Coming Into the Light

I have given it a lot of thought. When I started Emotions For Engineers (e4e), I decided to keep it as anonymous as I reasonably could. I am not a saint, and my life is not perfect. I was concerned about a couple of scenarios. First, that I would say something here that would have a negative impact on my work, or alternatively, that people would assume that I was writing autobiographically when I wasn't. That, and frankly, it's a little embarrassing to me personally just how late in life it was before I began to understand so many thing about relationships, health, love.

In the first case it could affect my ability to earn a living, in the second, I was concerned how people might treat my wife or other members of my family.

I am still concerned about those things. But I am going to come clean anyway.

Angelo Coppola, who has a blog and a podcast called Latest in Paleo in his March 28, 2011 podcast  (at 14:35) mentioned the e4e blog post about the JAMA recommendations, and I realized that I want personal recognition for what I do here. Even more than the recognition though, I think that having a person associated with the writing will make it more effective. This is not a moneymaker for me (although I have made about $15 from Amazon).

Also, my wife tells me it's good for transparency and to show vulnerability. Plus, I was tired of trying to be careful about this, although I am confident that anyone with reasonable skill in the art of google-fu could figure out who I am.

So, my name is Tony Kenck. I live in Oakland, CA, and work for Chevron as a Manager of Strategic Planning. I am married to my second wife, my first marriage having ended in divorce after two children. I have a BSc in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines, and I have an MBA from the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

I was born in 1957 and have no religious affiliation. My wife and I each have two children from previous marriages. Hers have lived with us. All are either in college or out on their own now.

I also have a personal blog where I write about various subjects including politics, business planning, portfolio analysis, or whatever strikes my fancy.

And by the way, you may have noticed a dearth of postings lately. We were in the process of empty nesting and moving out of our family-sized San Ramon home to a small condo in Oakland. Over the last six months we have been busy selling, buying, moving, disposing, storing, borrowing, negotiating, buying, and planning. Thanks for your patience and understanding. More posts to come.

Government in Our Kitchens

This recent article about Sarah Palin serving cookies to kids to protest government incursions into our food choices caught my eye. (Disclaimer: I am not a Sarah Palin fan, but this article is not much about her anyway.)

I agree with her sentiment, government should not be involved in our food choices. There are some unfortunate realities to deal with however.

1. They are already in our food choices. The USDA has pushed US Agriculture on the American public for over 100 years. Remember that their mission has historically been to promote American agriculture. It was NOT to ensure the health of Americans by better food choices. There is damage to undo. Recently they added the following words to their strategic plan "... improving nutrition and health by providing food assistance and nutrition education and promotion..."
2. Various food programs exist, e.g. school lunches, and follow the unfortunate guidelines laid out by the food pyramid.
3. Government does have a clearly legitimate role in feeding our armed forces.
4. The food industry, left to its own devices, has repeatedly shown preference to profits over food safety. This applies to other industries as well.

On the first two issues, it is no secret that I believe that the grain-based food pyramid has directly led to the epidemic of metabolic syndrome including increased diabetes and heart disease. The USDA has an institutional mandate to promote the agricultural industry in the US. They do not have a mandate to improve the health of US citizens.

I believe that the employees of the USDA are good people and that most have convinced themselves that they are also acting in the best interests of the health of the American people. It's the only way to deal with the cognitive dissonance created by the actual results of their recommendations. Face it. We eat more carbs, less fat, the mix of fats changed to more polyunsaturated and less saturated fats, we exercise more as a society. We followed their advice.

And we're dying.

The third issue is important in that, we need to feed our warriors. I wish we were feeding them well, I don't know the facts around the food in the armed forces. I'm not going to look into it now because it's not relevant to the point I am trying to make.

The fourth one is tricky. I am a libertarian at heart, but industries have shown repeatedly that left to their own devices, they poison the environment, do not look out for worker safety, and do not follow safe practices in their products. There are plenty of examples and counterexamples, but corners get cut in the pursuit of profits time and again. I think over the long term, companies that protect its workers and the environment will win. In the short term though, they seem to have no problem killing people.

