The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by
David A. KesslerMy rating:
4 of 5 starsIf you struggle with overeating, you must keep one thing in mind when deciding to read this book: you MUST finish it! Otherwise don't start it!
For the first half of the book is pretty much filled with reasons why American people trying to gain control of their appetite routinely fail over and over, again and again, against a seemingly unconquerable enemy.
Backed with all kinds of research studies on what goes on in our brains when presented with foods we love (usually foods loaded with sugar, fat, and salt ad infinitum) Kessler is like a clanging symbol of behaviorist hopelessness. It's REALLY hard to resist these foods! And the fast food and chain restaurant industry has a vested interest in people failing. I found it to be scary the amount of chemistry that goes into concocting these hyperpalatable foods.
The second half of the book presents a little more hope in outlining some mental tricks in REPLACING the habituated behaviors of overeating terrible foods with other, (sometimes non-food-related), healthier behaviors.
So, in this book you get both the negative and positive aspects to viewing the human body and brain as a machine... It can learn procedures by which it can destroy itself or keep itself running at optimum efficiency and health.
As a former hopeless, unhealthy overeater I thoroughly enjoyed this book! (Even if the science got a little overwhelming.)
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China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power by
Rob GiffordMy rating:
4 of 5 starsIn this book NPR correspondent Rob Gifford offers a fascinating view of China’s past, present, and potential future. A twenty-year resident of the country, Gifford weaves together an enjoyably readable book that is equal parts travel journal, (the narrative thrust of the book recounts his two-month journey of Highway 312, China’s three-thousand mile equivalent to America’s Route 66) and political, economic, and spiritual history book.
Along the road, Gifford meets all kinds of interesting people, each one voicing their own hopes and struggles. As an interesting hybrid of “foreigner who speaks the language” the author deftly exposes these individual’s lives as demonstrative of the larger life of China as a whole-- an impossible, multi-cultural whole. Gifford’s China is hard to pin down, hard to define: at times too Western in its greed and environmentally- damaging technological progress and at times not Western enough, (see the country’s treatment of the ethnic minorities in Tibet and Muslim northwest.)
But it’s the people that are most fascinating. One of the more heart-rending passages about a karaoke bar prostitute:
“[…}there is a dangerous tendency for everything in modern China to be given an economic impetus, as though financial pressure is the only reason anyone ever does anything. We often fail to see that Chinese people are living, breathing, loving, hating individuals, who do things for complex psychological reasons, just like Westerners. And as Wu Yan sits talking about her life, her story doesn’t have that standard tone, which says, “I must do this or I won’t be able to eat.” She is slightly laconic, and cynical and angry.
“So why are you working here?” I eventually ask her.
There is a long pause.
“There was a boy…” She pauses again for a long time, rattling the dice in the cheap plastic cup. “
Wo ting xihuan de…who I liked a lot.” She is looking at the floor.
“But he liked another girl.” She stops shaking the dice, then looks up at me with large, hurt eyes. There is a long silence as I try to compute what she is saying.
“So…you’re…doing this to punish him?...Or to punish…yourself?”
She doesn’t answer but reaches out her arm to me, the palm of her hand facing up. There are two jagged scars on her lower arm, as though her wrist had been cut. She looks angrily into my eyes.
“It’s difficult being a person isn’t it?” she says finally.
I look at her and nod slowly. She shakes the cup with the dice inside and slams it down on the glass table.
Coming to this book knowing pretty much nothing about the country, the author kept me in it the whole time. Great read!
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New Directions in Music Appreciation
It was two or three years ago when I quit a band. When I think about those sad times, it’s often accompanied, strangely, by The Who.
In tears I had already told my compatriots that I was done. There was just one more show on the books. Just had to get through that one last hurdle- one last concert, and a life of freedom and promise awaited me.
And anytime I hear The Who’s album
Who’s Next I am transported to that time of my life- the rush of things winding down, friendships entering into a new phase, the hope of time and ordinary concerns, the unknown. I was discovering the album for the first time the week of the show. Snatches of a lyric here and there would pierce me as I drove around that week, succinctly and sharply defining the moment.
“No one knows what it’s like \ To feel these feelings like I do…”
“No one bites back as hard on their anger\ None of my pain and woe can show through”
A wild drum fill here or a strange synthesizer sound there would somehow speak peace to my busy mind and heart.
It’s the strangest thing in the world to say. After all, this
is rock n’ roll we’re talking about here.
But in Pete Townsend’s artistry, his collected oeuvre, you have the entire set of possible emotions—anger, rage, silliness, spiritual depth, love, skepticism, sadness, loneliness, lightness…Listening to this music reminded me: just as all of these things were possible for Pete Townsend to write about, they were possible for me to feel. If Pete was able to experience all these things and exist, so could I. Everything would be ok.
As the day of the show drew closer I had to routinely skip a song every time it came on just to be able to get through the night without breaking down: “The Song is Over,” which I
guarantee is not about a guy leaving a band he was in for most of his adult life. It’s about a love relationship ending, but I knew it would have been too much to take at the time.
“After the show is finished,” I said to myself. “After I’ve packed up the guitars and amps for the last time. Then I can hear this song.”
If you’ve not heard this song I recommend you listen to it somehow, if only for that aching chorus.
The Song Is Over
The song is over
It's all behind me
I should have known it
She tried to find me
Our love is over
They're all ahead now
I've got to learn it
I've got to sing out
Chorus:
I'll sing my song to the wide open spaces
I'll sing my heart out to the infinite sea
I'll sing my visions to the sky high mountains
I'll sing my song to the free, to the free
I'll sing my song to the wide open spaces
I'll sing my heart out to the infinite sea
I'll sing my visions to the sky high mountains
I'll sing my song to the free, to the free
When I walked in through the door
Thought it was me I was looking for
She was the first song I ever sang
But it stopped as soon as it began
Our love is over
It's all behind me
They're all ahead now
Can't hope to find me
(Chorus)
This song is over
I'm left with only tears
I must remember
Even if it takes a million years
The song is over
The song is over
Excepting one note, pure and easy
Playing so free like a breath rippling by.
Let This Be a Lesson To You
Last week I learned a lesson about bodies. It turns out my body’s “memory” is pretty short-term.
Having reached my two biking goals for the last three months (1) complete a century and (2) a sub-30 minute lap of Hefner, I decided there was no time like now to start adding running/jogging back into the mix so as to prepare for the Tulsa Run 15k at the end of October.
Let me present my stupid heresy and then I will present the result…
Proposition (what was in my head): “I typically bike for an hour, I should be ok if I run for that long. Back in the marathon training I was doing that kind of distance just about every day.”
Result: Soreness from hell! I mean like “hurts to get out of a chair and walk” soreness. I haven’t felt that bad since the three days after the marathon. (Happily I am mostly over it now as I write this.)
I had always heard that cycling and running are utilizing different sets of muscles, but thought that was mostly hooey. However, after this weekend’s debacle I am a believer. An hour on the bike is nothing. An hour running after three months off? Well, let’s just say I paid for it big-time.
It kind of sucks to feel like I’m starting over with the running, but this might turn out to be a good opportunity to unlearn bad habits, learn faster paces, etc. Like
Charlie I am looking forward to braving the cooler temperatures, and come December and January or so, seeing the crowds thin out in the mornings.
