Tag: health

Id, ego, superego

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Life is complicated. There are so many things we need to tend to. And Sigmund Freud understood this in simpler (or more complex) terms.

In talking of the psyche of people used the terms id, ego and superego. Basically, the id is what you want (your desires, wants and needs). The superego is what is expected and demanded of you from society. And the ego is what you do when taking into consideration of the superego (pressures from society and culture) and the id (your personal urges). These three need to be balanced for a person’s well-being.

Food for Thought – What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

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Peanut ButterHow deceiving food portions can be. No wonder we have trouble with moderation. Here is 200 calories in the form of peanut butter (38 grams).

Moderation in eating

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At my annual medical checkup the doctor told me that I need to lose weight. Not much – 3-5 kilograms. I am borderline ‘metabolic’ as he put it. He said ‘reduce your food intake and do exercise’. Moderate exercise I do but reducing my food intake has been a tough one. I don’t eat that much already. To reduce anymore seems all the more difficult becasue of I will have nothing to eat.

It is said the sloth (the furry tree-dwelling animal) moves as slowly as it does in order to conserve precious energy. This means it doesn’t require as much food also. Your intake should reflect your expenditure, I guess.

Now what the doctor was saying is very Buddhism – we need moderation. Obviously I am taking in more calories than I need to otherwise my body would not need to store it up as fat. So let’s see how I go with my diet in the next year.

World Population Day

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Today is World Population Day.

Theme this year is Universal Access to Reproductive Health Services and it is part of the Millenium Development Goals for 2015.