I am not saying that government gets it all right. They assuredly do not. But contrary to the fantasies of Ayn Rand, government may be the only force large enough and with enough stroke to counter destructive industrial practices in the short term. It could be done better, e.g. I believe that the recent classification of carbon dioxide as a pollutant exceeds their authority and common sense. But overall, I am glad that OSHA and EPA exist. I believe that the net impact is positive.

Back To Sarah and the USDA

So Sarah brought cookies to the kids. This is just as wrong as the food pyramid. At least local governments are trying to undo some of the damage caused by the food pyramid by banning sweetened wheat. We can argue about whether they should have a role in it, but at least, finally, the message is good. Sweet wheat is bad for you. Maybe, just maybe, they can begin to undo some of the damage wrought by the USDA.

Note to Sarah: Next time you do this, please have a barbecue with bacon wrapped grass-fed filets, sweet potatoes (no marshmallows), and whole raw milk.

It will send the right message on both the government meddling and on healthy dietary choices. And by the way, it would probably be the best meal the kids have had in their lives.

And USDA, please fix the pyramid. It has been proven dangerous because people comply. Consider something like this food pyramid from Castle Grok.


Addendum: I stumbled across some information on miltary food (MREs), which is what the soldiers eat in the field.


They are 51% carbs, 13% protein, 36% fat, and 1200 Calories. The idea is that they eat 3 of these per day.

For more on Cognitive Dissonance check out:


















For more on diet science and health check out:
Good Calories, Bad Calories

Communication: Owning Your Feelings and The Public Eye

In my Feelings are Facts post, I talked about how to communicate feelings. You say, "I feel frightened when you yell." It puts a simple fact on the table that nobody can dispute or find fault with.

Now, I find myself in a position to modify a part of that. It is absolutely the right thing to say still, but you need to make sure that your audience is at a point where they can hear the truth.

There were two incidents recently where this played out.

Juan Williams of NPR

Juan Williams was employed as a commentator by both National Public Radio (NPR) and Fox News. Being interviewed on The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, he said, "If I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." A clip of the interview is here.

This was part of a larger conversation where Williams was in fact speaking against demonizing an entire religion because of the actions of a relative few. He was actually pointing out that his feelings were not rational and not a basis for any kind of policy.

Regardless, his statement was decried as bigoted and he was promptly fired by NPR. (Don't cry for him though, Fox offered him a $2 million contract).

E4E Take on Williams

So was it bigoted? If he had said "Muslims are evil," then I would agree he was being bigoted and not speaking factually. Demonstrably there are non-evil Muslims. His words however were clean.

He used the word "get" in place of "feel," but I think it's the same. He may be pre-judging the part about their identification, but he simply said that he is nervous around these people who dress differently. He didn't speak badly of them, he owned his feelings.

Bottom Line is that NPR was out to get him and just waiting for him to slip. It's too bad because it closes off an avenue for public rational discourse. This goes beyond political correctness.

Maura Kelly of Marie Claire

Kelly wrote an article about overweight people on TV. Much of the article was fine, she said that our country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, and at the same time, it's probably not good to be glorifying obesity. So far so good.

Then she dropped the bomb.

"So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.


"Now, don't go getting the wrong impression: I have a few friends who could be called plump. I'm not some size-ist jerk. And I also know how tough it can be for truly heavy people to psych themselves up for the long process of slimming down. (For instance, the overweight maintenance guy at my gym has talked to me a little bit about how it seems worthless for him to even try working out, because he's been heavy for as long as he can remember.)


"But ... I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over. It's something they can change, if only they put their minds to it."

She received megabytes of hate mail and issued an apology.

E4E take on Kelly
First of all, she is young (30s), beautiful, single, thin, never had kids, and by her own admission, has never been in love. So, I think it is safe to say that she is a self-absorbed person who can't relate to people who have families.

