FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is Survival Mode
Published 7.22.2025: Returning to the vegan seminar, "The Truth about Losing Weight," the next presentation is from the wife and husband team of Dr. Alona Pulde and Dr. Matthew Lederman. The title is "Chronic Stress and Food Addiction" but the title at the top comes from my notes.
In my notes, I have written that FOMO (defined in the title) is a "flight of fight" mode. It's not a relaxed state, it's a survival mode. I have never thought about it in those terms, so that was a new thought to me. I have very few notes on this talk (to be honest, I was wearing out at this point in the seminar, and the gentle reader will note that my write ups have gotten briefer and briefer…) I did save the slides to the presentation, and most of the comments that follow are from my late rereading of those slides.
They (although I think it was her making the presentation) begin by noting that most Americans don't sleep well, and don't wake up refreshed. I don't think that's a new observation (though I will go ahead and guess that the answer is to become vegan… or at least eat more plants). Which is not exactly an earth shattering prediction, as this is a vegan seminar.
Multitasking, they note, is bad (I've never been good at it) and causes the loss of sustained attention. Cell phones or portable phones have caused a rise in so-called multitasking— I say "so-called" because I really don't think that most people truly "multitask." What they do is focus sequentially on different tasks or topics, and don't do any of them well. At least in my experience.
Next they point out that the cost of disconnection is dire, though I don't remember if that is a dunk on online interactions over real life interactions or not. Their basic point is that people are trying to do too much, and in doing so they are causing a lot of their problems. The human body has a limit, and too many people try to exceed that limit. (At this point I should acknowledge that these are MY comments based on the slides, I have no notes taken at this time to back this up.)
Next they discuss that evolutionarily, flight or fight was useful to humanity, because there could be a lion or tiger in the next bush, and we needed to be ready. In today's world that same flight or fight tendency still exists, but few of us are threatened by lions or tigers (or anything) in the nearby bush.
So their point appears to be that because of this fight or flight we eat ultra-processed foods (UPFs). UPFs that happen to be hyper-palatable, that is. In any event, focusing on the nine (9) pillars helps avoid the UPFs.
The nine pillars are divided into two types, external and internal. External pillars are the natural world, spirituality, work and family and friends. Internal pillars are play, activity, nutrition, and sleep. The two types are held together in the middle by the self, which is, I guess, the 9th pillar.
Most of it is what you would expect, if your lifestyle is out of whack chances are your diet is as well. And of course, they are promoting a whole foods plant based (vegan) diet. They do believe in calories in vs calories out (CICO), otherwise known as the energy balance. I prefer energy balance because I realize that the energy out portion of the equation includes a lot of hormonal stuff. CICO suggests that the relationship is linear, but it is not. Not even for vegan diet followers.
She notes that stressed is dessert spelled backwards— which I had never noticed, which is why I noted it. Much of their talk (you can tell that they actually work with real people who struggle to go and stay vegan) was how to make the change to a whole foods plant based diet as easy as possible. White knuckling it (a phrase I've heard obesity doctors use more than once) in the case of temptations won't cut it.
I don't know that I've ever seen her, but I've seen her husband in vegan films and on the Chef AJ show. He has assumed the supportive role (and explaining the science) as AJ navigates her cancer (which grew during the 3 years she delayed in getting treatment.) In fact, if McDougall were still alive, it's not clear that she would be treating it yet. He advice to her was to never go to a doctor again. But he died at 77 (younger than my very ill father) and she has gone a different way. None of which has anything to do with the presentation, so I'll end it here.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT any type of medical professional. Do NOT take medical advice from me!!
In my notes, I have written that FOMO (defined in the title) is a "flight of fight" mode. It's not a relaxed state, it's a survival mode. I have never thought about it in those terms, so that was a new thought to me. I have very few notes on this talk (to be honest, I was wearing out at this point in the seminar, and the gentle reader will note that my write ups have gotten briefer and briefer…) I did save the slides to the presentation, and most of the comments that follow are from my late rereading of those slides.
They (although I think it was her making the presentation) begin by noting that most Americans don't sleep well, and don't wake up refreshed. I don't think that's a new observation (though I will go ahead and guess that the answer is to become vegan… or at least eat more plants). Which is not exactly an earth shattering prediction, as this is a vegan seminar.
Multitasking, they note, is bad (I've never been good at it) and causes the loss of sustained attention. Cell phones or portable phones have caused a rise in so-called multitasking— I say "so-called" because I really don't think that most people truly "multitask." What they do is focus sequentially on different tasks or topics, and don't do any of them well. At least in my experience.
Next they point out that the cost of disconnection is dire, though I don't remember if that is a dunk on online interactions over real life interactions or not. Their basic point is that people are trying to do too much, and in doing so they are causing a lot of their problems. The human body has a limit, and too many people try to exceed that limit. (At this point I should acknowledge that these are MY comments based on the slides, I have no notes taken at this time to back this up.)
Next they discuss that evolutionarily, flight or fight was useful to humanity, because there could be a lion or tiger in the next bush, and we needed to be ready. In today's world that same flight or fight tendency still exists, but few of us are threatened by lions or tigers (or anything) in the nearby bush.
So their point appears to be that because of this fight or flight we eat ultra-processed foods (UPFs). UPFs that happen to be hyper-palatable, that is. In any event, focusing on the nine (9) pillars helps avoid the UPFs.
The nine pillars are divided into two types, external and internal. External pillars are the natural world, spirituality, work and family and friends. Internal pillars are play, activity, nutrition, and sleep. The two types are held together in the middle by the self, which is, I guess, the 9th pillar.
Most of it is what you would expect, if your lifestyle is out of whack chances are your diet is as well. And of course, they are promoting a whole foods plant based (vegan) diet. They do believe in calories in vs calories out (CICO), otherwise known as the energy balance. I prefer energy balance because I realize that the energy out portion of the equation includes a lot of hormonal stuff. CICO suggests that the relationship is linear, but it is not. Not even for vegan diet followers.
She notes that stressed is dessert spelled backwards— which I had never noticed, which is why I noted it. Much of their talk (you can tell that they actually work with real people who struggle to go and stay vegan) was how to make the change to a whole foods plant based diet as easy as possible. White knuckling it (a phrase I've heard obesity doctors use more than once) in the case of temptations won't cut it.
I don't know that I've ever seen her, but I've seen her husband in vegan films and on the Chef AJ show. He has assumed the supportive role (and explaining the science) as AJ navigates her cancer (which grew during the 3 years she delayed in getting treatment.) In fact, if McDougall were still alive, it's not clear that she would be treating it yet. He advice to her was to never go to a doctor again. But he died at 77 (younger than my very ill father) and she has gone a different way. None of which has anything to do with the presentation, so I'll end it here.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT any type of medical professional. Do NOT take medical advice from me!!