You feel like shit: An interactive self care guide
philome.la
philome.la
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29872373 (231 points/245 comments)
And when you click "no" the next advice is "If there's a specific food you want, it's okay to eat it! You don't have to eat perfectly healthy all the time"
For people with low self control this is a vicious cycle
Plus if I regularly eat all day then I'm going to get massively fat(tter) (would basically more than double my calorie intake) and that certainly doesn't feel good and makes moving around more difficult.
It also said
>Just also use your brain a little, and notice the quantity you're eating, and how healthy it is for you. You're probably just fine at trusting your gut and knowing what your body needs.
Which is kinda, like, objectively false. If this was the case there wouldn't be an "obesity epidemic." We wouldn't be telling people they need to eat less to lose weight.
Beyond that, hungry is surprisingly malleable. I don't get hungry in the morning because I don't eat breakfast. If I start eating breakfast several days in a row then I start getting hungry in the morning.
When I was in intensive outpatient therapy I was instructed to eat 24/7 essentially. When I pushed back and said that didn't work for me and I am not always hungry I got accused of "ignoring signals from my body." It's like, lady, this entire friggin therapy is about ignoring signals from my body. I wouldn't be here if my body was giving me constructive and healthy signals.
You feel good, sure. Your brain doesn't have enough glucose to function. It can't run entirely on ketones. The way we cope is throttling unnecessary brain activity. One way to lower the caloric expenditure is to answer complex questions with simple, fatalistic responses. Thinking you're being punished and nothing will ever change is a lot easier of a conclusion to reach if the neocortex only has ketones for fuel. It's kind of impossible for me at least to deal with my ADHD / anxiety / depression if my brain is running on fumes
Besides that, poverty is one of the largest risk factors for obesity, to the extent that your zip code is a better determinant for it than your genetics. The US has some of the most extreme wealth inequality of any "1st world" nation, with 1 in 5 of its children experiencing food insecurity. But we only ever talk about what individuals are at fault for, not the system that relegates millions of us to live in food deserts and/or in poverty
The first question alone is ridiculous. A normal, otherwise healthy person does not need to eat every 4 hours. Eating that often (especially e.g. if it's a high-sugar snack) will prevent your insulin levels from lowering, this is not good for your body. But this person claims that it's OK! It's fine, eat what you want! I think that is terrible advice, and the opposite of looking after yourself.
A handful of raisins or cashews would suffice for these, and spacing out snacks in this way leads to less net caloric intake overall
On "Are you in pain?". I have a not-insignificant back injury that's connected to my sciatic nerve. I've found "are you in pain" to be much too broad of a question, because now I've learned to live with pain. Instead, the question is, "Is your pain running your life today?" If yes, then I need to do something about it; if no, that'll do.
To me, "self-care" to me is about maximizing how I can spend my life that day. If I spend all day self-caring, I am not living.
>Set a timer for 15 minutes, and work on a solution. If it's something you can change, then great! If not, do your best to reach out to someone and talk about it.
>Remember, 15 minutes and only 15! You can go back to whatever it is after we're done working through this together. We're just taking baby steps in the right direction.
> Okay, I did my best.
Some how I dont think a corrupt global criminal elite is going to be fixed in 15mins!
Give me a break, I skip breakfast and usually do intermittent fasting every day, not eating until 4 or 5 with a high-cal home cooked meal. I feel great all day.
Anecdotally I feel the worse when I have been avoiding {item(s)} I need to do that I have yet to start. Soo many more times than not, I start doing the {item(s)} I stop feeling like shit even if I don't do it perfectly.