She expressed feelings adequately. In her first paragraph she said she'd "...be grossed out..." and "...find it aesthetically displeasing...", and "...find it distressing..." So she is expressing feelings of displeasure, distress, and disgust. So from a communication standpoint, what she said is defensible.

What she lacks completely is empathy. I'm sure she works hard to maintain her weight and has time to go to the gym and not have responsibilities for others in her life.  She lives and works in the fashion world bubble and, based on her writing, seems to have no idea of what real life is.

Her weight loss message sounds fine. She goes on to say, "...eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it's cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you're getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more."

You can't argue with that (although it needs more specifics to actually be useful), but it is what millions of people try to do and fail at.

--on soapbox-- It's not because of an epidemic of sloth and gluttony. Rather, it is because so many people's metabolisms have been perturbed by the standard American diet, which has been promoted by the USDA (food pyramid), doctors and congress. People living according to those guidelines are becoming diabetic and succumbing to the symptoms of the metabolic syndrome in increasing numbers. It's good for the grain and pharmaceutical industries though. When obese people try to get help they get the old calories in - calories out pep talk. Yes, most people can overcome obesity, but at a societal level, there is a tremendous amount of education that needs to be done in order to effect significant change. It starts with knowledge.--off soapbox=--

Bottom Line on Kelly is that although her words are fine, she is horribly insensitive to people who have been misled by our culture, our scientists, and our leaders. She owned her feelings, then went on to blame the victims. She chastises them by her false opinion about how easy it is to change. She also has her own body image issues an they spilled over into her writing. Please check out the Single Dad Laughing blog for a more sympathetic perspective of Ms. Kelly.

Overall

I am not defending either of these two people's opinions or feelings. I do not feel scared of Muslims, and I do not feel the same repulsion of large people. But, they owned their own feelings. Being public figures associated with the media, they both should have known better. The emotional intelligence of the American people is not very high, and Williams was probably on the bubble anyway with NPR.

I have no problem with political correctness in the way that I think about it. It boils down to speaking the truth objectively. People who complained were unprepared to hear the truth from these two folks. They wanted or expected them to be perfect, bland people devoid of human emotions, and if they had them to not share those emotions.

We all have to be careful with our words. They matter in many ways. Both of the journalists have a great opportunity to learn that simply saying something right does not mean that it is the right thing to say.

JAMA: Dietary Guidelines in the 21st Century - a Time for Food

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has a commentary in the August 11 edition entitled: "Dietary Guidelines in the 21st Century - a Time for Food" by Darius Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH and David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD.

The purpose of this post is to summarize and review the article and to talk about whether it is consistent with the e4e dietary recommendations. Special thanks to Ashley at itsofinterest.com for providing me with a copy of the article.

Commentary Overview

The second part of the title is a great start. A time for food. The article itself is in three parts, I will summarize the parts below.

Section 1 - Introduction
In the introduction in the commentary, they talk about how the last 200 years have been characterized by the discovery of finer and finer detail of the nutrients and nutrient deficiencies that led to widespread disease. This has led to a reductionist perspective in our food choices.

Section 2 - Dietary Guidelines in the Age of Chronic Disease

This reductionist view led to guidelines in the 70s and 80s around minimum and maximum intakes of nutrients. Although appealing, the RDAs have not worked, perhaps simply because of the complexity involved in translating these recommendations into real dietary choices. I will copy the last paragraph of this section directly with some highlights of my own. It is an amazing admission.

"Nutritional science has advanced rapidly, and the evi-
dence now demonstrates the major limitations of nutrient-
based metrics for prevention of chronic disease. The propor-
tion of total energy from fat appears largely unrelated to risk
of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, or obesity. Satu-
rated fat—targeted by nearly all nutrition-related profes-
sional organizations and governmental agencies—has little re-
lation to heart disease within most prevailing dietary patterns.
Typical recommendations to consume at least half of total
energy as carbohydrate, a nutrient for which humans have no
absolute requirement, conflate foods with widely divergent
physiologic effects (eg, brown rice, white bread, apples). Foods
are grouped based on protein content (chicken, fish, beans,
nuts) despite demonstrably different health effects. With few
exceptions (eg, omega-3 fats, trans fat, salt), individual com-
pounds in isolation have small effects on chronic diseases.8
Thus, little of the information found on food labels’ “nutri-
tion facts” panels provides useful guidance for selecting
healthier foods to prevent chronic disease."

