To lose weight on antipsychotics, try staying hungry

There was a great post about general health and why being hungry sometimes isn't the worst thing.

https://paleoleap.com/how-and-why-to-get-comfortable-with-hunger/

Basically, we often think we're hungry when we're really just having cravings, and we never experience real hunger. If you really are starving or even very hungry, you should eat. However, a craving is something you don't need to indulge.

I was recently upped with my Depakote from 750 mg to 1000 mg a day. I soon gained 10 pounds, though my waist size fortunately is close to the same. Still, I exercise 3 days a week, walk every day, eat vegetarian, take protein supplements, and log my calories. What am I doing wrong? Well, with Depakote, there are metabolic factors. Therefore, the only answer is to sometimes let myself be hungry. The hunger is illusory in that it's just an extreme craving brought about by medication. My metabolism is slowed down so I know I don't really need the food. It's very unpleasant, but it'll pay off with with greater health, status, wellbeing, and insecure confidence. By insecure I mean it's no replacement for feeling like a good person, which has nothing to do with how much I weigh.


Of course, if you're anorexic don't follow that advice. Use common sense. Don't starve yourself. I'd recommend at least 1500 calories a day, which is a lot less than what I usually eat with the medicine.

Another piece of advice: Chew slowly. Chewing more times is not necessary, but the rate at which you chew food will help. So for example, if I chew 10 times in 5 seconds, change it to 10 times in 20 seconds. This causes you to really enjoy the food more after you adjust to it over a few days. You'll also eat less.

Vignettes

I was reading aloud at an Al Anon meeting, and someone at the church upstairs was playing bass guitar. I started reading on pace with the guitar. “We’re going, to know, a new happiness – and a new freedom. We’ll intuitively know, how to deal with situations, which used, to baffle us. We’ll suddenly realize, that God, is doing for us, what we could not do, for ourselves. Are these, extravagant promises? We think not.”

I told my friend who goes to AA about this, and he said, "We are not a glum lot."

Opening up on the outbreath

It's not good to trail off. I recently watched a voice training video about trailing off. The written version is here:

http://www.voiceandspeech.com/articles/trailing-off.html

When you trail off as you speak, people don't listen to you. If you start opening up on the last word, you're compelling. There are other keys to not trailing off, but that's the one I'm focusing on. I noticed that when I meditate in the same spirit, my meditation is more pleasurable and enjoyable. Open up at the end. Here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMVutzVQ00o

Becoming Happy by Feeling your Body - Emotion Mapping Feedback Hypothesis

I came up with a theory today as I was reading about the Emotion Mapping theory. Apparently we feel our emotions in different parts of the body. You can see above that we feel happiness as physiological arousal or response throughout the body, and love as most of the body with more on the top. The other emotions are mostly top, with deactivation on the bottom.

What if we intentionally made our bottom halves respond? What if we created activation like the happiness map? I tried this today and I was happy all day. I had my dad, who is depressed, try it, and he said he felt relaxed. It's worth studying in a lab, but as I am not currently in a lab it's for thought only.

Hakuin, the 16th century Zen master, came up with a meditation where he kept focus and the idea of heat on the bottom half of his body. This is similar to the happiness map. Why not make our bodies correspond to happiness, that way we can just be happy all time?

Of course, disgust, anxiety, and rumination may pop up now and again. Here's where mindfulness training helps. Bring your attention back to the bottom of your body, with some attention on the top as well. Feel the happiness there. This happiness may be shallow, but it's still happiness. It's meaningless happiness, but it is borne of knowledge rather than wishful thinking.

The facial feedback hypothesis says that if we smile, we become happy. Some researchers have discredited this original test. However, smiling is only the topmost part of the body. What if we smiled with out feet, our torsos, and our faces? Maybe that's a quick happiness hack.