Show-Off Bias?

My friends at Overcoming Bias have an interesting post about a new kind of bias. It's called Show-Off bias. The poster, Kip, defines it as follows: self-identified smart people are biased towards complex or counter-intuitive answers to problems.

A corollary, supplied by one of the commenters is, "self-identified smart people often sacrifice clarity and precision for style. instead of making ideas easy to comprehend they present them in the most impressive, stylized way possible."

This seems like one I will be on the lookout for. In fact, it makes me wonder if all the looking into low-carb diets and the physiological processes behind them is a show-off bias desire to run counter to the FDA food pyramid or the conventional wisdom of low-fat.

I guess I would be much more concerned if it weren't working so well for me. (The first half of the graph was my attempt at lower fat and lots of exercise. The second half was lower carb--going off of grains essentially--while maintaining the exercise).

Of course, confirmation bias may be leading me to continue to believe that it is a more healthy diet. I will do more posts on cognitive biases. It is a rich and important field, especially for people who work with their brains.

Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey

I have been thinking about the nature of this blog and have a few thoughts on the direction. First, I don't want it to be simply a tip blog. I want to capture principles that can be applied to life, which keeps it all at a higher level. The other thing is, I don't want it to be a news digest blog. I want the content to be more or less timeless. Not something based on today's news or gossip.

Having said that, I will now go against those principles and publish a letter I sent to Oprah Winfrey about her diet. OK, I believe the principles are timeless, but it is a little newsier than I am interested in.

I also said I would go lighter on diet articles, but here I am with another diet article. I have developed a bit of an obsession around diet. Starting next month, Feb 2009, I will be going back to more general topics. Thanks for staying with me.

Letter to Oprah

I sent a letter to Oprah through her website. That site limited me to 2000 characters and I had much more to say. So following is the original note that I wrote that has much more detail. Any bets on whether she'll leave a comment here?


Dear Oprah,

I have been reading about your weight loss efforts. I am sure you have received thousands of letters of advice and encouragement. I would like to add one more voice to the din.

First, I want to say that I admire you and your accomplishments. You have found ways to connect with large numbers of people in ways that are meaningful to them. You have been a source of inspiration and information for millions.

But this weight loss thing...

I know you have received lots of advice from leading nutritionists and trainers, but they all have the simple calories-in minus calories-out approach.

While that is mathematically correct and in accordance with the laws of physics, it misses a key point; starving oneself is not a sustainable lifestyle. Your body needs energy to live. It can obtain that energy from outside through food, or it can literally eat itself by burning its own fat, muscle, and carbohydrates.

To lose weight, you limit the amount of food coming in from the outside so that the body uses itself for energy. You have only about 400 grams of carbohydrate stored in your body, so that is not a significant source of weight loss. You do NOT want to lose muscle, so you therefore want your body to be using its fat stores.

You achieve this state by setting your body up hormonally to burn fat.

Something for you to think about. Many people believe that binge eating or unhealthy eating is a symptom of poor mental health and represents a failure. People start on diet and exercise programs, then when they fail, blame themselves for being weak or "emotional eating." That is not the reality.

Think about it. People who kick themselves for emotional eating are often already on a diet and overweight. They feel hungry all the time and struggle to find the energy and time to exercise. Then something happens. Maybe their kid gets sick or their spouse loses a job. Suddenly, the stress level ramps up. Well you may not be able to control the course of sickness or your spouse's job search, but you can reduce the hunger and exercise stress. In a way then, going off a diet may be a very HEALTHY response, not a sick one. In times of stress, your body needs sustenance. Not providing it can lead to your own ill-health.

Gary Taubes has written Good Calories, Bad Calories. Many people mistake it for a diet book. Others mistake it for a scientific treatise. It is neither. It is a documentation of how poor science has led to misconceptions about healthy diets. He also lays out an alternative hypothesis about diet.



