Time for a Quick Bite

I was thinking of doing some music recording today, but I've eaten something that doesn't like me, so not really feeling up to it.

Speaking of food, a new diet book has fallen into my pudgy little hands - The Key to Permanant Slimness by Peter Kitson. The central thesis is very simple:

* All calorie-control diets rely ultimately on unreliable willpower, and exercise is a painfully inefficient way to get slim.
* In compulsive overeaters, the link between eating and the emotional componant of being sated has been severed. They eat until they're uncomfortably overfull, not until they're satisfied.
* The link can be restored by eating small meals slowly, enjoying each mouthful as much as possible, and not trying to multitask eating with anything else.

Unlike most fad diet book writers, Mr Kitson doesn't pretend to be a doctor or dietician, or to understand all the complex science behind nutrition - indeed, he rather mangles Newton's laws and Darwin's theory when he tries to use them to bolster his credibility.

His advice is very similar to Paul McKenna's I Can Make You Thin (aka I Can Make Me Rich), shorn of all McKenna's fluff on imagination, suggestion and pressure points.

I've no doubt that Kitson and McKenna are quite correct - the main reason binge eaters like myself slide into the habit is we've slid out of the habit of enjoying food. It's like injecting more and more of a drug to get a fraction of the pleasure we know a small dose should bring.

However, there's one issue they both avoid. They both assume that the psychological reason for the slide into binge eating - whatever it was in any individual's case, vanished as it probably is in the mists of childhood - is no longer there to reassert the behavior.

The methods present a new behavior (savouring) as a treatment for an old sympton (binging). But if the problem that caused the symptom is still there, then it will recreate the symptom - thus a return to binging behavior.

The way to overcome the original problem (whatever it might be) therefore is good old fashioned willpower. So these new no-calorie-counting diets may turn out to be just as dependant on willpower - and therefore just as ineffectual - as those that count calories.

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I'm getting at least one call each day from Max, asking me how to do basic things on his computer - extract email attatchments, set up print margins in MS Word, delete printer jobs etc. This is all for the play, and it should have been done and dusted four weeks ago or more.

I've offered to do all the technical stuff myself on my system, but he says no, because he wants to get it all done as quickly as possible.

Yes, that's what I thought.

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John M is conducting an interview tomorrow with another major marxist art critic, recording it on my little minidisc recorder. The interview will be turned into an article at some point. I'll probably have to transcribe the recordings, when other committments (like the play) are out of the way.

The sunday after the play, I've agreed to be the speaker at a forum on creationism. It's at short notice, after the original speaker and subject fell through, but I should be able to wing it.

Given that, and tomorrow's rehearsal, and the week of intensive rehearsals after that, I shall be a little too busy for music.