The prevailing belief systems of our time are invented.
I hope this doesn't make anyone too sad or angry, but a small look at history makes it quite obvious. It's also obvious when you travel to different countries and see entirely different belief systems, many contradictory, yet all applicable to life on the same planet. Christianity, for instance, is interpreted dramatically differently depending on the period of time you look at, though all of it is based on the same man's life.
Unfortunately, most of us are run by whatever mantras were recited to us through our childhoods and as adolescents. The tapes keep playing, long after they are coming from the outside. We internalize them and recite them forever.
As I read more and more from books on healing how important it is to have positive and supportive belief systems, I have mostly noticed that I'm not too messed up. :) Apart from that, I have still learned that a lot of the beliefs I would fight to convince other people of are not even my own. I mostly have cherished them because they are more modern, new, or progressive than older ones, so they seem great, since this is by comparison. Yet they still came from somewhere else. I'm sure the next generation will have even more modern, new, or progressive ones. The point is: why not make up your own?
When my parents were kids, the mantra was "go to college, work hard, you'll get a good job." Most of us have noticed life, success, and happiness are not quite that simple. Especially my parents.
When I was a kid, it was, "have fun. You're young, and if you don't have fun now, you'll find yourself with a family and less freedom. You could miss your chance."
Of course, it was never stated in such a way, but that was the implicit idea. Maybe I just absorbed it from the environment too, as I psychically tuned into all the less than happy parents who did as they were told and who found themselves with unrealized dreams. The new mantra is probably "better" than the old in that it at least allows you more freedom and also implies confidence in the person that "you'll turn out fine, don't worry about the future, do what you love or choose to do." But I found myself actually feeling pressure during and after college, "I've got to have fun!! How do I have fun!? I only have a few years before I'll be too old to have fun!" How absurd is that? Does my life end on the day of my 30th birthday or something? I think not.
What if we looked beyond both of these Life Rules?
For instance, it became so ingrained in me, whether through family or friends, that marriage and family meant selling my soul, giving up my freedom, and being boring, that I practically went into shock when I realized I wanted to get married. One of the supposedly happiest things to happen to someone--finding The One had me chasing my own tail, trying to reconcile the supposedly irreconcilable facts of "I'm not selling my soul, nor giving up any freedom" yet "I'm getting married." Getting married isn't cool anymore, hadn't I gotten the memo?
At this point, it became obvious that my mental constructions weren't really making sense. I wondered where they came from and why I still had them. I wondered what construct I would make if I was to chant the perfect mantra to the next generation.
I guess it would be: do whatever you feel is right, and ignore what you have learned it supposedly means
Only You have the power to give anything meaning.
Sometimes I think people my age are now under so much pressure to be "different" so they won't be accused of caving in to the status quo, that they're more limited than they even would have been in the first place! I'm really so exhausted by trying to make sure I have fun (which, by the way, comes pretty naturally to me on its own), am different enough, and seem "cool" that I have finally just given up. By the way, everyone on the face of the earth says they don't care what other people think, and that's a big load of crap.
My entire generation has, in a way, collapsed under the general baby boomers' collective disappointment, which partly has turned into a high divorce rate, lots of therapy, and new mantras begging their kids to have fun. It has given us the sense that work and family were in some way the source of this unhappiness. Many young people naively now believe marriage = unhappiness or corporate job = unhappiness which is so pathetically simplistic, it's downright silly.
Please: Stop Making Rules. Stop Trying To Figure It Out.
You're not going to learn how to conduct your own life by seeing divorce and saying, "ok, marriage ends in divorce, so I just won't get married." Can we be a LITTLE more sophisticated than this?
THERE IS NO RULE OF THUMB FOR LIFE
Marry young, marry old, don't get married
Have kids young, have kids old, don't have kids
Go to college, don't go to college
Get a job, take a break and live at home
Travel, don't travel (that's a big one. People of my generation MUST travel, you are cool if you travel, and if you don't you probably don't have a sense of adventure or enough culture to be interested in traveling)
Move to a new town, stay in the town you grew up in
Have a religion, don't have a religion
Work a desk job, work a physical, outdoor job
Live downtown, Live in the country
Work for a large corporation, work for a small business, work for a non-profit
Be the breadwinner, be a housewife
Be thin, be fat
Be womanly, be manly
Why does anyone care what their kids do anyway? Does any parent really have the illusion their kids Belong to them in the sense of ownership? We belong to our families only in the sense of a communal connection of belonging. We borrow our kids from God and send them on their way to find God again however they like. Is there any other definition of parenting?
Friday, May 28, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
It's the...Soy??
Yes, after my disappointing revelation that coffee was totally messing me up, I had an even worse one. The soy milk, which is the only "milk" I like, might have been doing some damage as well. I have been enjoying soy in my latte almost as long as I have been enjoying my latte.
As Pranic Healers, we get together once a month for a "practice" session. During this, I had my friend work on my throat chakra because I'd had a slightly sore throat lately. I had also been unusually thirsty (though I always seem to be dehydrated no matter how much water I drink). She scanned and found the throat chakra to be very congested, and she also scanned my thyroid and found IT to be very congested. She has worked for a vitamin company for years and is very knowledgeable about nutrition and health. So this prompted a conversation on thyroid health. (I have also gained about 5 pounds in the last few weeks with no change in my diet and lifestyle which made me wonder about a thyroid problem because the thyroid controls the metabolism.)