The key in all this is to eat foods that allow your body to use its own fat as fuel. An important key to this is the hormone, insulin. Insulin is, in essence a storage hormone. It takes nutrients out of your blood and stores them in muscle and fat cells. Fat and sugar are stored as fat, while proteins are either put into muscle or converted to glucose in the liver for use as a fuel. Insulin also prevents fat from leaving fat cells. This is really important so I'll say it again. The presence of insulin prevents fat from leaving fat cells.

So, in general terms, carbohydrates, especially sugars and highly processed flours induce your body to release insulin. This in turn traps the fat cells in your body. When you run out of fuel in your system from the previous meal, an obvious choice to refuel your body's cells immediately is to eat more carbs. This sets up a vicious circle. you feel hungry so you eat carbs for a pick-me-up. Insulin cleans out your blood stream, you feel hungry again. Your body never has a chance to burn those fat cells.

This is the deal with the lower carb diets. They shut down the insulin response to food and let the fat come out of your tissues to be used for fuel. When the fat can flow freely you tend not to feel hunger because your body's cells are fueled.

You have to be careful not to overdo it a diet though. Research indicates that your body can burn about 31 calories of its own fat per pound of body fat per day. So you can maintain a caloric deficit of about 31 calories per pound of body fat without cutting into muscle. As an example, a 200 pound person at 35% body fat is therefore carrying about 70 lb. of fat. 70 lb. times 31 calories per pound is 2,170 calories of potential fat loss per day. If you diet harder than that you will cut into muscle. As you lose fat, your maximum daily loss will also decrease. This is one of the reasons that a rate of weight (fat) loss is difficult to maintain.

My Story

The things I have written above come from a fair amount of research and my own experience in weight loss. In 2007, I weighed 240 lb. (I'm 5'10 and was 50 years old). I had tried losing weight in the past, typically by cutting back on fats, cutting back on calories, and exercising like a maniac. I could lose 15 lb. or so, before beginning to feel weak, lose muscle, and feel hungry all the time. Inevitably, I would then fall off the wagon and gain it back.

At Thanksgiving of 2007, I got gout in my left foot. I started to research that, and for some reason stumbled across Gary Taubes lecture at Berkeley. That lecture (http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216) changed my life.

I dialed back pasta and bread (I had already cut out sweet sodas) and the weight simply disappeared over the next four months. I lost about 30 pounds with almost no effort. I am now working on the next phase of my weight loss where I will lose another 15 lb. I will be using a very similar approach with a few modifications. Specifically, I will be doing a periodic (weekly or so) carbo load to induce leptin secretion. This follows some of the ideas that Lyle McDonald has laid out at his website (http://www.bodyrecomposition.com).

So I urge you to consider a lower carb diet in your fat loss efforts. In the long run, it is more sustainable, it seems likely that it is a more healthful way of life than low-fat,

I have written about diet and other issues at my blog. I invite you to check out Emotions for Engineers at http://www.emotionsforengineers.com.

Best regards,
Tony


The following is the letter as submitted to O.

I admire you and your accomplishments. You have found ways to connect with people in meaningful ways. You have been a source of inspiration and information for millions. But this weight loss thing.

Simple calories in minus calories out misses a key point; starving oneself is not a sustainable lifestyle. Your body needs energy to live. When it doesn't get it, it sends hunger signals. We obtain energy from outside through food, or it can literally eat itself by burning its own fat, muscle, and carbohydrates. You want your body to be burning fat. You achieve this state by setting your body up hormonally.

People who kick themselves for emotional eating are often already on a diet They feel hungry and struggle to find the energy and time to exercise. Then maybe their kid gets sick. Stress increases. You can't control the sickness, but you can reduce the stress from hunger. Going off a diet may be a very HEALTHY response, not a sick one. In times of stress, your body needs sustenance.

