The Greeks called it ἀκρασία

I first ran into the term akrasia, acting against one's own self-interest, in a post by Mark Sisson. I've had blogging about akrasia on my to-do list for a while, and tonight I finally sat down to do it. Grabbed a chocolate chip cookie before I started writing. Sigh. Paleo, huh.

I have to admit that I found Mark's first article on the subject kind of abstruse and difficult to follow, even though I minored in philosophy way back in the last century.  He talks about free will, the weakness of the flesh, and the interesting concept that we only have so much decision-making strength in a day, that having to make trivial decisions all day long leaves us without the ability to make important ones by evening. A second article by Mark explores the physiological roots of cravings - lack of sleep, lack of certain nutrients, fear of social exclusion. All of these can lead us to toss aside our carefully reasoned choices and decisions and just go with something we know will make us miserable in the long run. I like these ideas,but I think the real answer may lie deeper in our psyche. Not that I claim to have that answer, mind you.

My real catalyst for writing about akrasia, aside from my own regrettable weakness for gluten- and sugar-filled treats that will make me pay dearly at 3 a.m., was a lovely comment that was left yesterday on this blog, on a post I wrote over a year ago - one of my first posts, in fact. It was about fighting the lizard brain, Seth Godin's term for the resistance. the part of our brain that shuts us down and fills us with fear. I think there is a relationship between akrasia and the lizard brain, although I'm not sure exactly how it works. It's something to think about - expect more posts about this in coming weeks.

What do you think, do you sense a connection between self-sabotage and the fear of success? What kind of words do you think we could build to flesh out that connection? Talk to me!

A New Toy for GI sufferers

I've found a new toy - an online GI tracker. It's a little inflexible in terms of input, but it seems to work nicely to correlate foods and symptoms. You can have it send you reports in the form of PDFs that you can take to your doctor. It's kind of cool, in a medicalised kind of way.

One thing that shocked me is that you HAVE to input some kind of medication. The idea of having a condition like this and not taking medication appears to be outside the box. I put in one of the more innocuous things I've been prescribed (and that I do occasionally take), but it was pretty amazing that there was no "none" among the options!

I've also bought myself the latest version of Mark Sisson's book The Primal Blueprint. Not that I lead such a Primal life - for one thing, having had a kosher vegetarian kitchen since 1994, I'm not about to introduce meat into the house. Even if I were ready for such a major upheaval of my kitchen, I don't think grassfed kosher meat is available anywhere around here for a price I'm willing to pay (apparently it's available in Baltimore, but that doesn't help me). Right now my kids, vegetarian from birth, are revolted even at the idea of eating fish, so it's all baby steps. I did such a great job of raising them according to the ideas of the 90s, healthy whole grains and all ... sigh.

Still, being that I'm on the SCD, it's a lot closer to Primal than the Standard North American Diet. I do make the SCD yoghurt and eat cheese, and I also use honey on occasion. Legumes are also a major part of my diet, since I seem to tolerate them pretty well.

By the way, the kale chips came out great. I was going to take a picture of them, but I ate too many before I thought of it. Oh well. I'll make more later in the week. I do need to be a little careful, can't gobble too many of them or the fibre gets me. But they were crunchy, fatty, garlicky and salty, just what I like! I'll post the recipe when I make them again, along with a lovely picture.

What about you, what substitutions can you make to enjoy your favourite things without ruining your health?