Lack of sodium and iodine can cause thyroid issues, but also hormonal stuff such as estrogen levels. I am obviously nowhere near menopause and am not on any medications, so we ignored this for a while. Until it came out that I drink soy daily in my latte and have for years. My friend almost jumped up--soy has "estrogenic" effects. I didn't really know what that meant, and I REALLY didn't want to have to give up soy. So I did a little research. Within about 2 minutes, my hopes came crashing down: I found numerous problems with soy.
The following are some quotes from a website by a naturopathic doctor, Dr. Lam:
"There is ample evidence that the isoflavones contained in soy products, including genistein, are toxins. Isoflavones are inhibitors of thyroid peroxidase that makes T3 and T4."
"Soy acts as an competitive inhibitor of estrogen at the cellular estrogen receptor site, reducing the effect of estrogen in our body. At the same time, over consumption of soy can overwhelm many of the body's cells and may overload them."
"For adults, just 30 mg of soy isoflavones per day is the amount found to have a negative impact on thyroid function. This amount of soy isoflavones is found in just 5-8 ounces of soy milk, or 1.5 ounces of miso. Interestingly, while miso has the phyto-estrogenic effect, it does not have the enzyme inhibitory effect because it is fermented. Other fermented soy product include soy sauce or tempeh."
"Soy contains a variety of toxic chemicals, which cannot be fully metabolized by the body, unless it undergoes a long cooking, or fermentation process. Unfermented soy contains phylates, which acts as an anti-nutrient and blocks the body’s absorption of minerals from the gastro intestinal track. It also contains enzymes inhibitors that reduce protein digestion. Processed soy protein contains carcinogens such as nitrates, lysinoalanine, as well as a large group of anti-nutrients not found in traditional soy consumed in Asia. It also lacks calcium and causes a deficiency of vitamin D, both of which are not conducive for bone building."
Bummer.
I have often heard of the "dangers of consuming unfermented soy products," but honestly did not feel it was all that serious. It's just a bean! I also felt it was probably over-hyped by the meat and dairy industries who stand to lose money by us switching to this vegan product. I now feel I was wrong to underestimate the problems with soy--I had really not done any personal research into it until now.
Back to the coffee shop for solutions:
One place in West Seattle has rice milk. Uptown Espresso. My husband and I go. Terrible. Rice milk doesn't foam at all. That's out.
Organic milk. Starbucks has that, right? I called the one on Alki and they don't. C & P doesn't. Bird on a Wire Espresso doesn't.
Caffe Ladro! They have organic milk. I drink it. Not digging it. It tastes like....milk! Gross.
The problems with caffeine haven't been enough, until recently, to get me off coffee. But this loss of the soy option has, perhaps, finally taken my ritual away. Milk just doesn't taste good. If it's to be consumed at all, it should be raw so the enzymes are intact in addition to the vitamins. This twice-cooked (pasteurized + steamed) milk contains just about nothing nutritionally plus tastes bad.
I still haven't solved my dilemma.
Aside from this. This is my long-term solution. Investors, listen up.
I will, at some point, open my own cafe. It will be a primarily raw food cafe. It will be a place where you can grab a pick-me-up without having to harm your health. We all need to learn to cook from scratch, but sometimes, we still need some food or a drink in a hurry.
There will be no refined sugar.
There will be no pasteurized milk.
There will be no soy.
There will be no refined grains.
There will be fruit smoothies and green smoothies.
There will be healthy, raw breakfasts like cereal/raw granola with almond milk.
There will be healthy, raw snacks and healthy, raw desserts.
There might be healthy, raw lunches.
There might be caffeine (hey, you gotta make money).
Everything will be organic.
You can stay, surf the web, have a drink or some food and actually nourish your body.
You can be in a hurry and still eat/drink something good for you.
It will be designed entirely by me, an energy healer and nutritionist, and people will actually be able to trust what we sell because it's not designed just for profit, but for sustaining healthy bodies. It will be totally original and wildly, immediately popular... :)
Wish me luck.
As Pranic Healers, we get together once a month for a "practice" session. During this, I had my friend work on my throat chakra because I'd had a slightly sore throat lately. I had also been unusually thirsty (though I always seem to be dehydrated no matter how much water I drink). She scanned and found the throat chakra to be very congested, and she also scanned my thyroid and found IT to be very congested. She has worked for a vitamin company for years and is very knowledgeable about nutrition and health. So this prompted a conversation on thyroid health. (I have also gained about 5 pounds in the last few weeks with no change in my diet and lifestyle which made me wonder about a thyroid problem because the thyroid controls the metabolism.)
Lack of sodium and iodine can cause thyroid issues, but also hormonal stuff such as estrogen levels. I am obviously nowhere near menopause and am not on any medications, so we ignored this for a while. Until it came out that I drink soy daily in my latte and have for years. My friend almost jumped up--soy has "estrogenic" effects. I didn't really know what that meant, and I REALLY didn't want to have to give up soy. So I did a little research. Within about 2 minutes, my hopes came crashing down: I found numerous problems with soy.
The following are some quotes from a website by a naturopathic doctor, Dr. Lam:
"There is ample evidence that the isoflavones contained in soy products, including genistein, are toxins. Isoflavones are inhibitors of thyroid peroxidase that makes T3 and T4."
"Soy acts as an competitive inhibitor of estrogen at the cellular estrogen receptor site, reducing the effect of estrogen in our body. At the same time, over consumption of soy can overwhelm many of the body's cells and may overload them."
"For adults, just 30 mg of soy isoflavones per day is the amount found to have a negative impact on thyroid function. This amount of soy isoflavones is found in just 5-8 ounces of soy milk, or 1.5 ounces of miso. Interestingly, while miso has the phyto-estrogenic effect, it does not have the enzyme inhibitory effect because it is fermented. Other fermented soy product include soy sauce or tempeh."
