divorce: G5reasons]Sg++ #weight gain

Posted on Fri, 01/Apr/2022Tue, 13/Feb/2024 by tiger40490

k_divorce

https://www.tembusulaw.com/insights/divorce-rate-in-singapore/ (loads better in MS-Edge) is written by a divorce lawyer in 2022. Obviously his 5 reasons are not a rigorous survey result. These are presented as reasons not mere “factors”

[s/S = specific reasons]
[s] AAaddictions esp. gambling and substances… I feel an addict spouse can be as hazardous as a spouse who can turn violent to family members
[s] domestic VVviolence… “Domestic abuse” is more broad but less specific
[s] IIinfidelity
$$ financial woes.. clarified below
[s] SS: lack of intimacy (primarily physical) … see below
— other bloggers’ top picks, which turn out to be relevant in any country
lack of CCcommitment .. (#1 reason in multiple surveys) Marriage requires dedication and long-term consistent effort.
[s] severe DDdisease/disability/incapacity .. explained below.
[s] significant WWweight gain .. surprisingly, one of the leading causes of divorce

— the “desire” factor .. affects II SS DD WW
— the aaa factor .. affects II AA
— the self-discipline factor .. affects II AA VV $$ WW
Other phrases for it include self-responsible, self-restraint, prudence,

A single misstep can lead to II / VV, though a serious VV behavior usually grows over time.

— intimacy .. can “grease the wheels” of a smooth-running relationship. 床头吵架床尾和 , 夫妻没有隔夜仇. When it is gone, serious relationship issues often take their place.

I didn’t know that this can lead to divorce. Mostly, when the sexual needs of one partner are not satisfied in marriage, it increases the chances of divorce as intimacy, being an important aspect of marriage, isn’t fulfilled. If I don’t get the intimacy I need, then I would feel a basic, biological need is unfulfilled.

Emotional and physical intimacy is like super-glue to strengthen your love and marriage bonds.

— financial .. I like Jonathan’s short and sharp take.

I suspected couples break up for this reason more in yesteryears, but actually, all the “top reasons for divorce” lists include this item.

Finance is the most common reason cited for divorce during Malaysia MCO. I think it is often the #1 among several concurrent reasons.

— DD .. U.S. Government’s National Health Interview Survey of nearly 50,000 households in 1994 said 20.7 percent of the disabled adults (among those polled) were divorced or separated, compared with 13.1 percent of those who reported no disabilities.

Among the reasons are the stresses on the health of the spouse caring for a disabled partner, and the pressure on family finances, especially if one spouse has to stop working to stay home and tend the other.

For better-off couples, a hired hand can save work and relieve tension. Dr. Weintraub said: ”There are spouses who say, ‘In no way will I diaper my wife.’ So you go out and have somebody else diaper your wife. It helps to have money.”

”It’s no longer considered necessary to hang in there with the disabled spouse,” said a former chairman of the family law section of the American Bar Association. ”The real message we get from the icons of society is if the marriage is too hard, you’re not expected to keep it going.”

In the U.S., elderly spouses coping with a disabled partner rarely resort to divorce. But younger generations are more likely to say it’s not worth it.

Confirmed: men leave wives more often than wives leave husbands.

— Women’s growing independence .. a likely cause of divorce. See the MSF survey described below. Women are separating from their spouses because they have more opportunities to live independently.

Among Jonathan’s five reasons, I see five driver to push a women to break away, but without her belief in her independence, every driver can prove insufficient. One exception is an unfaithful wife. This driver alone can lead to divorce if the husband is fed up.

[23]availability: sys2background heat

Posted on Fri, 18/Mar/2022Sat, 30/Sep/2023 by tiger40490

In Sep 2023 I took a historic step to visited Hui Mei and then Henry Lew, to restart my calorie-restriction long-march (长征).

For a few months (at least) before Sep 2023, I was relying on sys1 more, and less on sys2 to regulate my cravings and respond to random attacks of enticing foods.

I now realize that /mindfulness/ (sys2 paying attention, self-regulating,,,) over my cravings/temptations/availability is important and often effective, as in the current context.

