Lab 1: Food - Understanding the Problem

This is the first one of these little practical life experiments I'll be talking about on the blog. Of course, the term "lab" is a misnomer - nothing done here is actual science. The reason I use the term "lab" is because I'm approaching a real world problem with curiosity, and I'm willing to test a number of different solutions to see what works. I have done similar work over long stretches of time with things like workplace stress, sleep, and finances. The origin of this blog was to start sharing this work so like minded people could chime in and contribute to my experiments and conduct their own.

The Problem: I have had a somewhat strange relationship with food. I have a life-long love of running. Paired with that, I spent most of my life gifted with a very high metabolism. As a result, I pretty much ate whatever I wanted. If I wanted to lose weight, I'd just make sure to be good about my cardio and it would melt off within a month or two. This past year presented a novel problem - my old solution did not work. I got back into running and stacked up the miles, but the weight stayed on. Approaching forty, I realized that my "invincible metabolism" had finally subsided and I would have to get serious about my relationship with food. The following blog entries will address my thoughts and experiments on this topic as I figure out my new "post-forty" relationship with food - reducing caloric intake, developing healthier patterns, and consuming more nutritious food.

Nature of the Problem: My first step in these little laboratories is to think hard to try and understand the real nature of the problem. Trying to solve a problem you have a poor grasp on is an invitation to wasted time and frustration. Here is my starting point on food.

Initial Thoughts: Food as a Drug: Food is unique in that it is one of the core aspects to our continued survival, but it is also a potential detriment to that very survival. If we were machines, we might simply discern which foods (fuels) allowed for highest functioning and consumed those... but that certainly is not what we do.

For me, and perhaps many others, food is more like a drug. The struggle stemming from food comes not from the nourishment aspects of it, but rather the enjoyment aspects. It tastes good, and in the instance of things like carbohydrate-heavy foods, it can product comforting mental and emotional states. There is a repetitive and comforting emotional cycle of fixating on a food and acquiring it.

One of the most insidious parts of food as a drug is how available it is. There are some drugs, such as street narcotics, which have huge barriers around their acquisition and use - severe legal penalties, strong understanding of risks, social judgements. There are several barriers in place that keep most people away from these things. Even legal drugs, like alcohol, have several limiting factors. It is expensive and there are some legal and social limitations on where you might consume it.

Food has very few of those things. Having a bottle of whiskey at your desk will get you fired. Pringles, on the other hand, will carry virtually no detriment. Assuming you are not at a wedding, funeral, or court hearing, you can consume these anywhere with virtually no repercussions.

When I have worked professionally with recovering drug addicts, there is a deep understanding that an addict will use if the substance of choice is to readily available. In that sense, food is challenging because our society has an incredibly powerful economic infrastructure to make it available, along with powerful social norms around its mutual consumption as a bonding activity.

Add into this bizarre mixture a health dose of shame. Despite being a culture that encourages and awards consumption, we paradoxically also shame people for that same consumption. Unhealthy food behaviors, which we seek to modify, are frequently conflated with judgments about a person's worth or willpower or discipline. When people are altering their relationship with food, it often comes from a place of guilt or shame. Historically, I have seen guilt and shame work as behavior modifying tools, but rarely (if ever) have I seen them create meaningful change. I approach these experiments with the assumption that guilt or shame-based methods either work poorly, or not at all.

Conclusion: This problem is not a simple one. It has several dimensions. In that sense, a behavior modification that just touches on one aspect of this is likely to be short-lived. I will have to work on different methods of behavior modification, fighting this particular battle on all the "fronts" outlined above. I'm curious to see where it ends. Next week, I'll start talking about my changes in caloric intake over the past couple months and the "ripples" it has caused in the web of challenges outlined above. Stay tuned!