"Soy contains a variety of toxic chemicals, which cannot be fully metabolized by the body, unless it undergoes a long cooking, or fermentation process. Unfermented soy contains phylates, which acts as an anti-nutrient and blocks the body’s absorption of minerals from the gastro intestinal track. It also contains enzymes inhibitors that reduce protein digestion. Processed soy protein contains carcinogens such as nitrates, lysinoalanine, as well as a large group of anti-nutrients not found in traditional soy consumed in Asia. It also lacks calcium and causes a deficiency of vitamin D, both of which are not conducive for bone building."
Bummer.
I have often heard of the "dangers of consuming unfermented soy products," but honestly did not feel it was all that serious. It's just a bean! I also felt it was probably over-hyped by the meat and dairy industries who stand to lose money by us switching to this vegan product. I now feel I was wrong to underestimate the problems with soy--I had really not done any personal research into it until now.
Back to the coffee shop for solutions:
One place in West Seattle has rice milk. Uptown Espresso. My husband and I go. Terrible. Rice milk doesn't foam at all. That's out.
Organic milk. Starbucks has that, right? I called the one on Alki and they don't. C & P doesn't. Bird on a Wire Espresso doesn't.
Caffe Ladro! They have organic milk. I drink it. Not digging it. It tastes like....milk! Gross.
The problems with caffeine haven't been enough, until recently, to get me off coffee. But this loss of the soy option has, perhaps, finally taken my ritual away. Milk just doesn't taste good. If it's to be consumed at all, it should be raw so the enzymes are intact in addition to the vitamins. This twice-cooked (pasteurized + steamed) milk contains just about nothing nutritionally plus tastes bad.
I still haven't solved my dilemma.
Aside from this. This is my long-term solution. Investors, listen up.
I will, at some point, open my own cafe. It will be a primarily raw food cafe. It will be a place where you can grab a pick-me-up without having to harm your health. We all need to learn to cook from scratch, but sometimes, we still need some food or a drink in a hurry.
There will be no refined sugar.
There will be no pasteurized milk.
There will be no soy.
There will be no refined grains.
There will be fruit smoothies and green smoothies.
There will be healthy, raw breakfasts like cereal/raw granola with almond milk.
There will be healthy, raw snacks and healthy, raw desserts.
There might be healthy, raw lunches.
There might be caffeine (hey, you gotta make money).
Everything will be organic.
You can stay, surf the web, have a drink or some food and actually nourish your body.
You can be in a hurry and still eat/drink something good for you.
It will be designed entirely by me, an energy healer and nutritionist, and people will actually be able to trust what we sell because it's not designed just for profit, but for sustaining healthy bodies. It will be totally original and wildly, immediately popular... :)
Wish me luck.
It's the Coffee
I've been drinking a latte almost seven days a week since I was about 16 or 17 which makes that 11-12 years. Despite my obsession with healthy living, I have not seriously examined the potential impact of consuming a mild drug every single day for over a decade.
I remember when the coffee craze started--when all the Starbucks' opened up in the suburb I lived in and all the other ones nearby. I didn't care much about the drink at the time, just that it was a place to hang out when you are young, can drive, but don't want to be at home with your parents and are too young for the bars. Our local Starbucks turned into our hangout, and we would pass hours and hours there gossiping and maybe doing the occasional homework assignment. It was our favorite way to sit in the sun in the summer since there was always outside seating. I have countless cherished memories of sitting with my best friend Laura, summer day after summer day, during this bonding ritual.
This habit extended perfectly into college where the coffee buzz helped us all get to our 8:00AM classes or study for hours on end. After that, going to the neighborhood coffee shop just became my daily retreat where I would go to read for a while. It was a way to get out of the house and be around some people when I lived alone where it could sometimes get a little too quiet. My husband didn't drink coffee when we met, but I quickly converted him and convinced him that $8-$10 a day was worth it for some unhealthy drinks and a sugary snack (oops).
The habit has become so ingrained that I have rarely questioned it seriously, despite the fact that I read health information daily, and hardly an article on nutrition is published that doesn't include coffee in the list of no-no's (the others are sugar, alcohol and sometimes dairy). I have always had a really strong stomach, no real food sensitivities, and no food allergies. I thought I was immune to practically anything.
A couple of weeks ago, however, I was driving with my husband back home after having coffee somewhere, and I was just feeling so stressed out and irritable. I was in a big hurry to get back and do some things before work. I was feeling like I was fighting the clock. I suddenly snapped out of my head-spinning anxiety and realized, "I felt great all morning before we got our coffee. And I always get antsy right around this time of the day, which is after we go to coffee." Sometimes a new perspective suddenly jolts you, and you don't need to do any research or lab tests to confirm what you have just realized. My occasional crankiness wasn't just my personality.
So I undertook a very easy and very difficult experiment. Cut out coffee for a week and see how you feel. (I luckily never have withdrawal symptoms from removing caffeine.) I researched how much caffeine is in chai since I like chai lattes. There's approximately 1/4 to 1/3 the caffeine in chai. Not too bad. Decaf coffee has only a few milligrams of caffeine compared to around 150 per cup of regular coffee. Looks like I could have an occasional chai and decaf and probably still conduct the experiment. Don't have to totally give up my ritual....yet.
After only a couple of days, I noticed a huge difference. I was absolutely AMAZED. Rather than freaking out before work, running around, I was completely calm. I was calmer in the morning, afternoon, and evening. The calmness just seemed to snowball into downright...peace. Now, I also do a lot of other healthy things that probably contribute such as almost-daily meditation, exercise, and healthy eating. I now realized that coffee was completely tripping all this up. I had wondered why the healthy stuff wasn't having a bigger impact, and I now seemed to have my answer.
