I can't possibly debug that statement without knowing what you're eating and when.

JS

I'm still trying to reconcile my desire for that to be true while I'm trying to lose weight with my personal experience that I have to feel some hunger all the time to actually lose weight.

That's an interesting perspective: restrained eating as a learnable skill. 

JS

You're correct that it's not good to push an analogy too far.

However, my point wasn't to liken hunger to practicing music: it was only to demonstrate that we're not perfectly rational beings whose drives are completely under our own conscious control.  I hope that much was clear.

JS

But my point was that the apparent of lack of control when playing the piano for the first time is a completely different nature than the lack of control found when hunger is involved, and so a parallel between the two can't be drawn so easily.

As a musician and sportsman, I'm intimately familiar with the issues of skills practice.

I believe your point is that the PFC can maintain control if we move slowly enough, which is often true (although some motions can't be performed in slow motion due to the constant nature of gravity and the viscosity of air).  However, often even slow-motion isn't enough, and we need to break down motions into smaller and simpler parts that can be commanded by the PFC.  Even something as simple as hitting a drum with a drumstick involves a surprising sequence of finger motions that isn't obvious to the observer (it involves the little and ring fingers) and must usually be demonstrated and learned by parts.

However, the PFC isn't in control at real-time speeds.  What we call "muscle memory" is how we learn these new motions: whether hitting a drum, throwing a punch, or kicking a ball.  I don't think it's an issue of slow in/fast out: I believe that the structure of the brain (the forebrain is a thin layer on top of everything else, including the sensory and motor cortex), as well as the experience of millions, argues that motions are learned by these deeper brain structures and triggered/commanded by the PFC.

Further, I believe the "slow input" is a matter of retraining these deeper structures to respond appropriately: instead of cringing when someone throws a punch, we can train ourselves to slip it or block it.  But this takes time and repetition -- otherwise known as "practice" -- which proves to me that real-life skills are not under direct control of the PFC.

JS

Practice is the act of repeating systematically for the purpose of developing, improving and maintaining skill. Have you ever seen pros practice their techniques in slow motion? They are not practicing old motions here, they are developing new ones. Everything with any degree of complexity like sports, music and martial arts require lots of practice, but most importantly require one to learn the motions slowly at first just to learn them, and to learn them properly. This is nothing to do with the activity itself but with how we learn new motions. We learn motions independently of speed. Rather, we can't learn new motions at full speed especially complex motions like playing the piano (multiple fingers and the feet work simultaneously) or the drums, fighting (legs, feet, hands, eyes, etc, all working together and simultaneously again) or basically any motion that requires more than the simple push of a button. When we try to learn those new complex motions, the old ones take over. This is probably why it gives the impression that we (our PFC) are not in control of our actions.

It occurred to me that our PFC might act in a similar fashion as flash memory. It's slow to put stuff in, but once it's in, it's quick to read it back. Rather, _slow_ means "to put stuff in", and _fast_ means "to read it back out". So when we try to learn motions at full speed, since it's fast, we default to "read back what was written previously", when what we really want to do is "overwrite what's already in there with something different".

Anyway, this is why I think that your reference to endless hours of practice is more confusing than anything else with regards to our PFC, willpower and hunger.

That makes sense.  When pounded with negative stimulus, people will naturally seek out a compensating positive stimulus -- in this case, the reward of snack food.  People strongly seek out a certain amount of reward in their life...

...which is why I don't believe that "just eat bland food" is a good long-term solution.  Reward restriction has similar problems as calorie restriction: just as calorie restriction doesn't address the metabolic problems that caused us to become obese, reward restriction doesn't address the underlying problems that drive us to seek reward through food.

Thank you for the reference!

JS

As far as "meats don't have vitamin C", that's true...but 1) an
all-meat diet doesn't appear to result in deficiency (see: Stefansson), only a "mostly
meat" diet, and most importantly 2) I don't advocate an all-meat diet! 

As I've noted repeatedly, my vegetable intake has gone up since upping
my meat/egg intake and removing grains.  I don't push people to consume
vegetables, because you'll naturally find yourself desiring them once
the empty starches are gone.

Can you point me to rebuttals of the studies which show a blunting of the exercise response?  I'd like to see them, because they seem very solid to me.  The mechanism seems simple: exogenous antioxidants trick the body into not performing its own free radicalscavenging and damage repair...but I'm open to correction here.

Furthermore, I strongly disagree with your characterization of that blunting as unimportant.  It's not just building muscles -- it's improving our endurance via increased mitochondrial efficiency and capacity.  I don't just enjoy going out and doing long hikes or long rides because of the ride itself: I enjoy them because they make me more capable of going to even more interesting places in the future!  I'm not interested in just being alive a bit longer, I'm interested in being the best I can be and doing the most I can do.  And I know from experience that I'm dramatically less stressed when I'm accomplishing things than when I'm stuck in a rut.

Also, I think we have to be careful assuming that since most animals make a lot of endogenous vitamin C, that humans and great apes need just as much.  In order to compensate, we've evolved very efficient recycling machinery for the vitamin C we do ingest...so there's no direct dose equivalence between what they make and what we require.
Purely as anecdotal evidence, I had a doctor a long time ago that was into megadosing Vitamin C for all sorts of issues, and it never gave me anything but the farts when I hit bowel tolerance.  So while I agree that deficiency, including subclinical scurvy, may be an issue (yes, I follow and respect the Jaminets) I don't see a reason to destroy our body's ability to adapt to its environment for the putative health benefits of megadosing.  But again, if you've got references to controlled trials that show solid benefits to high doses of Vitamin C, I'm all ears.

JS

High fat diet also probably makes endotoxin load greater and endotoxins can be completely detoxified with vitamin C, etc.

Adrenals require Vitamin C a lot, and any stress during this diet, including the stress of the diet itself which is typical for the starters will remove all remaining vitamin C stores from the tissues.

I am aware of the few studies linking vitamin C supplementation and reduced response to exercise, but, there are hundreds other showing different results. Even if true, its more important to prevent injuries then to build muscles optimally. Also, excercise also produces endotoxin burden. You need to look at the whole picture.
I find it silly to question vitamin C in exercise to be honest, since all animals except humans and friends don't make it and I don't think natural predators are having problems in that manner :), all optidosing much higher level of C via liver or kidnies.

While I appreciate the source of your info (gettingstronger, great site for hormesis research) its highly biased in some moments. Most of the studies referenced in that page are rebutted multiple times so far and picking up few that are negative is nothing else but citation bias.

How is the diet I propose deficient in vitamin C?

Also, there are major problems with vitamin C supplementation, especially if you're active:

"Antioxidants prevent health-promoting effects of physical exercise in humans"
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/05/11/0903485106.abstract

"Oral administration of vitamin C decreases muscle mitochondrial biogenesis and hampers training-induced adaptations in endurance performance"
http://www.ajcn.org/content/87/1/142.long

JS