, will somehow cause more pain than pleasure.

There are no direct words to really answer these questions, but there are experiences that answer them just fine. Life is best lived when it is in alignment with our basic animal drives, our emotional needs, our intellectual bent, and our spiritual growth. The only reason there is any question about any of it, is that many of us are no longer in contact with our animal drives, the most basic level of our existence.

People will say: "I'm not motivated! I don't care about anything!" but start choking them, or set their pants on fire, and suddenly they are motivated as hell.

THEY THINK TOO MUCH. And their emotions are a tangle that Alexander the Great couldn't un-knot. Any animal has a survival drive, and tries to move away from pain and toward pleasure. In some ways, I consider that the most basic intelligence test: do you hurt? Does your heart hurt? Have you figured out how to spend your precious days doing things that feed your hungers and make your heart happy? Are you surrounded by love? Trying to move away from pain and toward pleasure involves, ultimately, means understanding long-term benefits as opposed to short-term gains.

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Human beings, like other animals, will try to supply themselves with the basic needs: comfort/shelter, food, sex, control of their immediate environment. I've met people who have voluntarily withdrawn from the sexual game, and the healthy ones are the ones who know that they can get well laid whenever they want, but decide to commit themselves to a higher purpose. Or feel that they are beyond that point in their lives: often these are people over sixty, especially those who had long and happy relationships with a spouse who died. I've met some people who seem completely content, never complain, and don't seem to leak energy at all.

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The rest of 'em? They've been hurt, or rejected, or consider themselves failures in the dating/marriage market to the point that intimacy isn't worth the cost. But the vast majority of us want all of these. Let's look at them.

1) Shelter/Comfort? This requires applied energy, which means either building it yourself, or trading for it. In our culture, such trade is in the form of money. Abundant physical energy makes it MUCH easier to earn money. Partnership with a significant other increases security (on average) and resources. Incidentally, the easiest way for a man to improve his attractiveness is to have his own house.

2) Food? Requires money and energy.

3) Sex? Requires having the attractive qualities that hit the hind brain. Some mixture of physical vibrancy, intellectual smarts, emotional warmth, the appearance of fertility or the ability to protect children. Good genetic material. Most mating rituals involve these things. The MAINTENANCE of a relationship requires a subtler, deeper set of skills, although they are associated. Love and sex aren't the same thing, but when you are sexually attracted to someone you love and trust who can ALSO be a good business partner...that person is lifetime partner potential.

4) Control of immediate environment. Money or power come in here. Getting thrown out of your apartment for non-payment is a humiliating experience. Sleeping on the street is no fun. Working at jobs you hate, living in neighborhoods that are unappealing, having to take crap from authority figures...just being able to raise your children as you see fit...all of these things require money and power.

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You're never going to really have "just enough" of anything. You are always going to have either more than you need or less than you need. If one of the simplest principles in life is to avoid pain and seek pleasure (which, to work in the long term, must be modified with other moral and discipline principles) then you want a safety net. You want enough money to help through the hard times. You want a relationship that is so strong and deep that you can, again, get through the hard times. You want a body that is a plus and not a minus in every situation: that can run for a bus, carry a wounded child, dance with a new love, and resistant to illness and disease.

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Since it only takes a couple of hours a week to be in GREAT shape, and the average American watches television for 19 hours, I simply don't believe it is a matter of "no time." And when people talk about all the pain that they feel: loneliness, health, bad backs and joints, ridicule...my entire theory of human life leads me to the conclusion that some part of them NEEDS the weight, and until they come to grips with it, they are going to continue to get non-optimal results.

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Who doesn't want to be beautiful by their own standards? If it is a matter of feeling unsafe when sexually alluring, who wouldn't want to be powerful enough to feel safe enough to be beautiful by their own standards?

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Every baby is born knowing only life, and fighting for each breath. They are intense and ready to live...and babies that don't have that quality are diagnosed as ill, and often die. A person without the drive to be all they can be, now, regardless of what happens tomorrow, has, in my mind, taken so much damage over the years that they have given up.

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When I meet someone who has given up on their childhood dreams, who has forgotten the search for love, who neglects their body, I confess: I assume I am looking at damage. Such a manifestation doesn't match animal behavior, nor does it match the march of human history, nor do I consider it to be in alignment with the spiritual path (except for the voluntary renunciate). Love, health, and striving for a good hunt or harvest are a part of every human culture since the beginning of time.

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And if our love will one day die? If our money means nothing in the grave? If our bodies shrivel up and blow away..?

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What in the world does that have to do with the Now? Now is the only moment that has power, it is the only time we are alive. You are robbing your days of passion and aliveness to worry too much about tomorrow. At the same time, you must think of tomorrow if you would behave appropriately today. That's called being an adult.

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Security and shelter need energy and partnership. They also contribute to resting deeply, and attracting a mate.

Physical health and fitness make it easier to work hard and long, increases functional intelligence, and makes it easier to attract a partner (energy is intoxicating!)

Love inspires us to believe in ourselves. Sex leads to children, who force us to mature and give us wisdom. Makes us want to provide security and shelter for our families (which needs energy)

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All three of these things interlock. Ultimately, they teach us what we need to learn of this life. Understanding this life helps us to sort through the competing spiritual teachings to find a true Way to deal with our inevitable death.

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Why be the most we can be? Why strive to learn the limits of our existence? Why love, strive, care...since we die? A question as old as humanity. Got no motivation? Have someone stick your head in a swimming pool, and you'll find all the motivation you need. THAT is the truth. The rest is just the damage we accrue as we pass through life, and the chattering in your head.

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