Gary Taubes lays out another diet hypothesis diet in "Good Calories, Bad Calories." The key is to eat foods that allow your body to use its own fat as fuel by limiting insulin release. It takes nutrients out of the blood and stores them as fat. It prevents fat from leaving fat cells and can cause you to feel hunger.

Carbs induce insulin. This is why lower carb diets work. By limiting the insulin response, your body uses its fat as a fuel without hunger.

Dietary fat has been vilified by the government and press. It is not bad for you. In fact, when your body burns its own fat, you are burning the equivalent of a high fat diet.

I urge you to consider a lower carb diet in your fat loss efforts. In the long run, it is more sustainable and it seems likely that it is a more healthful way of life than low-fat.

I have written about diet and other issues at my blog. I invite you to read at a more detailed version at http://www.emotionsforengineers.com.

Regards, Tony

SMART Resolutions

It's that time of year--time to make the dreaded New Year's Resolutions.

I have a few things to say about that. Some people say that they are horrible. They just give people an excuse to binge for a few more days before they start to fail yet again. I think people do that, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Another angle is that a quest for perfection can be damaging by itself. I'm not going to address that aspect, but for now, simply accept that people have worthwhile goals that they want to achieve.

The New Year can be a convenient time to take stock and refocus your efforts in important directions. But just like with your job evaluations at work, your resolutions or goals should have specific characteristics and there should be some kind of accountability.

Be Smart

The SMART framework is pretty good for goal setting. SMART is an acronym for:
1. Specific – The objectives should be specific. Don't leave rationalizable loopholes.
2. Measurable – You should be able to determine without ambiguity whether you are meeting the objective.
3. Achievable - Is the objective achievable and attainable at all within the time frame?
4. Relevant – Something you actually care about?
5. Time-Constrained – When do you want to achieve the set objectives?

So here's a bad objective: Cure most of world hunger.
It is not very specific or measurable, may not be achievable at all, and certainly not with the resources I have available, and there is no time frame specified, it is relevant to the world at large.

So in a world hunger frame, a better objective might be something like:
Write one blog post per month on the importance of nutrition for the poor. If you are President of the USA, you might have a more ambitious world hunger objective such as: Reduce the amount of non-voluntary hunger in the US by 10% by end of year 2012 as measured by World Health Organization standards..

Accountability

The other part of it is accountability or support. At work, there is typically some person who judges whether you achieve your objectives. If you do, you get a promotion or a better raise, or maybe you get to keep your job. If you fail to achieve your objectives, there may be negative consequences. The problem is that not all objectives are under the auspices of someone to reward or punish you, so you need another kind of accountability. A support network can be useful for that.

Ask your spouse or a friend, or even your boss to be your accountability partner on non-job related goals. Stickk.com can also give a framework for accountability and support. You specify a goal, name supporters and/or a referee, and you can even specify monetary consequences for failure to meet the objective(s). I am currently using Stickk for a weight loss objective.

X marks the spot in the diagram.

Why New Year's Day?

There is actually nothing magical about New Year's Day. Set your objective now. Don't allow the pre-start binge that some people object to. Just Do It!

Emotions For Engineers Resolution

I recognize that I have not been as diligent at posting here as I would like to be. I have about fifty posts and ideas started and in various levels of completion. So my resolution is the following:
I will publish at least one Emotions for Engineers post per month in 2009.

Specific - One post per month. Good.
Measurable - One post per month. Not 12 per year, but one per month.
Achievable - It should be. I can do it if I prioritize well. Resources are not an issue.
Relevant - It is relevant to my personal mission.
Time-Constrained - Monthly targets are good.

Accountability - I ask the readers of this blog to please get on my case if I do not fulfill this objective. Thanks, and a happy and prosperous 2009 to all.



Addendum: 1/1/2009

One other factor occurred to me regarding resolutions or goal-setting. If your goal is a long-term one, you should have milestone along the way. My resolution above is a good example. If I had said that I will make 12 posts in 2009, knowing me, I might do none until November, then try to cram them into two months. Making the goal one per month puts pressure on me not to procrastinate.

