Gradual Progress and Comprehensive Governance: From Specific Methods to the Philosophy of "Experiencing Poverty After Wealth"

Small step approach

When it comes to dietary control, if you have enough confidence and willpower, you can certainly take a one-step approach, such as immediately implementing the change to eating two meals a day, or maintaining a moderate amount of fruit every day without overeating. However, many obese people usually do not have this ability and need to adopt a more strategic approach, using a gradual and progressive method.

Reduce your food intake little by little. You can start by setting a goal of eating one less bite, and after doing so for a while, continue to reduce it a little more.

This method of taking small steps is easy to implement and also helps build confidence.

Switching to a two-meal-a-day system requires appropriately increasing the time between meals, which can be done in ten-minute increments, gradually extending the implementation period. It is normal for this transition period to take a year and a half or even several years.

This method of gradually reducing the amount can be widely used in water control, salt control, and fruit control.

Those who control the body are implementing a great project of self-transformation; they may use any means that are conducive to achieving their goals.

Food should not be too refined

Eating only the finest foods is a no-no for weight loss and body control.

The dishes are delicate and exquisite, and most of them look small in portion, but they are all made with real, substantial ingredients. You might think you're not eating much, but you may have actually eaten too much.

Western countries restrict the unit volume and sugar content of some high-sugar beverages, and do not allow large bottles or high sugar content, precisely because they are considered to easily induce people to consume more.

However, external limitations do not address the core of the problem.

If people don't tighten the gate in their hearts, no one can stop them from seeking food and overeating.

Just like drug addicts, no matter how much the government blocks the source of drugs, they will always find a way to obtain them.

For ordinary people, even if you are given money, you still won't know where the drugs are.

The corresponding question is, if we can eat better, eat more refined food, and eat less, wouldn't that control our intake? This brings us back to a basic question: have our stomachs and our entire metabolism evolved to adapt to a diet of less refined food?

From a developmental and evolutionary perspective, it is certainly possible that one day in the future, people could sustain their daily energy needs by eating one or two concentrated, highly nutritious foods the size of ping-pong balls.

If this were to become a reality, our stomachs and the entire digestive system would have to evolve to adapt to it, with the stomachs likely to be smaller and the body's metabolic functions likely to be weaker than they are now.

We do not yet know whether it will take decades or centuries to complete this evolution.

It is known that modern people who have recently become wealthy have not yet developed that skill, so they should be cautious about investing in insurance.

Filling our normally unrefined stomachs with overly refined, high-energy foods, even to about 70-80% capacity, is probably already excessive.

In a car-centric society, when we talk about cars, our digestive system is like a diesel engine that was originally designed. If you insist on using gasoline, it can still run, but many problems will arise.

Shake your body

Exercise not only consumes energy, but also often manifests as vibrations in the body's adipose tissue, causing the density of adipose tissue to loosen.

In terms of the weight loss process, sometimes even after several days of dieting and exercise, there is no weight loss. This is because the breakdown of fat has not yet reached its breaking point. At this time, as long as you persist in exercising, you will suddenly lose a significant amount of weight on a certain day, rewarding you with the results of the past few days all at once.

The energy expenditure from exercise is reflected in body weight, and sometimes it is not measured once a day, but once every few days.

The basis for this thinking is the phenomenon of ice melting at zero degrees Celsius.

When the superficial walls of the internal organs are temporarily dehydrated, the fluid will be replenished from the deeper layers of the walls.

If you stay up late without drinking water and feel very thirsty before bed, but you manage to sleep through it and don't feel thirsty at all when you wake up the next morning, it means your body has adjusted.

This is my experiential explanation, and it's quite interesting.

When you ask people who have achieved ideal body shape about their secrets to success, you'll often hear a very simple answer: "Eat less and move more."

This statement reveals the true essence of weight loss. If you can do it, you can lose almost any weight you want, even if you're just skin and bones.

However, for most obese people, consistently adhering to the principle of "eat less and move more" is quite difficult.

Respect food and avoid overeating if you are overworked.

Physical exertion combined with mental exertion is a favorable condition for weight loss or body control.

Heavy physical labor is often an effective way to lose weight.

In the past, a grueling engineering campaign could cause participants to lose an average of more than ten kilograms, but with modern food supplies, there is no longer a necessary connection between fatigue and weight loss.

Even among farmers who frequently do manual labor or stevedores who engage in heavy physical work, obesity is quite common.