I am becoming mindful during office hours and after I reach home. I think sys2 workload is heavier in the latter, when availability is a bigger challenge.

— suggested techniques
* Hui Mei suggested swallowing very slowly.
* Hui Mei suggested holding a defense for 15m till the craving subsides.
* Henry suggested focusing on a part of the stomach
* Henry suggested a fixed allocation for the entire evening

These suggestions all require sys2 mindfulness.

— Limited sys2 resources for competing demands

Right now (Sep 2023) I have relatively few and light competing demands on my sys2 resources. (I will not list those demands.)

Safe to say that Circuit Breaker period was stressful. Tech xx (muscle-building) and demanding work projects often affect calorie-restriction. At those times, sys2 is overbooked, and I rely on sys1 (or no system at all) for calorie restriction.

— background heat .. Calorie restriction is a constant effort, and a classic background heat. I guess that when sys2 is tired out by such background heat, I would feel loss of peace and harmony, stressed out, less calm, more irritable.

Availability .. (esp. at home) is a necessary condition for the background heat. Fending off the wrong* temptations on a daily basis is an everyday workload for sys2.

##I told boy %%strength against addictive food++

Posted on Wed, 20/Oct/2021Fri, 07/Apr/2023 by tiger40490

This blogpost had an initial focus on “addictive” and kids.

In 2019 I told my son that most people tell themselves they can’t live without starch, fried chicken, or any meat for that matter…. Now I realize I show a fairly remarkable internal strength over these addictive foods, similar to grandpa. Here are some notable examples:

French fries and round thin potato chips — are a real addictive food in my case.
sugary drinks — Raymond told me most kids are addicted. Prevalent in U.S. and Singapore lifestyle.
coffee — (almost always with sugar and creamer or condensed milk) is mildly addictive to many many people

On a separate note, many people can’t accept raw vegetable salad without salad dressing. Again, I have trained myself to overcome that dependency. Even though I have my limits on what raw vegetables I could swallow in non-trivial quantity, I am now more “flexible” than most raw veg salad eaters.

The body is weak because the temptation is often overpowering.

eg: home cooking temptation… I had numerous blogposts
eg: as an official, the temptation of corruption (Clinton) can reveal a career-killing weakness. Similarly, As a leader of a team, the temptation of favoritism towards certain individuals
eg: the big4 temptations of an American young adult — Sex, Drugs, Cars, Debt
eg: when I read CSY’s mail about radiologists, I react negatively (hopefully less than many people in my shoes), partly because other people’s envy is tempting

Broadly, temptations are arguably the #1 most prevalent, often most powerful, most destructive derailer (trouble-maker, show-stopper) in half the endeavors of an individual’s life. As powerful, as destructive as a F5 Twister in the movie.

Based on these and many other examples, it’s no exaggeration to say that temptations rule many lives and ruin many lives. Precisely because of that, /lackluster/dull/?/ interests, /weariness/?/, desensitized reaction .. is life enhancing. More than that, it is often a massive competitive advantage. Imagine, as a stock trader, if you are less affected by emotions [fear, greed…] and can operate more like a cold-blooded machine, you would have a huge advantage. You would get ahead pretty soon. This is a killer talent.

— Buddhism .. has a lot to say about these temptations, sufferings, detachments,
==== my desensitized zones:
— copying homework from classmates
— gambling
— addictive day trading
kinda similar to gambling addiction
— leveraged trading .. is seductive to many retail traders
— video entertainment on smartphone .. I can see 30% of the commuters are addicted.
I find it a very poor entertainment.
— arcade gaming .. in my teenage years in Beijing, I noticed that my cohort were more addicted. I used to spend an hour or so [1] in an gaming arcade and pop my RMB1 coins into the machines. I mostly [2] played the aircraft shooting-up game and never very good at it.

[1] my cohort were spending hours and hours
[2] my cohort were playing many more games, harder games.