There was a very short article in Business Week about research that demonstrates that shorter-term goals are more effective than longer-term ones.

Addendum 7/29/2010: Bob Lewis had an interesting talk where he said that S should stand for Specific and Strategic. I like that. It means that the goal should have some significance as well.

Diet Update - Getting Past a Plateau

It has been a year since I got gout (right before Thanksgiving, 2007). The gout prompted me to start studying my diet in depth and for the first time in my life learn about what I put into my body. I went on a generally lower carbohydrate diet and wrote about my successes and findings in the following posts:

Take Care of the Black Box - Eat Right
Unified Feed Theory
Healthful Eating
Obesity
Emotions for Engineers Guest Blog on MizFitOnline

In all of those posts I have advocated a lower carbohydrate approach.

It has been a year now and I wanted to report on where I am now and what additional learnings I have.

This graphic shows my progress since early 2007. You can see the change in slope when I got gout, learned about diet and went onto a lower carb/paleo diet track. I hit a plateau in May of 2008 at 206 pounds and so I went on Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss Protocol, a "Protein Sparing Modified Fast" or PSMF method. On that I lost about 6 pounds in three weeks, then carried that momentum down to 196 pounds. My initial goal was to get to 200 pounds.

You can also see that since my low point in about August, I have rebounded a bit, but fluctuated around 200 lbs. Unfortunately, 200 is no longer my goal. I hope to continue on down to maybe 180, then drift up a little to 185 or so for maintenance. So what's going on? Why did the weight loss stop?

First, some rebound (5 pounds or so) is very common as people go off a low carb diet. On low carb, the body depletes glycogen and water in the muscles and liver causing a rapid 5 - 10 pound loss. Coming off low carb simply reverses that. This comes off fast when you go back onto low carb, so is of little concern. That's what happened to me in October of 2008 when I went from 205 to about 197.

However, I am having trouble now progressing to my new goal. Here are some of the issues I think I have.

1. Goal Clarity - Once I hit 200 I started thinking about putting on some more muscle. I ramped up my workouts and started to eat more. My weightlifting increased pretty quickly, but so did my weight. It might have been some muscle, but there was also some fat. I hated giving up the loss and felt a bit conflicted about it. So I went back onto the PSMF--for about a week. The weight came off fast, but then life stepped in and I exercised less, ate more and put the weight right back on. This brings us to the next issue.

2. Motivation - Once you state a goal, you have to maintain focus on it and keep at it. Losing weight really is harder than maintaining it. As you approach your goal it gets even harder for a number of reasons including the fact that you are losing fat, which changes your hormonal environment.

This blog has a good write up about motivation. As you get to a place that is adequate, you may feel tempted to slack off. That is part of my problem right now. I'm pretty happy about losing 35 lbs., blood markers and health are much better, etc. Sometimes artificial motivation can help (like an artificial deadline at the office). Stickk.com provides a place to build that artificail motivation. You can place a bet or a challenge with friends and have referees to check. you can set goals with penalties for missing checkpoints. Perhaps you could set it up to send a check to a cause with which you do not agree.

3. Stick with what got you there - Moving from diet to maintenance will stop your weight loss. If you want to lose weight again, you have to make changes. Going with what got you there (whether Atkins, Paleo, Weight Watchers) in the first place is a good place to start. The ladies who write this blog also have a book about maintaining weight loss called Refuse to Regain (link below).

4. Don't stick with what got you there - As you get to lower levels of body fat (less than 12% for men or 18% for women) Lyle McDonald has written a really good series (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) about the impact of leptin on weight loss. Leptin is a hormone that is created in your fat and can help you lose weight. As your fat decreases you secrete less leptin. It's one of several reasons you may have to make changes. He also has a book called The Stubborn Fat Solution, which covers a program to cut that last bit of fat. It's not for everyone, but if you are at that lower level of fat, you might consider it.