Everything from comic strips jokes to cafe humor, to whatever--depicts the average person as barely awake, barely functioning, and totally grumpy until they've gotten their morning cup o' joe. Yet what's really true is that coffee can ruin your mood. This treasured beverage was actually having the exact opposite effect as what it is promoted as having, and in a big way.
How much does caffeine prevent us, as a population, from being the naturally peaceful people we are meant to be?
How many distractions do we need to get us through one more day??
What I have learned is: examine everything. ESPECIALLY things you do daily or almost daily. These are the things that add up in huge ways. Learn for youself, and don't trust everything you read. I have read lots of downsides to caffeine but none convinced me to give it up, being that I am still young and healthy. Something may be affecting you in a way that is either not common or not yet discovered or advertised. I am so thrilled--and peaceful!--to have figured this out.
I remember when the coffee craze started--when all the Starbucks' opened up in the suburb I lived in and all the other ones nearby. I didn't care much about the drink at the time, just that it was a place to hang out when you are young, can drive, but don't want to be at home with your parents and are too young for the bars. Our local Starbucks turned into our hangout, and we would pass hours and hours there gossiping and maybe doing the occasional homework assignment. It was our favorite way to sit in the sun in the summer since there was always outside seating. I have countless cherished memories of sitting with my best friend Laura, summer day after summer day, during this bonding ritual.
This habit extended perfectly into college where the coffee buzz helped us all get to our 8:00AM classes or study for hours on end. After that, going to the neighborhood coffee shop just became my daily retreat where I would go to read for a while. It was a way to get out of the house and be around some people when I lived alone where it could sometimes get a little too quiet. My husband didn't drink coffee when we met, but I quickly converted him and convinced him that $8-$10 a day was worth it for some unhealthy drinks and a sugary snack (oops).
The habit has become so ingrained that I have rarely questioned it seriously, despite the fact that I read health information daily, and hardly an article on nutrition is published that doesn't include coffee in the list of no-no's (the others are sugar, alcohol and sometimes dairy). I have always had a really strong stomach, no real food sensitivities, and no food allergies. I thought I was immune to practically anything.
A couple of weeks ago, however, I was driving with my husband back home after having coffee somewhere, and I was just feeling so stressed out and irritable. I was in a big hurry to get back and do some things before work. I was feeling like I was fighting the clock. I suddenly snapped out of my head-spinning anxiety and realized, "I felt great all morning before we got our coffee. And I always get antsy right around this time of the day, which is after we go to coffee." Sometimes a new perspective suddenly jolts you, and you don't need to do any research or lab tests to confirm what you have just realized. My occasional crankiness wasn't just my personality.
So I undertook a very easy and very difficult experiment. Cut out coffee for a week and see how you feel. (I luckily never have withdrawal symptoms from removing caffeine.) I researched how much caffeine is in chai since I like chai lattes. There's approximately 1/4 to 1/3 the caffeine in chai. Not too bad. Decaf coffee has only a few milligrams of caffeine compared to around 150 per cup of regular coffee. Looks like I could have an occasional chai and decaf and probably still conduct the experiment. Don't have to totally give up my ritual....yet.
After only a couple of days, I noticed a huge difference. I was absolutely AMAZED. Rather than freaking out before work, running around, I was completely calm. I was calmer in the morning, afternoon, and evening. The calmness just seemed to snowball into downright...peace. Now, I also do a lot of other healthy things that probably contribute such as almost-daily meditation, exercise, and healthy eating. I now realized that coffee was completely tripping all this up. I had wondered why the healthy stuff wasn't having a bigger impact, and I now seemed to have my answer.
Everything from comic strips jokes to cafe humor, to whatever--depicts the average person as barely awake, barely functioning, and totally grumpy until they've gotten their morning cup o' joe. Yet what's really true is that coffee can ruin your mood. This treasured beverage was actually having the exact opposite effect as what it is promoted as having, and in a big way.
How much does caffeine prevent us, as a population, from being the naturally peaceful people we are meant to be?
How many distractions do we need to get us through one more day??
What I have learned is: examine everything. ESPECIALLY things you do daily or almost daily. These are the things that add up in huge ways. Learn for youself, and don't trust everything you read. I have read lots of downsides to caffeine but none convinced me to give it up, being that I am still young and healthy. Something may be affecting you in a way that is either not common or not yet discovered or advertised. I am so thrilled--and peaceful!--to have figured this out.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Comfort. Food.
Why do you eat?
You'll all say, "because I'm hungry," or "because I have to to live." I'd be willing to bet that anyone over age--maybe 10--has already started eating for a dozen other reasons in addition to hunger. These reasons will include but are not limited to:
boredom
sadness
the food's in front of me
celebration: there's special food being prepared
eating=being social
it's mealtime
food addiction (sugar is as addictive as cocaine)
distraction
huge portions at restaurants (and we probably all eat out too much)
sedative effect of certain foods (milk, alcohol, sugar) this is probably subconscious
Do you ever notice how a little kid will go from crying out of hunger to eating to leaving a half-full plate to go off somewhere else like it's yesterday's breakfast? And we freak out and say, eat! eat!
Well, it might be a shocking concept but: maybe the little kid isn't hungry anymore. He or she has instantly lost interest in their food because they have had enough. This is what it looks like to just stop when you're full.
Are we really all coincidentally perfectly full at exactly the time the plate is empty? I doubt it.