All I can say is WOW.
To sum up:
Fat ingestion, in general, is fine.
Saturated Fat is not bad.
Carbohydrate food sources are not necessary and are not created equal.
Protein food sources are not created equal.
Individual compounds in isolation are largely unimportant.
Food labels suck.


The only thing that I wildly disagree with in this paragraph is that they included salt as a compound as an exception to the compounds in isolation comment. Salt is nowhere close to the villain that people make it out to be.

Section 3 - The Need for a New Approach

This is the longest section, and I would have broken it into at least two parts, but I digress.

They start this section by citing associations between food classes and disease from a paper called "Dietary Patterns and risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all causes in a prospective cohort of women", by Heideman, Schulze, Franco, et al.

They go on to say that the effects of foods "likely reflect complex, synergistic contributions from
and interactions among food structure, preparation methods, fatty acid profile, carbohydrate quality (e.g, glycemic index, fiber content), protein type, micronutrients, and phytochemicals." So far so good.

Then they say that "Healthy eating patterns share many characteristics, emphasizing whole or minimally processed foods and vegetable oils, with few highly processed foods or sugary beverages. Such diets are also naturally lower in salt, trans fat, saturated fat, refined carbohydrates, and added sugars; are higher in unsaturated fats, fiber, antioxidants, minerals, and phytochemicals; and are more satiating." This is mostly ok, but they are somewhat contradicting their earlier statement that saturated fat is ok. They're still missing the boat on salt, and unsaturated fats are a mixed bag. Unsaturated fat is not by itself good or bad. The devil is in the details.

They continue by saying that the nutrient based approach to diet has fostered products that replace fat with refined carbohydrate, "providing an aura of healthiness but without
actual health benefits." A national obesity prevention program categorizes whole-milk yogurt and cheese with french fries and donuts as foods together (eat only occasionally). Puts sauteed vegetables  and canned tuna in the same category as pretzels and processed cheese spread (eat sometimes).  Puts trimmed beef and vegetables and fat free mayonnaise as foods to eat almost anytime. They fortify processed food parts with vitamins and call them healthy.

Recently, there has been movement towards recommending food rather than simply nutrients. Nutrients are still important, we should not simply throw away the last several decades. Although this is a promising direction, they believe that much research work still remains to be done.

They finish with the following:

"The relatively recent focus on nutrients parallels an increas-
ing discrepancy between theory and practice: the greater the
focus on nutrients, the less healthful foods have become. As
national and international organizations update dietary guide-
lines, nutrient targets should largely be replaced by food-based
targets. Such change would facilitate translation to the pub-
lic, correspond with scientific advances in chronic disease pre-
vention, mitigate industry manipulation, and remedy wide-
spread misperceptions about what constitutes healthful diets.

"Although this approach may seem radical, it actually rep-
resents a return to more traditional, time-tested ways of eat-
ing. Healthier food-based dietary patterns have existed for
generations among some populations. Modern nutritional
science now provides substantial evidence for how foods and
food-based patterns affect health, guiding the design of more
effective approaches for the prevention of chronic disease."

e4e Take On This

Wow. This is great. It is generally consistent with the e4e recommendations in, "Eat Food, Light on Carbs, Mindfully." I talk about some general targets for macronutrients, depending on goals, but interestingly once you go light on carbs and stick to the fringes of your grocery store (food), it's hard to go too far wrong.

Regarding my comments on salt, please read the article "The (Political) Science of Salt" by Gary Taubes.

The 2010 food pyramid looks like it will be more of the same old stuff. This commentary represents a significant step towards dietary sanity in a mainstream medical journal. Is sanity finally winning?

Sex Addicts? - Tiger Woods? Spitzer? Sanford? Moffat? The SEC?