I am continuing on. I have ramped up my exercise to maintain strength and assist with fat loss, and I am going back to a stricter diet. My goal is still to get down to a maintenance range of 180-185 or so.

I still believe that a lower carb approach is better for me, and probably healthier for most people. If you haven't tried eating lower carb, I encourage you to try. I think that Protein Power, Atkins, or Paleo diet approaches (links below) are all potentially good programs.

However, there are a number of variables that can affect how people respond. Some people simply can't get past the "brain fog" that temporarily occurs during adaptation to low carb. Specific goals, activity levels, age, sex, and biochemical makeup all affect what you should be doing to eat right.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving.









The following link is to a tool that can help you measure your progress on the road to better health.

More Statin Misreporting

You may have read the breathless reporting on November 10 and 11, 2008.

From the San Francisco Chronicle

"A large new study, disclosed this week at a scientific meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans, found that even among people who appear to be in good health with relatively low cholesterol, the blood test could be a strong gauge of heart disease or stroke risk. If the test detects a high level of a specific protein, patients could reduce their risk of heart disease by using popular statin drugs, the study found.

"This kind of study probably will change cardiac practice," said Dr. Deepak Srivastava, director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease at UC San Francisco. "The test will likely become part of the panels that are routinely done. The study provides pretty compelling evidence that even if people have normal cholesterol levels, then they would benefit from statins if they have signs of increased inflammation."

The Emotions For Engineers Take on the Study

A more accurate story would be something like,

A small percentage of the population with unusual blood indicators and already at low risk of total mortality can reduce their risk by about 0.5% by taking Crestor in the short-term. The long-term effects remain untested. Only those who do not have immediate side-effects may benefit.

This study effectively disproves the cholesterol hypothesis of heart disease. Although incidence of heart attacks and strokes was higher in the placebo group than in the test group, total mortality from these causes was the same.


It is important to note that very careful screening was done to reduce the number of confounding effects of the study. While this led to more successful outfcomes, it also limits the applicability of the study.
Before the study was cut short, there were indications of increased diabetes in the test group. Some reports have said that C-Reactive Protein is the cause of heart disease, but it is more likely an indicator, same as various cholesterol levels, visceral obesity, and high blood pressure.



In a nutshell, even though the study showed that for 8900 people with an unusual and very specific blood profile and screened medical histories, taking Crestor for a year and a half will delay 49 deaths. That's a good thing probably. It is tough to generalize this for several reasons.


1. The study was terminated early. Long-term effects of statins can be harsh, but did not have time to show up.
2. Very specific filters were applied to the people in the study including age, family history, blood markers, etc.
3. Elimination of people who had very early negative responses to the statins.
4. 25% of the statin group stopped taking the medicine. How did this impact the results? How were they included or not in the findings.
5. There are several conflicts of interest, which may or may not be meaningful, but are of note.

More information and opinions:

Crestor Side Effects from Dr. Duane Graveline, author of Statin Drugs Side Effects and the Misguided War on Cholesterol

"...Suddenly, increased numbers of rhabdomyolysis reports began to surface in Crestor users associated with secondary kidney damage and a more ominous threat of specific primary renal toxicity as well and the necessity to issue emergency warnings advising doctors to exercise special caution in the use of this drug with hypothyroidism, renal insufficiency, Asian sub-population groups and cyclosporine and gemfibrozil takers. Not a terribly auspicious welcome for Crestor, this new statin drug known for strength in a market already dominated by other powerful statins.

"Crestor is just another strong statin, using the same mechanisms as the others and having all the inherent potential for side effects. My books tell of the inevitable harm to the mevalonate tree by statins but that was the only way drug company biochemists could inhibit cholesterol so they did it anyhow, regardless of the potential for collateral damage. Does this action reflect sound judgment? They knew that inhibiting cholesterol at this point would also inhibit CoQ10, dolichols, normal phosphorylation and selenoprotein. Every doctor once knew this for they were taught it in medical school but few have bothered to review what mevalonate inhibition really means. In my books I refer to this as "girding" of the mevalonate tree.