I read an article about the Slow Food Movement which basically is just about chewing your food thoroughly, stopping when you're full, paying attention to your body, not distracting yourself when eating, and being aware of and grateful for your food.
This also, incidentally, allows satiety signals to reach the brain which tell us to stop eating. If you wolf down a cheeseburger and fries in 7 minutes, you have no idea if you ate too much. You didn't give your body enough time to tell you.
Today at lunch, I made a sandwich and small side salad. While I made these, I also snacked on a handful of chips and hummus. After the snack and salad, I realized I was full (I was trying to pay attention to my stomach while I ate which I normally don't do!). I was amazed that so little had filled me. If I hadn't just read the article, I would not have noticed! I would have ate the sandwich anyway. I left it for later. I am now at a coffee shop, drinking the soy chai I would also have had even if I'd over-eaten at lunch, and I am still not hungry. (I even skipped my cookie today! I'm being so good!!) If I'm hungry in a couple of hours, I'll eat the sandwich. But if not, I guess I'll be having it for dinner.
The author of the article, after simply paying complete attention to hunger and fullness (and even through some family celebrations where she admittedly over-ate) still lost 5 pounds in a matter of weeks. She was already thin and not in major need of losing weight...but it was still that easy. I was amazed by that.
I also just read a very interesting book, Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. The author conducts retreats for people who are overweight and puts them through grueling exercises: making them all wait until every single person has been served before eating, for instance. She says they stare at her with daggers coming out of their eyes. These may be people with serious eating disorders, but how many of us feel the same anxiety when we sit down if we make ourselves wait long enough to, for instance, say grace? It's pretty startling to read these embarrassing facts and realize you are really not much different, just to a lesser degree.
The women at these retreats generally all had the same problem which was excessive eating to push down various emotional pains. I don't have any serious emotional pains I'm aware of, but I definitely have boredom or a desire to distract myself from things I should do but put off instead. That turns into going out, getting a snack somewhere, or sometimes drinking a couple glasses of wine. None of them life-threatening, but still--what's the point? Why burden my body because I'm feeling "off" today?
Is pain so painful? Mark Twain said (I paraphrase from memory), "In my long life, I've seen many hardships, some of which actually happened." We put ourselves through so much more misery than even comes close to what we technically go through.
I read a fascinating account of a woman who gave birth without painkillers. She explained how she coped with the pain, and what she said was to imagine you are in the ocean and there are waves coming at you. Rather than keep your head up and let each one smack you, what you want to do is put your head a little lower and immerse yourself in the water where it will push you but not knock you over.
When you feel pain, go into it. Immerse yourself in the feeling, dive into it. Energetically, what happens when you do this is that you actually put fresh, healthy energy and light into that area which will have manifested as congested, blocked, grayish energy in your aura. You can visualize this process too, if you want. When that happens, the gray energy dissipates and is released. The pain is gone. This is self-healing. It's that simple. If you resist negative feelings, you push them into yourself, and they stay. You will have to keep pushing them down to avoid them. This is very unhealthy and will manifest as disease eventually.
Pay attention to your body. The size of your stomach is not a mistake. Let it tell you when it's had enough. Don't exhaust your precious energy by giving your body a stuffed belly to cope with. You will love the feeling of lightness you have when you are never full to the brim with food. I've noticed I feel "thin" when I don't over eat, regardless of the size of my body, and I feel "fat" when I over eat, regardless of the size of my body. Do what feels good!
You'll all say, "because I'm hungry," or "because I have to to live." I'd be willing to bet that anyone over age--maybe 10--has already started eating for a dozen other reasons in addition to hunger. These reasons will include but are not limited to:
boredom
sadness
the food's in front of me
celebration: there's special food being prepared
eating=being social
it's mealtime
food addiction (sugar is as addictive as cocaine)
distraction
huge portions at restaurants (and we probably all eat out too much)
sedative effect of certain foods (milk, alcohol, sugar) this is probably subconscious
Do you ever notice how a little kid will go from crying out of hunger to eating to leaving a half-full plate to go off somewhere else like it's yesterday's breakfast? And we freak out and say, eat! eat!
Well, it might be a shocking concept but: maybe the little kid isn't hungry anymore. He or she has instantly lost interest in their food because they have had enough. This is what it looks like to just stop when you're full.
Are we really all coincidentally perfectly full at exactly the time the plate is empty? I doubt it.
I read an article about the Slow Food Movement which basically is just about chewing your food thoroughly, stopping when you're full, paying attention to your body, not distracting yourself when eating, and being aware of and grateful for your food.
This also, incidentally, allows satiety signals to reach the brain which tell us to stop eating. If you wolf down a cheeseburger and fries in 7 minutes, you have no idea if you ate too much. You didn't give your body enough time to tell you.
Today at lunch, I made a sandwich and small side salad. While I made these, I also snacked on a handful of chips and hummus. After the snack and salad, I realized I was full (I was trying to pay attention to my stomach while I ate which I normally don't do!). I was amazed that so little had filled me. If I hadn't just read the article, I would not have noticed! I would have ate the sandwich anyway. I left it for later. I am now at a coffee shop, drinking the soy chai I would also have had even if I'd over-eaten at lunch, and I am still not hungry. (I even skipped my cookie today! I'm being so good!!) If I'm hungry in a couple of hours, I'll eat the sandwich. But if not, I guess I'll be having it for dinner.
The author of the article, after simply paying complete attention to hunger and fullness (and even through some family celebrations where she admittedly over-ate) still lost 5 pounds in a matter of weeks. She was already thin and not in major need of losing weight...but it was still that easy. I was amazed by that.