— 耐得住寂寞 is related to temptations at a fundamental level. 耐得住寂寞 includes a wide range of endeavors. For some of them, if the practitioner is not tempted by the wrong things, then it’s easier to stick to the practice over a long stretch, and get ahead.

LocalSys self-learning is hard for me because of the temptations and distractions.

— sugary drinks or any drinks
My son has this addiction.
When I came to Singapore in my teenage years, I started to notice that diners always ordered some drinks for their meal.

— coffee .. is reported by many as a mild addiction. Coffee has many health effects. Fine coffee is quite an expensive lifestyle .
In my experience, I have found my life not even 0.001% diminished by my lackluster interest in coffee.

most folks=non-committal about longevity

Posted on Thu, 05/Aug/2021Tue, 18/Oct/2022 by tiger40490

A bold claim — most folks are not serious, /non-committal/ about healthy [1] longevity. I was just like everyone else, until my focus started shifting towards wellness.

See also the blogpost about “secret wish for a painless death at an earlier age than 90s.”

Re the conversation with HF.Sun, the conversation with Tanko (about my age).

One of the fundamental attitudes (about longevity) is AAA/no-pleasure — Q: do you cherish and guard the no-pleasure /condition/, such as

no pleasure in .. alcoholic drinks, sugary drinks, durian
no pleasure in .. gaming, which tends to derail/disrupt a healthy lifestyle including relationships and support network

This fundamental attitude can have a subconscious (therefore fundamental) impact on everyday choices. Choice often entails sacrifice, trade-offs, priorities.

[1] Un-Healthy longevity is out of scope, obviously.

ex-prisoner/parolees tend to lose self-control n reoffend

Posted on Fri, 09/Jul/2021Fri, 22/Jul/2022 by tiger40490

libido|alcoholism : boring longevity #肾

Posted on Tue, 29/Jun/2021Sun, 22/Sep/2024 by tiger40490

Context: noHunger到家..out@ctrl #unexpected

— Analog 1: libido .. In my teenage years, I had very “healthy” libido, and I wanted to control it. I realized that if I lived in a shared bedroom then I won’t feel any “appetite out of control”. As soon as I had a bedroom to myself, within minutes I would find the urge/desire/appetite overwhelming. Sexual “drive” is a driving force and 8 times out of 10 you can’t stop it. Availability and freedom are two sides of the same coin. (“temptation” too). This Availability leads to an overwhelming “appetite”.

However, any “enjoyment” can lead to temptation and loss of control. If due to health, or short separation or pregnancy your partner can’t support your sexual needs, an out-of-control libido would compel the individual to seek other sexual partners.

李靓蕾直言王力宏在很多城市都有“好朋友”，“你坦承这些是你的问题，你没有办法控制自己” but there’s no such problem in a prison, i.e. no availability.

— Analog 2: Alcoholic treatment centers, smoke cessation centers, screen-addiction treatment camps, and jails for drug addicts provide an “easy” environment for self-restraint. No availability, no struggle, no torture. However, you can’t stay in jail forever, as Bindi said.

When you come out of the the physical environment, you must rely on self-restraint. You must face the availability challenge.

— kidney health brochure and my reflections
Angelina Jolie .. chose to have her breasts removed.. loss of pride, joy and pleasure, but compare that loss to the pain of kidney failure or long-term cancer management!

No [:=zero or very low] pleasure in either alcohol, salt, or gaming … is loss of enjoyment, but I wish to have this extremely boring life .. more a blessing than a curse. Mass media (beyond advertisement) portray pleasures in food, alcohol, tobacco, sex, extreme sports … In contrast, my chosen lifestyle is boring. Boring lifestyle is correlated with less pain, less bodily harm [incl. illnesses]

Kidney patients have many diet restrictions. I guess some of them may consider the hypothetical question “what would I tell my younger self?” I think some may face the stark choice between 2 lifestyles

longevity as the priority… Restrict calories, sweet, alcoholic foods. Is such a life worth re-living? Perhaps this is a Buddhist perspective but I want to downplay the Buddist influence.
pleasure as a basic priority … but plenty of sufferings down the road

Imagine this scenario .. After acquiring a substance dependency (alcohol, tobacco or mild drugs) early in life, a self-disciplined adult decides that a life without alcohol (Choice A) is not worth living. After due diligence, she/he concludes that a shorter life expectancy like 70Y (Choice B) is better than a 10Y-longer, but boring life without alcohol (Choice A). A dangerous question for the young, a question of free will. More than 50% of the people secretly wish that the consequence of those pleasures in Choice (B) is a painless death at an earlier age compared to the boring life. Most of these individuals underestimate the length and severity of ill health during the declining years.