I'll start with some discussion of sex addiction or sexaholism. Addiction, in general, is a continuum. It is difficult and arbitrary to draw a line between addiction, obsession, kinky, or just plain love.
 
Sex addiction is tricky. If one is a sex addict, simply going cold turkey is not a good long-term solution. Sex, like food, is a part of the human condition and a good thing by itself. It's only when sex or food take on a purpose and control one's life that they become addictions.

Addictions aren't good because ultimately,  "Mental health is commitment to reality at any cost." The following folks did not exhibit that. They put up tremendous stakes, ranging from presidential ambitions to the health of their wives, to vast sums of money. They convinced themselves that they could get away with it. So basically they had unlimited downside. The upside, you decide...

Tiger On The Road

Tiger is the latest in a string of high-profile Americans who have been identified as sex addicts (or possible ones). Mark Sanford and Elliot Spitzer are a couple other recent examples.

Tiger did everything that sex addicts do. He risked everything in his private life to spend a night or two with women who were very much out of his league. He had unprotected sex, thereby endangering his wife's health as well as his own. He risked hundreds of millions of dollars.

Here's a cynical view on it.

What makes an addict or, more specifically, a sex addict? And what distinguishes a sex addict from a "player"?

Infidelity News

SF Examiner

Tiger, in his public apology, used a lot of the right words that one who is receiving treatment for sex addiction would use. Many criticized him for his scripted speech, but I think it was a great first step.

e4e Verdict: Tiger is a sex addict. Risking and losing tens of millions of dollars, his reputation, family, and health to have sex with women well below his status. His only gain here was sex on the road.


The Curious Case of Eliot Spitzer

Another prominent sex scandal had to do with Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York. His case is different in a few ways than Tiger's. First, he wasn't having sex with random people while on the road. He chose to use prostitutes. And not just prostitutes, but very expensive ones.

The prostitutes that he was using charged several thousand per night, and reputedly provided a "girlfriend experience." It is more than just having sex with someone, but actually going on a date. Conversing, a meal, perhaps a show followed by making out, and sex is the modus operandi.

Spitzer had the high rank and a lot to lose by his actions, so that certainly fits the mold. I wonder if his case is a little different. He is essence was going out with actresses, women who knew how to be a blank slate, and as Sasha Grey says in The Girlfriend Experience, "Sometimes clients think they want the real you, but, at the end of the day, they want what they want you to be. They want you to be something else... If they wanted the real you, they wouldn't be paying you." and "You really have to adapt and become something that they want." So they come across as a young, beautiful, intelligent girl who is truly interested in him as a person--perhaps what his wife was like when they were courting.

He feels that spark again that has been gone for so long--the first stage of falling in love. Deep down, presumably, he knows that it is a facade, an image of a real relationship with a real person, but he pays the big bucks to get that feeling again. From a political standpoint, he doesn't have to get divorced and he doesn't have to deal with a real relationship. I am guessing that he saw this as a lower risk way to have an affair. It's all upside...

Until you get caught. Affairs are not illegal and would perhaps be less damaging to a political career. That's why I think that he is towards the middle of the sex and love addiction spectrum. His motives were more about the thrill of a new relationship rather than simply notches in the bedpost, but he took big risks in his personal life. I am assuming that his sex was protected. If not, that would put him further towards the addict side.

Here are some other views on Spitzer.

Often times these high-end prostitutes do not even have sex with their clients.

This article from Slate has the following quote:

"The last time I met him, I gave him a bath," she told me. "I told him he was the most sensitive man I'd ever met. I never tell him he's a piece of shit; I make him feel like superman." (This was not about Spitzer).

e4e Verdict: More love addict than sex addict. Definite problems by risking his career and marriage for thrills. If he had marital problems he should have dealt with those directly. I'm not justifying his actions. I suspect he was lonely and not receiving emotional props at home.