I also just read a very interesting book, Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. The author conducts retreats for people who are overweight and puts them through grueling exercises: making them all wait until every single person has been served before eating, for instance. She says they stare at her with daggers coming out of their eyes. These may be people with serious eating disorders, but how many of us feel the same anxiety when we sit down if we make ourselves wait long enough to, for instance, say grace? It's pretty startling to read these embarrassing facts and realize you are really not much different, just to a lesser degree.
The women at these retreats generally all had the same problem which was excessive eating to push down various emotional pains. I don't have any serious emotional pains I'm aware of, but I definitely have boredom or a desire to distract myself from things I should do but put off instead. That turns into going out, getting a snack somewhere, or sometimes drinking a couple glasses of wine. None of them life-threatening, but still--what's the point? Why burden my body because I'm feeling "off" today?
Is pain so painful? Mark Twain said (I paraphrase from memory), "In my long life, I've seen many hardships, some of which actually happened." We put ourselves through so much more misery than even comes close to what we technically go through.
I read a fascinating account of a woman who gave birth without painkillers. She explained how she coped with the pain, and what she said was to imagine you are in the ocean and there are waves coming at you. Rather than keep your head up and let each one smack you, what you want to do is put your head a little lower and immerse yourself in the water where it will push you but not knock you over.
When you feel pain, go into it. Immerse yourself in the feeling, dive into it. Energetically, what happens when you do this is that you actually put fresh, healthy energy and light into that area which will have manifested as congested, blocked, grayish energy in your aura. You can visualize this process too, if you want. When that happens, the gray energy dissipates and is released. The pain is gone. This is self-healing. It's that simple. If you resist negative feelings, you push them into yourself, and they stay. You will have to keep pushing them down to avoid them. This is very unhealthy and will manifest as disease eventually.
Pay attention to your body. The size of your stomach is not a mistake. Let it tell you when it's had enough. Don't exhaust your precious energy by giving your body a stuffed belly to cope with. You will love the feeling of lightness you have when you are never full to the brim with food. I've noticed I feel "thin" when I don't over eat, regardless of the size of my body, and I feel "fat" when I over eat, regardless of the size of my body. Do what feels good!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
I watched Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story and have also been reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, and I have to say it's given me quite a different perspective. Most of us see our economic system and government as generally fine, only needing certain legislation here and there to fix the problems of the day.
What Capitalism: A Love Story suggests outright and what the book forces the reader to consider is that the economic and political systems that largely run our lives are fundamentally flawed and not fixable while still within them. I did not previously think a complete overhaul was necessary to solve our problems (poverty, joblessness, environmental degradation) but I now do.
What A People's History absolutely proves is that corporations must be dragged, kicking and screaming, to consider any interest outside of their bottom line, and that their lack of care for simple human dignity literally costs lives. Well, duh, but it's fascinating to read the history of this. We didn't start out generous and idealistic and nice. We started out conniving, controlling, manipulating, and cruel.
How well does an economic system "work" if the average person and-hopefully-politician has to constantly, relentlessly bully each industry, one by one, to pay a decent wage, stop polluting the environment, etc. It's horribly inefficient and, of course, maddeningly frustrating. Yet it's all marketed so brilliantly that even the sufferers of this pathetic machine support it.
I'm so often reminded of the children's story, The Emperor's New Clothes. Will anyone just point out the obvious here? Well, people do, but they are essentially ridiculed.
We live in a country where businesses have actually convinced us that they have rights. That, like people, they deserve help from the government (ex: subsidies) and that they have interests that should be considered. Like they are living and breathing, and they will suffer like any life-form if they don't get protection. (They're not alive!!!!) They are not people, who ask only to survive with enough food, shelter, and clothing. Businesses ask something completely different: obscene profits, increasing stock prices, exorbitant salaries, power, status, and--what it boils down to--food for their big, gigantic, enormous ego. These rights are somehow seen side by side with a request for simple human dignity and are weighed as though they have similar degrees of importance.
I was shocked to learn after Obama's student loan reform bill just got signed, that the government was previously handing out subsidies to private loan organizations. Excuse me? The government is giving money to banks or whomever so they can give me a student loan at 4 x the interest rate I would get if I'd gotten a government loan? But some schmuck business guy convinced the government to give his bank money to "help" students go to college. Why don't you just hand them profits in an envelope?
What Howard Zinn's incredible book shows is that the U.S. government formed for really one purpose: to protect the money of the elite of the country, and to make more for them through business and trade. This sounds like a cynical statement, but it is laid out very simply with direct quotes and hundreds of citations. It is too complex to detail here--please read for yourself before making up your mind. To describe the issue as a "conflict-of-interest" would be a pathetic understatement. It is hard to even come close to describing the corruption involved in the birth of this country. Our political party system is little more than a disguise to give us the impression of choice, freedom, and control, when everything has been set up ever-so carefully so that the interests of the rich "capitalists," as you may call them, can never actually be threatened.
I wish everyone would just read a hundred pages of this book and see the desperate, desperate attempts made to be simply allowed a 10-hour workday (instead of 16) and a 6-day workweek instead of a 7-day workweek. The marches to stop child labor. Requests for simple safety in the workplace. The strikes, demonstrations, arrests, union efforts, etc, etc, went on for decades. The corporations enlisted the National Guard to squelch strikes. The government itself used the military to kill people for asking for the tiniest dignity.
We may have evolved since those times (though I would argue that the evolution really means that what we used to be able to get away with in public we now have to do in secret), but it is important to see where these present-day institutions come from. They do not come from a tradition of charity, generosity, "freedom and justice for all." We must be at least educated and realistic.
