I am becoming convinced that sugar, although not exactly a drug to which we could apply the concepts of addiction and withdrawal (like tobacco, alcohol, or opioids), nevertheless creates habits that are really hard to break.
Notice how we train animals with treats: sniffing drugs, attacking robbers, etc. It's a powerful behaviour modulator.
Our brains are no different. In a pavlovian way, we reinforce behaviours that give us a sugary reward. But in our case, the feedback loops are really short. Instead of doing a difficult task, our behaviour to get the reward is simply going to the kitchen and opening a snack.
Do you ever get the feeling, after a meal, that you feel like having "a little something", like a sweet? To me, that's like a learned pavlovian behaviour. And every time we cave, we reinforce that automatic response. It can be anxiety-inducing not to do the behaviour.
The question in my mind is: how do we break this pattern? Because it's easy to do it once, but it's statistically hard to keep it up many times. You will slip up and reinforce the behaviour again.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that we need to change the environment around us, that is, regulate the amount of added sugar in foods.
I have actually become less convinced after learning Buffett his eating habits. He and Munger couldn’t have eaten much worse than they did and exercised less. Still they are both alive in their 90s. What are the chances of that? Also, I’ve had a spare time job driving elderly people around. The fittest pensioner I ever met was in his 90s and he, upon asking, claimed that he never in his life did much exercise.
So what do these three people have in common? I think it’s a lack of chronic stress. Buffett and Munger are living pretty relaxed lives and the pensioner I met was also surprisingly happy. He told me at a random point during the drive that he was very happy. He told me: "I just met a new girlfriend a few months ago. I’m 94. Amazing huh?" and said this with the most cinsere happiness I’ve seen.
Contrast this to books like Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulchers by Sapolski. The book goes into all the ways in which a body under chronic stress starts to break down. Simply put, if you stress a lot then the body is in survival mode and cancels recovery processes.
So that’s why I think that stress levels have more influence on health than food or exercise. As long as stress is reasonably short-lived, the body will just recover from most things. I’m happy to hear counterarguments to this theory of mine
According to themselves, they are wealthy because they are patient and not they other way around. In Buffett’s own words: "The stock market is a device to transfer money from the 'impatient' to the 'patient'." Being patient requires keeping your emotions under control, including stress. Also, keeping a calm mindset is a common topic under value investors such as Monish Pabrai and Guy Spier.
I don't have such a habit. My parents were never into similar stuff, neither our extended family nor was it common generally where I grew up. I could start doing it as adult living away from them but decided not to, after seeing how affection for sweet junkfood messes up with women en masse and how utterly weak they are against these cravings. And there are some guys in same boat too.
Same for sodas btw, we generally didn't have them, and later I've never found sparkling-anything appealing, remove the bubbles and drinks become oversweetened sewage. Same for champange/prosecco compared to good white wine for 1/2 the price. Best beer lagers from the bottle I've tasted are those Bavarian treasures that have comparably little co2, which messes up tastes badly. If I anywhere get over-co2 beer I know they don't care about quality, just cheap filler.
My best friend's parents bought a machine that was putting co2 into tap water, never grokked why the heck do they go through all the effort to make something so bad in taste compared to original.
Do your kids a favor, don't make sweet stuff some great thing deserved after hardship. You may extend their lifespan by a decade or two and make them overall stronger humans.
On a shorter timescale, I also really like using mouthwash to prevent snacking. A well timed rinse leaves a nice minty flavor in my mouth and also somehow completely suppresses the urge to eat carbs.
Notice how we train animals with treats: sniffing drugs, attacking robbers, etc. It's a powerful behaviour modulator.
Our brains are no different. In a pavlovian way, we reinforce behaviours that give us a sugary reward. But in our case, the feedback loops are really short. Instead of doing a difficult task, our behaviour to get the reward is simply going to the kitchen and opening a snack.
Do you ever get the feeling, after a meal, that you feel like having "a little something", like a sweet? To me, that's like a learned pavlovian behaviour. And every time we cave, we reinforce that automatic response. It can be anxiety-inducing not to do the behaviour.
The question in my mind is: how do we break this pattern? Because it's easy to do it once, but it's statistically hard to keep it up many times. You will slip up and reinforce the behaviour again.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that we need to change the environment around us, that is, regulate the amount of added sugar in foods.