Tag: diet

The Naked Dream

So I said, “I’ll take my clothes off, if you do.” And I did without waiting for the other to respond.

It was a nebulous, quicksilver dream. My dream doesn’t have markers but that part happened deep into it. To begin, I was visiting a think tank. Don’t think of Rand Corp or anything, think small, barely funded radicals with computers and ideas. They were an interesting group of mostly young men and women who were interested in ideas and data. I have just met them. I’m a visitor. It’s a little awkward. I’m not socially graceful, and neither are they.

I don’t remember much of the conversations. Flashes come back to me, like, “She has the network firewalled to limit exposure to outside events so that our thinking won’t become polluted or maligned.” I said back, “I can connect you to the outside world through my laptop.” This was declined, but we went back and forth about whether I would be able to do what I claimed, the philosophy behind the firewall, and the perceived advantages and disadvantages.

But many conversations were going on with people coming and going. As that conversation rolled, another was taken up about Derrick’s study. Becoming interested in what was being said, I wanted to see Derrick’s study. Then it was mentioned that Derrick — a morose looking white fellow with a mop of dark hair in jeans and a pullover — always did his data collecting in the nude. That’s when I made my offer as part of an effort to cajole the data out of Derrick. Derrick does not take his clothes off. He seems like a downer to be around. The whole group is like that.

Later, I’m nude.

I feel a little self-aware and conspicuous, but nobody is paying my nudity much mind. Someone else is going to share Derrick’s data. We all go down to another room where a slide show is presented. I’m fascinated, but others drift away. New projects are offered and discussed. I’m engaging with others about their projects. Some projects are about diet habits. One in particular, led by a woman, interests me more. I’m enlisted into working on it. About to go out to collect data after volunteering to do that, I joke, “But first I’ll dress.” Standing up, I pull on my pants. Nobody laughs.

Strange group, I think. Fade out.

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Not A Bumper Sticker

“One of the important things with Russell and the elite athletes is that none of the foods he consumes are inflammatory foods, which means no yeast, no mold, no dairy, no gluten,” Goglia said. “Dairy’s like eating moderately hard phlegm. It adversely affects oxygen. No dairy, no breads — muffins, bagels — nothing that is yeast, mold and gluten-bound. So starches are always one-ingredient guys like potatoes or rice or yams or oatmeal. If it’s got more than one ingredient in it, he couldn’t eat it.”

Paragraph from an ESPN article about Russell Wilson’s nine meal, forty-eight hundred calories a day diet to lose weight.  Russell Wilson, a professional athlete, is the Seattle Seahawks’ quarterback. He’s trying to get down to two hundred fifteen pounds. This diet has helped him. He’s gone from two hundred twenty-five pounds and sixteen percent body fat in March, to two hundred fourteen pounds and ten percent body fat now. Of course, he exercises and conditions hours each day.

Overall, there’s a lot to think about here. No dairy, no gluten, no yeast; is it a diet you could endure?

Is it a healthy diet?

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Hungry Today

My wife and I are on day eight of the ten day green smoothie cleansing fast. I’ve modified mine for my writing needs, permitting myself my mochas. Purists will be disgusted that I’m allowing myself sugars, milk, coffee and chocolate. I accept their umbrage. My weakness humbles me. I’m disgusted, too. But I need to write and this is part of it. That’s a shameful confession.

Other than that, I’ve been dealing okay with the smoothie fast. We are allowed raw vegetables, nuts and seeds as a snack on it. This is my third time this year doing it with my wife. Three days were endured the first time (for me, while she went for forty-one), five days the second time (she went for ten). Now I’m going for ten with her. It’s been cool so far but suddenly, today, I’m hungry. Pizza, sandwich and pastry visions are torturing me.

Meager strength comes from recognizing this is my choice. I’m doing it to support my wife. She suffers RA. Foods create imbalances, and imbalances cause flares of pain, inflammation and stiffness. That’s just the surface stuff. Other things are happening under the skin, heightening stress and anxiety, because we don’t know what will manifest itself next.

It’s cleansing for me, too, and I need cleansed. I’ve had a typical American middle-aged diet of too much processed food for too long and celebrating too frequently and too much. Then I erred and ate the same thing everyday. That is not actually good. Although my breakfast meal of choice was organic oatmeal with walnuts, and blueberries or other fruit and berries, that extended diet (I followed it for over a decade) caused digestive problems. My body needs variety to stay balanced.

Of course, it’s bizarre and ironic but appropriate that we have people starving elsewhere, searching for anything to eat to sustain themselves while we pursue this smoothie fast. Appropriate because this is the state of the world, isn’t it?

Ironic, too, that I write about having the same diet everyday and sit here, drinking my customary quad shot mocha. Not ironic, but pathetic, yes? The day may change but the saboteur is often me damaging myself despite my self-awareness. And damages aren’t limited to what I eat and drink, but thoughts born of low self-esteem, waning self-confidence and worldly weariness.

