Any nerd can do it

In the more and more frequently visible category of “Geeks with Too Much Time on Their Hands,” we find the HAPIFork.  That’s right.  The HAPIFork is among the new products on display at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. 

HAPIFork’s developers remind us that regulating the speed at which we eat may help with weight loss and blah blah blah blah blah!  

They go on to say that it takes about 20 minutes for our stomachs to alert our brains that we’re full; and eating faster means we consume superfluous calories… before… the message is… delivered…   

Oh!  ‘Scuse me.  I nodded off. 

Responding to the communications standoff between gray matter and the gut, this latest marvel of good intentions gone horribly awry records how often and how quickly it moves from your plate to your mouth.   

Looking like a smaller version of your typical fast-and-furious shoveling device attached to an electronic toothbrush, HAPIFork can track the number of mouthfuls per minute and per meal.  It even times the intervals between each bite. 

Then, and here’s the fun part, it lights up and vibrates to alert the conscientious diner when there are fewer than 10 seconds between forkfuls.  Isn’t that nice?!  And you can carry it in your pocket right into the French Laundry. 

We are not told what the consequences might be if an epicure violates the prescribed meter for healthful consumption:  For example, if you’re too zealous with the mac and cheese, does HAPIFork post a snide remark on your Facebook page, issue a citation or simply deliver an electric shock?   

Skeptics argue that eating slowly with a regular fork can provide the same benefits as HAPIFork.  But regular forks don't come with their own tracking software!  And, at $99, the HAPIFork will reduce your budget for groceries, a proven technique for cutting calories. 

In a related story, Japanese engineers at the Fukuoka Institute ofTechnology are finalizing a safety system for cars that will provide speeding drivers with specific feedback regarding what could happen if they don't slow down.   

“Specific?” you say.  “How so?” 

"You would die if you crashed right now," is a message that could be delivered if you’re hurtling toward the back of the car in front of you in your righteous effort to keep that jerk in the SUV from squeezing into the space.      

In a most delicate manner, the developers of this patent pending “safe driving promotion system" assure us that "a sense of danger will be awakened in drivers that makes them voluntarily refrain from dangerous driving."   

How very kind. 

Their system works by using the different types of sensors already found in a typical modern car or submarine - radar, ultrasound, sonar and laser - to work out the kinetic energy, compute the distance to the vehicle in front and keep watch on its brake lights.  

Then, like a bookmaker in hell, an onboard app that has learned the driver's behavior and reaction time over all their past trips calculates the odds of a collision.  If the driver is careening like a lunatic, it then displays the scale of damage that could result and generates warnings like, “Hey you!  Behind the wheel!  Back off before you sustain a ‘whiplash injury due to a rear-end shunt.’”

A what?!  I’m all about clarity, but I don't want to know about a “rear-end shunt.”  They’re right.  I’d probably slow down.

Anyway, the engineering team believes current warning systems which only show the distance between the driver and the car ahead aren't enough since they don’t “awaken drivers to the real dangers of speeding.”  Hence, their proposed warning of an impending “fatal, car-crushing collision with fire.”  Got it.   

Thank you.  I’m definitely awake now.  And grateful that the thing is display only - no screaming or gnashing of teeth.

Inspired by such technological innovations, I’m working on a hybrid of these two gadgets:  A safe-eating meter that sounds an alarm and displays the disasters that will ensue if a bon vivant gets too happy at the table and burns rubber between her appetizer and dessert.  

“Slow down!” it’ll shout.  “You’re approaching a ‘no-more-zipping your skinny jeans zone!’”   

Las Vegas, here I come!

Chocolate and the Suggestible Mind

My newest buddy whom I’ve never met, Charles Duhigg, journalist and author of The Power of Habit:  Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, has the best idea I’ve heard in a while that could go wildly awry:  He says to form a good habit, we need only deceive our brains with chocolate. 

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m squarely behind a belief in the brain’s gullibility and the deceptive powers of chocolate.  In fact, I’m a pioneer in the field.  I’ve completed concentrated semi-scientific studies in my own private laboratory.  I’ve applied the concepts and replicated my experiments.  And now that we have a new champion, in the interest of fairness and forward thinking, I’ll don the lab coat again. 

Oh yes.  I’m down with the hypothesis that forming good habits requires chocolate and tricking your brain.  My brain is already so tricked.  And I don’t mean like a teenager’s ride. 

I haven’t told my brain the truth since Spanx.  Or “skinny jeans.”  Or fat free fruit loops.  Having been off the truth train for many miles of track, my brain might not even be able to distinguish fact from pie-in-the-sky fantasy.  Pie?  Where?  I don’t see any pie! 

See what I mean?  

Given my brain’s current state, I don’t think trying to slip chocolate past the gray matter is going to be all that challenging.  I majored in rationalization at the school of Really, Who Knew?  Therefore, my hopes are high for the prospect of deluding myself into a new life-altering routine starring my favorite downfall from See’s.   

Let’s explore. 

Duhigg (Don’t you just want to pinch his cheek and call him Doohickey?) says the formula for creating a “good” new habit to replace the lifelong familiar self-defeating habit you’ve theoretically extinguished through application of undisclosed self torture is this:  Cue - Routine - Reward.   

In the dark days of bad habits, the formula played out something like this:  Cue – Oh my goodness!  It’s 10am.  Time for my bonbon!   

Routine – locate said confection and consume delicately.  Repeat until shame, guilt or good sense sets in.   

Reward – yumminess. 

When I set about becoming perfect evermore by making resolutions and gritting my teeth, I find that I’m skilled at Step 1, cues.  They’re not that difficult, after all – look at the clock.  Set the alarm.  Gracious me!  It’s already midmorning!  Time for my rejuvenating, healthful workout.  

I’ve even managed Step 2 with reasonable ease and established an exercise routine:  I go to the gym and workout madly for the prescribed 55 minutes.  I get red-faced and sweat.  I stand around after the U-Jam class in my stretchy pants; mop my brow; walk with an athletic swagger and relish the intrinsic value of the workout.  Oh yeah.  I’m good. 

So why does my doofus brain dread the routine and invent every lame excuse to avoid it? 

According to Thingamabob it’s in Step 3, the reward.  I wander afield in cementing the new, more desirable, life-affirming habit because I’ve essentially skipped the reward!  Or, more accurately, I’ve tried to bully my brain into believing that baked banana chips and tofu are rewarding.  No wonder my enthusiasm fizzles!  No yumminess. 

Even the most naive brain can see that eight glasses of water and a celery stalk do not constitute a reward.  All the gold stars and atta boys in the weight room cannot compete with chocolate.  What was I thinking? 

Whatchamacallit says that we need to give ourselves a real reward.  One our brains will recognize as desirable.  Something we already love, like chocolate. 

Instead of a salad, he says, after a workout reward yourself with a small piece (of course small, you nut!)  of chocolate.  That is, if you like chocolate.  If not, then maybe a thimbleful of beer.  Even a Hershey’s Kiss should be enough to make your workout something your brain hopes for. 

According to Dofunny, even though we know the exercise doesn’t cause the chocolate Kiss to appear, like a lab that fetches forever in happy anticipation of his chewy treat - our childlike minds form the association nevertheless.   

After as few as 10 days of repeating the Cue, Routine, and Chocolate Reward, voila!  You’re hard wired for a new life. 

What could possibly go wrong?