[21]10x hazard rate@troubled teacher

Posted on Fri, 25/Jun/2021Sun, 26/Jun/2022 by tiger40490

Metaphor — as a teacher I accept that a troublemaker pupil is joining my class, so I make ample preparations to limit his impact on the class. However, in a new school, I get lots and lots of troublemakers coming into my classes, without prior preparation. Once a while I could win a battled and “control” a single troublemaker, but my success rate in each case is somewhere between 50% and 80%, so with more troublemakers in my class, I would lose many battles ever week.

Hit by Expected enticing foods a few times a week as in Bayonne, I win 80% of the time. The other times I have controlled indulgence.
Hit by UnExpected enticing foods on a daily basis, I win 20% of the time. The number of lost battles is now 5x

— worth it? With the 10x hazard rate, I can easily win only 20% of the battles (no precise criteria) but I may need to win 90% to hit my BMI target. That may require undue deprivation[1], superhuman self-discipline, lots of raw veg ! If the effort is always a superhuman effort and requires that much sacrifice and willpower, then the effort is unsustainable, and not worth it. I told the MS colleague in the 750Seventh pantry “Not exactly self-discipline per se.” He was surprised and puzzled.

[1] deprivation? Food should be a joy at least some of the times.
eg: Availability of alcohol creates a struggle in the recovering alcoholic, possibly torture. However, ultimately, you could get over it and live with the availability, rather than get tortured by it year in year out. libido|alcoholism illustrates the availability/attraction situation that is fundamental to human existence.

My BMI improvement comes at a (mostly non-monetary) cost, but the cost should not exceed a limit and become self-torture.

similar eg: To be sustainable, yoga should be rewarding not a torture. My fwd bend in Sec 1 was a torture, unsustainable and unrewarding. Superhuman self-discipline is still insufficient in the long run.

similar eg: “Skating practice should be enjoyable and rewarding, not dreadful.” See skater: verbal abuse as motivation

addictions: various degrees@harm: food++

Posted on Tue, 01/Jun/2021Tue, 06/Dec/2022 by tiger40490

When it comes to calorie counting, One of the least noticed features is the various degrees of “bad” when we decide to loosen up and eat bad food

I feel creamy cakes are among the worst foods. Except for the strongest dieters it is probably impractical to completely ban creamy foods as if they were opium.

There are important degrees of bad — fried peanut and alcohol are both worse than creamy food.. tobacco is worse than alcohol.. drugs are worse than tobacco. In the mass media and everyday conversations, we can see the different attitudes towards categories of “bad” substances.

In terms of calorie density, more stupid are the calorie-dense foods that aren’t satisfying — fried peanuts; alcohol; mint ice-cream; cheese chunks;

— ranking by regulatory restriction on substance-advertising

TV show or football binge-watching
movie addiction .. no advertising regulation
.. harm: huge t$cost if a poor person watches too much
e-gaming .. no advertising regulation
unhealthy food
alcohol .. age restriction
tobacco .. age restriction. No advertising allowed in some countries like SG. Tobacco is deemed more addictive and harmful than alcohol
drugs .. complete ban on advertising

good appetite could b a bad thing #Buddhist

Posted on Wed, 12/May/2021Tue, 01/Mar/2022 by tiger40490

See ##list of big addictions I am able to fend off. Today’s blogpost is first and foremost about appetite:

In my twilight years, I wish to have a good appetite to enjoy healthy food.
At my current age, a lower appetite is life-enhancing. Out-of-control appetite is currently a real problem for many.