Know what I read the other day? Pharmaceutical companies actually control medical school education in America. You can be sure your doctor never learned a thing about health in all those years of college--only disease and drug prescription. They can draw the chemical composition of Lipitor but don't know that eating oatmeal is proven more effective in lowering cholesterol than drugs.
What Capitalism: A Love Story suggests outright and what the book forces the reader to consider is that the economic and political systems that largely run our lives are fundamentally flawed and not fixable while still within them. I did not previously think a complete overhaul was necessary to solve our problems (poverty, joblessness, environmental degradation) but I now do.
What A People's History absolutely proves is that corporations must be dragged, kicking and screaming, to consider any interest outside of their bottom line, and that their lack of care for simple human dignity literally costs lives. Well, duh, but it's fascinating to read the history of this. We didn't start out generous and idealistic and nice. We started out conniving, controlling, manipulating, and cruel.
How well does an economic system "work" if the average person and-hopefully-politician has to constantly, relentlessly bully each industry, one by one, to pay a decent wage, stop polluting the environment, etc. It's horribly inefficient and, of course, maddeningly frustrating. Yet it's all marketed so brilliantly that even the sufferers of this pathetic machine support it.
I'm so often reminded of the children's story, The Emperor's New Clothes. Will anyone just point out the obvious here? Well, people do, but they are essentially ridiculed.
We live in a country where businesses have actually convinced us that they have rights. That, like people, they deserve help from the government (ex: subsidies) and that they have interests that should be considered. Like they are living and breathing, and they will suffer like any life-form if they don't get protection. (They're not alive!!!!) They are not people, who ask only to survive with enough food, shelter, and clothing. Businesses ask something completely different: obscene profits, increasing stock prices, exorbitant salaries, power, status, and--what it boils down to--food for their big, gigantic, enormous ego. These rights are somehow seen side by side with a request for simple human dignity and are weighed as though they have similar degrees of importance.
I was shocked to learn after Obama's student loan reform bill just got signed, that the government was previously handing out subsidies to private loan organizations. Excuse me? The government is giving money to banks or whomever so they can give me a student loan at 4 x the interest rate I would get if I'd gotten a government loan? But some schmuck business guy convinced the government to give his bank money to "help" students go to college. Why don't you just hand them profits in an envelope?
What Howard Zinn's incredible book shows is that the U.S. government formed for really one purpose: to protect the money of the elite of the country, and to make more for them through business and trade. This sounds like a cynical statement, but it is laid out very simply with direct quotes and hundreds of citations. It is too complex to detail here--please read for yourself before making up your mind. To describe the issue as a "conflict-of-interest" would be a pathetic understatement. It is hard to even come close to describing the corruption involved in the birth of this country. Our political party system is little more than a disguise to give us the impression of choice, freedom, and control, when everything has been set up ever-so carefully so that the interests of the rich "capitalists," as you may call them, can never actually be threatened.
I wish everyone would just read a hundred pages of this book and see the desperate, desperate attempts made to be simply allowed a 10-hour workday (instead of 16) and a 6-day workweek instead of a 7-day workweek. The marches to stop child labor. Requests for simple safety in the workplace. The strikes, demonstrations, arrests, union efforts, etc, etc, went on for decades. The corporations enlisted the National Guard to squelch strikes. The government itself used the military to kill people for asking for the tiniest dignity.
We may have evolved since those times (though I would argue that the evolution really means that what we used to be able to get away with in public we now have to do in secret), but it is important to see where these present-day institutions come from. They do not come from a tradition of charity, generosity, "freedom and justice for all." We must be at least educated and realistic.
Know what I read the other day? Pharmaceutical companies actually control medical school education in America. You can be sure your doctor never learned a thing about health in all those years of college--only disease and drug prescription. They can draw the chemical composition of Lipitor but don't know that eating oatmeal is proven more effective in lowering cholesterol than drugs.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
The Tough Part About Raw Food is the Tough Part About Food
Raw bean burritos with guacamole, salsa, cilantro, and spinach wrapped in cabbage tortillas
The toughest part about eating raw is that you have to prepare all the food yourself, from scratch.
Notice anything funny about that sentence?
We're supposed to be making food from scratch!! Going raw just forces you to do this. Then we say, "going raw is so much work!" In fact, eating healthy in general is "so much work." At least, compared to what we're used to.
We have transitioned from one- to two-income households in these last decades and have gone to convenience foods in the process which involve either throwing packages into the microwave or into a pan of boiling water to prepare. Then there's fast-food or simply eating out too much.
For the sake of our health, we MUST go back to the old custom of preparing our own food at home from scratch. Certainly there are times and places for going out to eat with friends or to celebrate, but I do not feel there is a place for boxed, bagged, or microwaveable meals.
I think for most people, transitioning to making all food from scratch would be one of the hardest changes they could make, yet it would have an instant and powerful effect on their health for the better.
It's so funny--people think the food they eat at restaurants tastes so good because of some brilliant chef in the kitchen (which is surely the case at times), but really, it tastes so good because it completely over-stimulates your taste buds with salt, sugar, and oil. There's nothing magic there. If you want to reproduce the "superior" restaurant food taste at home, put four times the salt, sugar, or oil in whatever you are making. Then appreciate why it is so much healthier to be the one in control of your food.
Once you've been making all your food on your own, going raw won't seem like any work at all. You'll just be making different recipes than before. Pretty simple.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Food as Religion and Culture
Raw milkshake: walnuts, agave, raw chocolate powder
America is often made fun of as the country with no culture. We are a very young country and do not have the hundreds- and thousands-years old traditions that most other cultures in the world have.