Mark Sanford and His Argentine Girlfriend

In contrast to Spitzer, Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina was apparently having an actual girlfriend experience. He, in essence, threw out his marriage and possibly his political career for an Argentine woman, who was not a prostitute.

e4e Verdict: I don't think he's a sex addict, just a male who is in the first stage of love, where his hormones are completely dominating his common sense.

Robert Moffat of IBM

Although less well-known than some of the others, Moffat was a high level executive at IBM who got mixed up with an attractive analyst/former beauty queen who fed information from him to a hedge fund operator. He lost something on the order of $65MM. His wife of over 30 years had her MS flare up. Moffat apparently did not benefit financially from the arrangement, but that is not required to convict him. The only need to demonstrate that he obtained a benefit of some kind. Receiving sexual favors is considered a benefit.

Moffat is quoted in the article as saying, "Everyone wants to make this about sex. Danielle had an extensive network of business people. And she added clarity about what was going on in the business world...I know in my heart what this relationship was about: clarity in the business environment." The author reveals his skepticism by saying, "He may even believe that."

e4e Verdict: He is delusional. He was getting exciting sexual favors in exchange for information, and rationalized it away by his lack of financial benefit and by convincing hinself that he was getting "clarity in the business environment." Moffat is not mentally healthy. He is probably a sex or love addict of some kind. There was not enough information in the article to make a clear call. He did some really foolish things though, had no upside and lots of downside.

There is an excellent article in Fortune on this if you want more details.

The SEC?

What does the SEC have to do with this? In this article from the Atlantic Monthly, the author asks the question, "Did porn cause the financial crisis?".

e4e Verdict: not addicts, but the regulators were fiddling with themselves excessively during work hours, as the financial system was burning. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those involved are sex addicts. Maybe they're just immature.


Some additional reading and resources:

Helen Fisher on Why We Love and Cheat in Ted Talks

Willard Harley from Marriage Builders on how infidelity can sometimes be misinterpreted as sex addiction

Scientific American article on Why Men Buy Sex
Covers all the bases.

Hormones and Hunger--Which is the chicken; which is the egg?

Recently, a person close to me revealed that he had been using anabolic steroids for almost a year in an attempt to increase his weightlifting. This caused quite an uproar in his family for a number of reasons (it was done surreptitiously, school studies doing poorly, misalignment in prioritization, etc.). That's not what I want to talk about though.

I want to talk about the calories in v calories out concept.

So first a little about steroids:

from Wikipedia:
Body composition and strength improvements
A review spanning more than three decades of experimental studies in men found that body weight may increase by 2–5 kg as a result of short term (10 weeks) [anabolic steroid] use, which may be attributed mainly to an increase of lean mass. Animal studies also found that fat mass was reduced, but most studies in humans failed to elucidate significant fat mass decrements. The effects on lean body mass have been shown to be dose dependent. Both muscle hypertrophy and the formation of new muscle fibers have been observed. The hydration of lean mass remains unaffected by AAS use, although small increments of blood volume cannot be ruled out.

During the year that he was on steroids, he gained about 50 pounds. There was a lot of muscle as well as fat. He was continually ravenously hungry. In that time, he ate "everything that didn't eat him first" according to his mother. Grocery bills in his home went up by about $500 per month.

So the question is did he gain weight because he was eating more, or did he eat more because he was gaining weight? I believe the main influence was the latter. I believe that he was forcing food in as well, so perhaps to some extent that forcing increased his fat mass, but his ravenous hunger was coming from someplace. It was the change in his hormonal environment caused by the steroids.

So obviously, this is not directly applicable to you or me, but the question I put to you is "how different is this really from the normal obese person?" Changes in hormones caused by stress, exercise, sleep, or lack thereof, the foods we eat, the bad stuff we eat that we call foods and the music we listen to, all change our mix of hormones. So what causes the obese to eat more than they consume? Are they eating because they're getting fat or getting fat because they are eating? Understanding the arrow of causality is fundamental to fixing obesity.

Our national assumption that overeating causes obesity has failed miserably (after all calories in minus calories out is the first law of thermodynamics). It's time to take an engineering approach and understand the real root cause, not just the simple-minded math/physics.