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{"id":3910,"date":"2015-02-25T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/?p=3910"},"modified":"2015-02-21T16:55:43","modified_gmt":"2015-02-21T21:55:43","slug":"lent-weight-watchers-and-aristotle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2015\/02\/lent-weight-watchers-and-aristotle\/","title":{"rendered":"Lent, Weight Watchers, and Aristotle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"Chocolate$ <\/a> I associate dieting with Lent.\u00a0 Not because I equate fasting with dieting, but because of a double coincidence.\u00a0 Ten years ago I was extremely overweight, and my doctor put me on a strict diet.\u00a0 It was a couple of days before Ash Wednesday, and I came home and told Jane, \u201cI\u2019m giving up food for Lent.\u201d\u00a0 It was one of the those jokes of the \u201cfunny\/painful\u201d variety.<\/p>\n

That diet was success; I lost lots of weight, and kept it off for quite a while; but a couple of weeks ago I went to do the doctor and was once again told that I had to lose quite a lot of weight; and this doctor told me to consider Weight Watchers.\u00a0 And so, once again, I prepared to \u201cgive up food for Lent,\u201d and two weeks ago my wife and I joined WW.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d never done WW before, and had no real idea what to expect.\u00a0 I knew there\u2019d be weigh-ins and calorie counting and like that, but beyond that nothing.\u00a0 At the meeting this morning, though, I began to see that there\u2019s quite a lot more to it than just counting points, and inevitably began to think about Aristotle.<\/p>\n

Really.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n

The speaker today said that we have two appetites: the homeostatic appetite and the hedonic appetite.\u00a0 The former tells us when we need to eat so that we don\u2019t die; the latter tells us that we\u2019d like eating (or not eating) this food in front of us whether we need it or not.\u00a0 The trick, clearly, is to bring our hedonic appetite in line with our homeostatic appetite, so that the amount we enjoy eating is what we in fact need to live and maintain our weight.<\/p>\n

And I thought, \u201cHe\u2019s talking about virtue!\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to food, the virtue of temperance involves eating what we need (and enjoying it!): which is to say, bringing our hedonic appetite in line with our homeostatic appetite.\u00a0 Further, Aristotle would tell us, each virtue is a happy mean between two extremes: in this case, gluttony on the one hand, and anorexia on the other.\u00a0 And it\u2019s clear that having a hedonic appetite much bigger or much smaller than it should be leads to just these two extremes.<\/p>\n

It fascinates me that WW is teaching virtue, but it shouldn\u2019t surprise me; natural virtue isn\u2019t pie-in-the-sky morality, something for people with high ideals, but rather virtue is the rock-hard practical way of being happy in this life.\u00a0 If WW is to really help people change to a healthier lifestyle, it has to be based in reality, and that means virtue.<\/p>\n

What fascinates me is that WW has quantified the homeostatic appetite as an aid for 21^{st<\/sup> Americans like me.\u00a0 We are so used to being well-fed that it is hard for us to know when we\u2019ve eaten just what we need.\u00a0 But WW\u2019s algorithms tell us.\u00a0 When I joined, I was given a daily points budget calibrated to my weight; and I was told that if I kept within my points budget I\u2019d lose weight.\u00a0 I was skeptical; but it seems to be working.<\/p>\n}

In the meantime, I won\u2019t tell you what I\u2019m doing for Lent; but I can tell you that it doesn\u2019t involve food in any way, shape, or form.<\/p>\n

____
\nphoto credit: cake 004<\/a> via photopin<\/a> (license)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"