At any age, appetite for unhealthy food is a sign of bad genes. In reality, most foods fall into the grey area between healthy and unhealthy categories. In other words, moderate/controlled [2] amount of such foods are harmless to most healthy adults.

Problem is with the moderation and control. Most people don’t have enough of that, so even with the “grey” foods, we would overeat i.e. beyond what we know is good for our health.

I’m relatively lucky to enjoy a good-yet-under-control appetite.

— Buddhism advocates self-restraint
Q: Do you eat to live or live to eat? Some Buddhists would probably say “eat to live” as they eat the minimal amount just to stay healthy. They are at the polar opposite of “Live life to the fullest/You only live once” types.

Availability^fullness: Hunger #supper

Posted on Sun, 02/May/2021Sun, 22/Sep/2024 by tiger40490

All of the efforts in calorie restriction, weight mgmt… has one key obstacle — hunger. The sensation of hunger, while simple on the surface, is actually quite complex. From decades of self-observation I have concluded that my hunger depends on ..

— AA) it depends on the homeostatic hunger + physical fullness of stomach for ~~one hours after a meal~~ (or 2-3 hours after a huge meal). This fullness is 90% calorie-based. Fiber (+ expanding chia) fullness is short-term (therefore less effective) in my psychophysiological system.

So this initial period is “protected” by the physical fullness, protected from the hunger sensation. After the initial period (which is 90% of the waking hours), my stomach is physically neither full nor extremely empty [1]. Under these conditions, my psychophysiological system often sends the hunger signal or the not-really-hungry signal. The deciding factor is often external to the digestive system.

In my diet period, my stomach is seldom 30% full before the warrior meal. Fullness is a missing protection.

Sudden change in daily workout level often has a noticeable effect on this hunger.

[1] when did I feel extremely empty? Basically never in my life. Perhaps a 48-hour fast would give me that experience.

— BB) my hunger depends 90% on availability … Daily battle.

For example, if I’m jogging, or cycling long distance, then 80% of the time I feel I can easily last a few hours without eating any solid food.
Another powerful example is my morning experience. Whether I have last eaten at 8pm or 1am, the morning stomach sensation is usually similar. The sensation depends mostly on availability.

Availability of unexpected enticing foods in a stash is particularly hard to manage.

—-
I would say AA and BB are fairly orthogonal, but the factors below are not.

c) My hunger increasingly depends on stress… eg: Mentally demanding work [such as work projects or coding] lead to stress that increases the effect of AA and BB, but even when I’m physically full, without lots of enticing foods visibly present, stress can creates the hunger signal almost out of thin air. This can happens when my stomach is physically half full or full, though seldom when it’s very full.

d) prolonged_separation from a particular food usually intensifies its attraction. This hunger-factor amplifies BB.

Again, no such effect when I’m very full.

i) a rare but revealing factor is sickness.

—

These factors interact. For example, in the face of mild temptations, an empty stomach would intensity the temptation.

Because of the Availability factor, my top guidelines for diet are

avoid the sight of food at the wrong time. Get away from family at dinner time
don’t eat when not hungry — easier said than done
delay meals as much possible. A form of intermittent diet
Before going to a place of temptation, try to fill the stomach. It is proven effective.
Before going home need to eat up to 90% and pray it is effective.
Sometimes need to eat a regular hawker meal before going home.

Fiber, protein, chia seeds, … all target hunger, but they only target the “fullness”, and missed the elephant in the room i.e. Availability.

— my late-night big supper habit .. Is it a wrong-time temptation? No I do feel hungry, even in the absence of food temptations. If no temptation, I tend to feel confident to cope with this hunger.

If not hungry but I still eat a high-calorie, heavy dinner, the next morning I can still get Really hungry ! This confirms my observation that calorie-induced (“genuine”) hunger is largely driven by timing, instead of calorie balance. Basically, the gap between the early dinner and the morning meal is too long.

The best thing to do is to refuse to eat anything if not hungry. Remove any temptation and resist.

btv-open

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