However, this is not at all the case. Our culture may be a little less romantic, without the artistic architecture, traditional dress, or family and community structure, but it is practiced and ingrained just the same.
Taking food as an important example: we have a totally culturally-ingrained diet. I did not realize this at all throughout my life because I am, of course, part of this culture. I thought Americans had a moderate, relaxed diet and also must eat the way we do because it has been proven to be healthy. We love science and are always studying the effects of everything. If we are so modern and smart, we wouldn't be so rigid on something like food which we can learn so much about, and thereby adjust to suit our health. We would change the way we eat at a moment's notice if we knew we needed to, or if we thought it would help us lose weight. However, it is obvious when we look that we only make such changes as still fit within our cultural way of eating.
Remember in the '80s and '90s how we were warned that animal fat contributed to heart disease. This idea is not standing the test of further scientific study, as it turns out, but how many people went vegetarian when, for a couple of decades, this was the prevailing viewpoint? Vegetarianism has been on the rise for decades, but not in the numbers you would have expected considering how widespread this belief was and actually still is.
This type of tunnel-visioned approach was really obvious to me when I went to India. I have spent two months there total, and have just found it hilarious the way any Indian will back up the way they eat, 100%. Practically everything is deep-fried, even breakfast food. Rice and bread products are eaten at absolutely every meal and snack. The spice level can sometimes be just ridiculous. All of these things are taken completely for granted as healthy and delicious. When my husband and I would occasionally point out that, nutritionally, eating a mountain of rice twice a day really amounted to nothing and probably even did harm, his parents would mostly shrug and say, sure, maybe. It didn't change what they did, and it probably never will. The changes a typical Indian would be willing to make in their diet would amount to an inch in one direction or another.
I found this silly and sometimes frustrating, and, of course, thought Americans were above that.
Americans are not above this at all. The changes 90% of Americans are willing to make are also an inch in one direction or another. Our staple foods of meat, potatoes, dairy, pizza, burgers, ice cream, and soda will never be given up by the majority of the population. These are the foundation foods of our culture, some of which are, arguably, far worse than a mountain of rice.
We DON'T listen to science unless it shows us something easy or convenient we can change. Most of us feel we have to give up our entire identities to simply leave out certain foods and become thoroughly depressed at the idea. Isn't this strange? Americans treat their diet as a religion, as does almost any other traditional culture. We follow it on faith, and conversion is extremely difficult. We eat as part of our identity, part of our comfort, part of how we connect with other people. I don't believe there is a place for faith in diet, do you?
Witness the common offense taken by many meat-eaters when it comes out you are a vegetarian, which you will know about if you happen to be one. Honestly, I could more easily say I was a pathological liar to avoid the disdain and condescension I have encountered. I keep my eating habits a secret as long as possible until a meal comes up where I have to let it be known. At least with religion, though, we have some etiquette, as we are taught to accept those who have different beliefs.
I don't mean to guilt-trip Americans--as I said, it is entirely natural to hold on to diet and food habits as part of culture. But we MUST be aware that we are doing this. If we fool ourselves into thinking we eat based solely on scientific evidence for health benefits behind food, then we will stay laughably ignorant and probably very unhealthy.
I only wish that the rigid defenders of the American diet (not that they all are that way, by any means) would simply say, "I haven't spent much time researching health and nutrition, but I like to eat meat because it tastes good. I haven't heard anything bad enough to stop me yet." At least this includes self-awareness and honesty. The most important thing for us to be honest with ourselves about is that 100% of us believe what we are told until we are adults. At that point, each one of us has a responsibility to challenge our beliefs and learn from truly trustworthy and expert sources.
Such issues become obvious if you ever read the book The China Study which I am almost halfway through now. This is the largest and most scientifically strict nutrition study ever undertaken. It involves a conglomeration of a massive number of studies conducted over a period of 27 years. It isn't a book based on conclusions from a few skewed graphs connecting animal fat with heart disease. It is finally surfacing that animal fat does not contribute to heart disease in the ways we previously thought and that those conclusions were based on some very incomplete and improperly interpreted statistics.
The evidence for consuming a plant-based diet to avoid disease, based on this study, is simply incontrovertible. Yet this doctor, in undertaking the research, had to deal with other scientists who wouldn't even work with him or who claimed results had been mixed up because the findings ran so counter to everything they believed in. By every single rigorous definition of proper and strict rules of conducting science, this study surpasses them all. Yet his own very intelligent colleagues could not psychologically cope with the answers.
And why on earth has it taken me years of being a total nutrition nerd to even hear about and then read this book? Not because it isn't rigidly backed up by the highest standards while being published, study by study, in the most prestigious and reputable scientific journals. No, it's because people do not like the answers very much. And because it hasn't been packaged and marketed as a fad diet (yet).
This is the scientific, objective, progressive society we live in? We might conduct our studies well, even come up with good ones in the first place, but, as one doctor who studies the mind/body disease connection put it, "some end up in the Bermuda Triangle." They are not argued or disputed, but they disappear, ignored, and never to be heard from again. Even studies that can save thousands and thousands of lives. Inexpensively, with no side effects, and--heck, without health insurance.
Psychology and food must be gently unwound from eachother. Food is not a religion, and even culture is not a religion. People are dying by the thousands of easily preventable diseases, and we sit here still saying, "No! I don't want to change!" What is going on with people when to simply let go of certain foods induces a personal crisis and an extreme emotional reaction? Is this crisis preferable to getting sick? Granted, we are not given a lot of tools in this world to navigate personal crises, but I'll wing it at one of those before taking my chances in a hospital bed.
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