"We have now learned much more about the side effects of Crestor. We have learned that cognitive, muscle and nerve problems, due to the inevitable impairment of glial cell cholesterol synthesis and mevalonate blockade are only part of the problem. The Crestor side effect potential, that it shares with all other statins, is far more basic than this. Now we have learned that mitochondria are an inevitable target of statins. Because of inhibition of CoQ10 availability with its powerful anti-oxidant effect, mitochondria are left fully exposed to the mutagenic effect of free radicals. The resulting mutations of mitochondria are what is causing the legions of permanent, disabling side effects.

"Permanent neuropathy, permanent myopathy, chronic neuromuscular degeneration, and Parkinsonism and ALS-like cases now are thought by some to be the result of permanent statin-induced, mitochondrial damage. Furthermore, the inherent ability of the body to identify and correct the daily load of mutations is impaired because of the previously unrecognized effect of dolichol inhibition from the earlier mevalonate blockade. If this is beginning to sound like a domino effect, you are right. We still are seeing the dominos topple one by one as time goes by - the result of marketing a class of drugs before it was fully investigated.

"Dolichols are vital to the synthesis of glycoproteins, which in addition to thousands of other duties must serve in this identification and correction of DNA damage role. Glycohydrolases, a member of the glycoprotein family of molecules is vital to this function. Five years ago we hardly knew what dolichols were and now we find them involved in so many unexpected places. So I must bring to your attention that Crestor shares all this with the other statins. Its potential for damage goes far beyond the original suspicions

[E4E note: Whatever that all means...]

From The Heartscan Blog
Crestor 20 mg per day, contrary to the study and to many statin studies, will not be tolerated for long by the majority. Muscles aches are not common--they are inevitable, sometimes incapacitating. While JUPITER showed 15% of both treatment and placebo groups experienced muscle effects--no different--this is wildly contrary to real life.

From HyperLipid

What the JUPITER study found was that in people with low cholesterol levels but elevated hsCRP levels, taking a statin dropped the overall mortality from low to a bit lower.

Bodycounts were 198/8901 in the statin group and 247/8901 in the placebo group. Clearly treating 8901 people for a year and a half will prevent 49 deaths. According to the lipid hypothesis, all of these lives saved should be as a result of less cardiovascular disease, such as fatal heart attacks.

He has some other great insights as well and a data table.

Junkfood Science - Exhaustive review analysis and critique of the study

Speculation from Dr Michael Eades, Author of Protein Power

..."Finally, the fishiest thing of all. They stopped the study right in the middle of it. When studies are done that might put people at risk by giving them potentially dangerous drugs, it is typical for an outside group to take a peek at the data at certain milestones to make sure the study medication isn’t killing people. When this data is evaluated, and it is found that subjects on the experimental medicine are dying at unacceptably high rates, the study is often halted. I’ve never seen a study halted because the placebo group was dying at higher rates. That really makes me wonder.

"One of the negative findings in this study was that the group on Crestor developed diabetes during the trial at a significantly higher rate than did those on placebo. I suspect that the outside group checked the progress of the study, found that the subjects on Crestor were at the time of the evaluation showing better results than those on placebo, so the decision was made to stop the study while it was looking good. Had it gone on for the full term, the deaths could have evened out, way more people could have developed diabetes, or who knows what might have occurred had the study continued. So, the powers that be decided to quit while ahead."

Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple Sums It Up Best
"If anything, this study is just another bit of proof that total cholesterol and even total LDL are not the proximate cause of heart disease. Oxidation and resulting inflammation are. Furthermore, it suggests that reducing inflammation has a far greater benefit than reducing LDL cholesterol. I agree. So why won’t the medical establishment acknowledge this? The bigger question is: why would any doctor agree to prescribe a dangerous, expensive statin to the general public to save a few more lives by reducing inflammation (NOT by reducing cholesterol), when this could be far more easily and more significantly achieved (at far less cost, with far fewer side effects and with far greater effectiveness) with Omega 3-rich oils (I herein disclaim that I sell fish oil) and a few simple dietary adjustments like cutting back on grains and trans fats?
"The fact that the media has bought into this hype again reminds me to remind you that all health decisions are best left to the expert - in this case, it’s YOU. You know what to do."

Remember: Your health choices are yours. Educate yourself. Logic and science are a big part of medicine and your physical and emotional well-being. Just because your surgeonis good with his hands, it does not mean that he is worth squat when it comes to biochemistry. Make intelligent, informed choices. Don't go onto powerful drugs until other less intrusive approaches (like diet, exercise, sun, and sleep) have failed.

Models and Paradigms

This is really a side note to talk about the posts that I have made and will continue to make.

Most of the books on behavior, communications, and emotions have at their core a model or a way of thinking (paradigm). That is, it is a representation of reality from some perspective. One of the best quotes I have ever heard about models is that "All models are wrong, some are useful."

The same holds true of most of my posts on Emotions for Engineers. I attempt to condense things I have seen written and learned and put it into a context that make sense to logical thinkers, e.g. engineers.

A good example of a model is the diagram for communication. The diagram shows a sender with some intent, encoding into a language, transmission, decoding into the receiver's language, and message received. All that is followed by a feedback loop to ensure accuracy.

Is that exactly what really happens? Not normally. People are notorious about not using the feedback loop. There are multiple messages and paths (actual words, tone of voice, body language and seeing and hearing). The actual diagram of a conversation would be much more complex.

But, importantly, it's a useful model. We can use it to debug conversations that go awry, and learn to do better next time.

Likewise, the concept that love is defined by a set of actions, not a feeling. If you look up the word love in the dictionary you might find a definition that says something like, "A feeling of extreme fondness." This is fine, but not a particularly useful perspective. If we think of love as a feeling, it sets up unrealistic expectations--for example, that true love will never die. After all look at all the old married couples. This perspective means that people can "fall out of love." It's not in their control.

Setting up that unrealistic expectation makes the model less than useful. On the other hand, defining love by one's actions, does provide some guidance to us. It gives us a sense of what we need to do in our relationships in order for them to work. Love is then defined by what we do to or for each other. It therefore give us a guide to something over which we have control. Love becomes a choice, not an uncontrollable outcome.

Another example is nutrition. I have, for most of my adult life been in the "Eat Fat, Get Fat and Die" school of thought. After all, the American Heart Association and the US Government said or implied that was how it worked. Gary Taubes' lecture at Berkeley changed the way I think about it. Many months later, I am coming to realize that his lecture and book, "Good Calories, Bad Calories" (soon in paperback) are incomplete. They do not cover some of the biochemical pathways, or the role of some of the other hormones besides insulin. But... They were right enough to be useful and get me started down the right path. A more complete treatment would likely have lost me.

Finally, models can also be simple quantitative representations of processes. I posted a spreadsheet a few weeks ago that helps a person think about how much to eat and exercise in order to lose fat. Is it right? No. There are a number of approximations involved. For example, 31 calories per pound of body fat, fat loss, is an average and is representative of people who are basically sedentary. It also does not take into account changes in metabolism over time and as a person's body composition changes.  Your hormonal environment changes based on body fat percent, calorie balance, activity level, and diet. However, it is reasonably close and gives some guidance around the limits of exercise, eating, and fat loss.

So keep in mind, what you see and read here is a way of thinking about life, emotions, and physical and mental well-being. Any given post that I put up has a textbook written about it. My purpose is to give you a useful perspective and some reasonable references to follow-up.