The Sad Truth.

Freud was right--but not for the reasons he thought.

Freud famously argued (in Civilization and Its Discontents) that human beings cannot be happy--at least not to the extent that they are civilized. Civilization--cultivation, being brought up into specific modes of conduct--involves giving up on primal impulses.

We defer, deflect, sublimate, and generally just go without the most basic forms of instinctual gratification: punching in the nose the person who ticks us off, jumping on the person who makes us hot and bothered, scarfing down the food that makes our mouths water.

Instead, we make a cutting remark or fantasize about punching the guy in the nose, try to appear alluring and send charming emails, wait until dinner and then eat a sensible portion.

But not the last one.

If you belive Darwin--and not everyone does--human beings today are the result of natural selection.

The human beings who weren't very hungry did not get out of the cave to find food, and they died off before they could have children.

The human beings who could not accumulate lots of nice fat died off during the long harsh winters or during seasons when food was less abundant, if "abundant" is even the right word.

Cut to: the 21st century. We have food aplenty. And not just any food. But the most caloric, concentrated, processed, sugar- and fat-laden food available to the widest population any civilization has ever seen in the history of the planet.

Indeed, the cheaper food is even more laden with calories, fat and sugar than the healthier stuff: think the dollar value meal at the fast food joint vs. the baby organic vegetables from that very chic market.

The sad truth is: our bodies constantly tell us we are hungry.

They are not going to stop.

If our bodies hadn't told our ancestors were hungry, they would have died.

So now we're stuck with bodies set for scarcity and adversity in times of horrid excess.

There is only one thing to day.

You must recognize that hunger is not going to go away.

A lot of diets will tell you that on those eating plans you will "never be hungry." Eat only fats and proteins and you'll "never be hungry." Eat only grains and raw vegetables and you'll "never be hungry."

Those things may be true, but do you really want to eat that way? No bananas? Or no fat?

Not really.

The truth is far sadder.

You will always be hungry. At some point, for some length of time. That is reality.

You cannot eat based on hunger.

You cannot eat what you want, when you want, in the quantities you want--until you are full.

You cannot eat every time you are hungry, so that you are no longer hungry.

You cannot use food to chase away all hunger all the time.

At some point you must accept that hunger is just a fact of life.

Freud thought we were destined to be miserable because we were civilized. But when it comes to food, the culprits are natural selection together with a capitalist society based on selling us crap we don't need and that's not particularly good for us. (That is: we're only miserable food-wise because biology imposes on us one set of demands and society another, not that the two are implacable opposites, as Freud rather dourly supposed.)

Freud or no Freud, it's not as bad as all that.

It simply means that you must use some other basis for eating.

You must eat sensibly and rationally based on common sense that everyone knows about food, eating and diet.

Yes, I'm talking portion control. I'm talking about eating a reasonable amount, an amount that will stop the main hunger pangs, an amount that is healthful and nutritious.

And then stopping. Push yourself away from the table. Do not have seconds or thirds. Do not have a big desert. Do not try to eat until you cannot eat any more. You will succeed--but only temporarily, and the victory is really a defeat.

The plan is simple. 1. Eat at regular intervals. 2. Control your portions. 3. Avoid excessive calories--excess fat, highly refined products like sugar.

In future entries, I'll talk more about how to re-organize your eating, how to re-educate yourself about how to eat, what to eat, how much to eat.

Basically: you need to find out how much is a reasonable amount for you and for the weight you want to be.

Again, it's not rocket science. You might not need any more help or advice at this point. You could figure out the rest yourself.

But come back, and I'll share with you my experiences, techniques, methods, tips and tricks.

It gets a lot more fun when you actually get to focus on the food you get to eat.

But the first step is simply to recognizing that jamming as much food into your body as it demands is what got you where you are, and it won't work to get you where you know you need to be.

--E. R. O'Neill