So I’m hungry, hungry for change. The fast and those cravings are symptoms of a deeper malaise. Author, fix thyself.  Continue reading “Hungry Today” →

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In Context

First, the preamble.

I was going to call this post, “The Cleanse”. But that has so many possible meanings. Some aren’t good. It depends on the context. For example, someone shouts, “I just got fucked.” The statement has multiple meanings, even, or especially in these days. If they amend it to, “I literally just got fucked,” we still don’t know if someone humped them or they suffered grievous injuries (emotional, mental or physical) from someone else’s actions.

Kind of surprising, context counts also for recognizing people. I said hello to my wife’s friend at the coffee shop, and she responded, “And who are you again?” She later told my wife she was embarrassed that she didn’t recognize me, but that I was “out of context.” Our assumption is that she only knows me in context, when I’m with my wife.

Okay, the importance of context sown, I’m working on a cleanse. No one is being harmed, as it’s a 10 day green smoothie cleanse, with recipes and process based on JJ Smith’s book, “The 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse.” My wife been on it, first completing 44 days, and then returning to begin another 10 day cleanse. Her cleansing is to help with her RA.

It has helped. All her test results show tremendous improvements, and she’s sleeping, moving and thinking better. Kudos to her.

Her results so pleased her, she hectored me to join her.

I was reluctant. My primary issues are number one, coffee, number two, beer, and number three, food. In conjunction with them, I like coffee, and my writing practice is anchored in hiding in a coffee shop with coffee and writing. As for the beer, I like beer. I usually drink it only once or twice a week. I’m more prone to have a glass of red wine in the evening, but giving that up little bothered me. The third issue, food, is that I like food. I take comfort in its taste and enjoy eating. I like eating sandwiches, pizza, pie, ice cream, cobb salads, avocado and arugula salads, potato salad (especially, my mother’s, which is the world’s best), pasta, veggie cheeseburgers, steaks, pancakes, bacon and eggs with hashbrowns or home fries, Chinese food, quesadilla, burritos —

I could go on, but I think the list has established my food attraction. The smoothie fast would negate eating, except for nuts, celery, and other crunchy green vegetables.

We finally agreed on a modified approach. I would continue with my coffee habits so my writing process isn’t interrupted, because it’s taken me years to develop this habit, and writing is my escape, but would otherwise follow the green smoothie cleanse. I’d try it for three days to gather impressions.

Today is day three.

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So I have impressions gathered. One, it isn’t bad.

Smith’s book is well-organized, with a smoothie recipe a day for ten days. Smith also provides a nicely consolidated shopping list. We made a copy of it and off we went. I used pears instead of apples and most of my smoothies had slight pear overtures. One big smoothie is made each morning. The smoothie is then consumed as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Preparing it takes me about ten minutes, and clean up is easy.

How do I feel, you ask? Hungry, but otherwise GREAT.

It’s actually astonished by how much better, and how different I feel. I consider myself in good health, based on my lack of complaints, ability to bend, walk and lift without issues, and the lack of medications in my life. I’ve wanted to lose weight and was aware of that weighing on me (sorry) but also deal with a mild wheat allergy issue. Nothing major plagues me.

Yet, I’m impressed by how much better I’m feeling and sleeping in just two days, and my increased energy. I think the best analogy for illustration is that while I normally feel good overall, I had moments when it felt like my sixty year old ass was dragging an additional twenty pounds. Besides that, after walking three or four miles, my feet would hurt when I got home, and after hours clicking and typing on the computer, I felt it in my right wrist and fingers. Anyone dealing with computers who is sixty can probably relate. This ninety  to one hundred degree weather also often leeched huge volumes of energy out. I wasn’t used to that impact.

Now, after two complete days of the green smoothie cleanse, I have no pains. Seriously, and literally, in the traditional sense, NONE. To which, I’m like, WOW.

Yes, I’m hungry sometimes. It’s not a sharp hunger but a dull, slightly removed ache. Most intriguing, the smoothie awakened me to some zombie eating habits I’d developed. Like, I’m going to sit down and read a book, but first I’ll get some cheese and crackers, or some fruit. Or, I’m hungry, what time is it, what is there to eat? Or, let’s turn on the telly and watch “QI” or “The Night Of”  (since “Happy Valley” ended, and “Orphan Black”, “The Americans”, “Stranger Things,” “Dark Matters” and GOT are all on one sort of hiatus or another). While we’re at it, what do we have to nosh? Or, out walking and smelling food grilling, the impulse surges to act on an impulse to go have a bite and a beer. Likewise, on a hot day, ah, let’s have a cold one. But, no, the cold one must be a green smoothie.

So, it’s cool. I’m enjoying the cleanse. Yes, it’s modified, or I’m cheating, whichever way you prefer to address it, because I still enjoy coffee, but now, on the third day, I plan to continue for ten days, because the results impress me and I want to see what it’s like after ten days.

Now, time to have coffee and write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

 

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