White-collar workers living in modern cities no longer have the opportunity to do heavy physical labor in their daily lives. Their work mainly involves mental exertion, and the energy consumption of their so-called tiring work is usually very limited.

Previous scientific monitoring has shown that brain proteins account for a considerable proportion of the energy consumed by humans when they are mentally engaged. Brain proteins are the highest energy-producing substances in the protein chain in the body. They need to be converted from a large amount of carbohydrates and animal and plant proteins. Therefore, the consumption of brain proteins is like the consumption of gold in our daily consumption. Although the amount is small, it is a lot when converted into RMB. Over time, this consumption will deplete household savings.

Many diligent students may not engage in much physical activity, but they have a large appetite and don't necessarily gain weight. This is because studying consumes brain proteins.

Studies have shown that even when drivers are nervously driving in busy urban areas, the amount of brain protein they consume is only 70% of that consumed by someone who is reading attentively.

However, the above theories are no longer applicable in the modern nutritional environment. Given that middle schools have become a major area of ​​obesity, this situation is somewhat amusing.

From the author's perspective, the so-called mentally taxing weight loss effect is actually due to dietary control.

Because of the mental strain, people often stop focusing on their three daily meals and forget about snacking, which naturally leads to control over the total amount of food consumed.

However, if mental strain leads to greater stress and one resorts to eating and drinking to relieve it, it can result in a double disaster.

Of course, the physical and mental health of people who are constantly under stress is another topic.

From a physiological perspective, as long as the BMI is normal, the so-called fatigue at work is not related to the body's overall fitness; it is usually just a temporary deficiency in blood oxygen metabolism.

Mental exertion should naturally be accompanied by a moderate diet. If one takes advantage of mental fatigue to overeat, or even uses eating as a way to relieve stress, then one will become overweight due to exhaustion!

The media reports that urban white-collar workers are prone to so-called "overwork-related obesity" are just a cover-up for obese people.

Being busy with work and having irregular eating habits should explain why you're eating less each day. How did it escalate to overeating? Not paying attention to monitoring your weight and not knowing the power of food's energy, taking advantage of this to indulge in unhealthy eating habits, is the root cause of obesity and disease.

Learning to "waste" food is the key to not wasting life.

Those who love to eat get fat, and those who love to eat buy a lot.

I have loved visiting open-air farmers' markets since I was a child. Even after I got some education, I still didn't like going to bookstores and preferred to go to grocery stores.

The corresponding result is that they are always fatter than their peers.

Seeing something you like to eat, you feel uncomfortable if you don't buy it! Maybe that's what they call "shopping desire".

I feel at ease only when I buy enough delicious food to last me a while.

Even though I've maintained a good weight and rarely overeaten in recent years, during peak fruit season, I still keep at least six different kinds of fruit at home.

This is a common problem among overeaters, and it's almost ingrained.

Excessive shopping desires can easily lead to compulsive eating, which makes weight control extremely difficult.

So what to do? My own solution is to force myself to learn a little "waste" appropriately.

First, try to control your shopping desires.

When the lingering "food addiction" is not completely eliminated, and one feels an urge to buy certain foods, one may resort to purchasing food-related items such as containers and tableware as substitutes (leading to a situation where the stock at home can be sold at a market).

Secondly, separate the purchase of food from the consumption of food.

Buy it if you want, it's fun to look at it, just to satisfy your visual cravings and psychological needs. Let it spoil and rot without a care, just try not to eat too much anyway.

Thirdly, some people will inevitably eat something, and they may resort to wasting food.

For some fruits, learn to savor the juice and then spit out the nutritious pulp.

Sigh, the point is to eat it and that's enough, don't swallow it all. This is the last line of defense, every little bit we can use to weaken the enemy is a good thing.

Fourth, even if food has spoiled, try not to throw it away as long as it can still be stored.

Having items that are about to spoil at home can help prevent you from buying new ones.

It is known that food rotting in a basket is harmless, but stuffing too much into your mouth is harmful.

It is difficult to teach middle-aged and elderly people today to waste money appropriately.

We also need to consider that during a market economy crisis of oversupply, entire truckloads of milk have to be dumped. What's a little bit of spoiled food compared to that?

As the saying goes, to catch a wolf, you have to be willing to sacrifice your child.

Why worry about leftover food at home when it comes to health? Besides, it's just a small waste, a temporary setback. Gradually, our food preparation habits will become more "modestly tighter".