The relationship between my moods and my behavior is getting less and less obvious. The reason for doing this experiment, and keeping this journal is getting less and less clear. I had this idea when I started that I would write this really great thing, that would proof the worth-whileness of doing all the thing our momma's told us to do: play out side, go to bed, brush your teeth.
But it turns out all I write is whiney drivel. And it turns out maybe there isn't as strong a correlation as I thought.
But I'm going to keep doing it for a while. Whether or not the day to day ups and downs mirror each other, there is this fact to keep me going. On almost any day of this program...whether I am doing well or not...I am doing and feeling better than I was before I started this program.
So how could I stop?
Yesterday I, once again, planned to get a perfect score. But Sweetie and I decided to have lunch together and we ended up going to an Indian place with an all you can eat lunch buffet. I love Indian food. I won't go back to this place again. It really wasn't very good. Somehow the food tasted "trashy." I can't say what I mean when I say that, but I kept thinking it while I was eating it. Usually, that is the word that comes to mind when I taste papaya.
I can't eat papaya because one time when I was in Africa and fresh food that was safe to eat was scarce, except for papaya. So I ate a lot of it. I didn't know that it is a mild laxative. You wouldn't even notice if you just at a serving or two once in a while. But I was eating big amounts regularly, and my insides just sort of gave up on working properly for awhile.
Now just a hint of papaya taste in a juice or fruit salad kind of makes me cringe. I had that same cringey feeling eating this Indian food. But it wasn't such a cringey feeling that I didn't eat it. I cleaned my plate. But I didn't go back for a second helping of saag, which is my absolute favorite Indian dish. That's unheard of. I always go back for more saag.
I did go back for a second samosa. And I ate some funny little things that I can only describe as deep-fried mashed potatoes. And some chicken, and a dish with mushrooms peppers and cheese, and naan, and curried vegetables. All together I ate way too much and lost all three of my food points before 1:00 pm. So of course, the rest of the day I just ate whatever I felt like eating, since I'd lost my points already.
I feel discouraged this morning because I weighed myself. I'm not supposed to weigh myself as part of this plan, but I can't help doing it once in a while. It seems like if I'm making such efforts to eat well and not eat junk food and eat the right mix of foods and blah blah blah...then I should loose some weight!
But tomorrow is day 20. Twenty days is plenty of time to lose 5 pounds, if a person is focused on it. Of course, I'm not focused on it. But I am making some effort in the eating healthier and eating less direction, so I expect to at least have dropped a pound or two. Actually, I had dropped two pounds at some point, but now I've gained them back. I'm not supposed to care. Being thinner is not the goal here. But I do kind of feel like, "what's the point?"
I am tempted to just eat whatever I want again today. I could still get a pretty good score. I could get 12 if I did everything just right. But the fact is I haven't yet gotten a 15. Not one perfect score in almost 20 days. I have to wonder if I'm really serious about this project, with no perfect scores. It seems like the real test would come when I had a week or more of perfect scores. How would I feel then?
According to my chart, the points I miss most often are the ones for eating only approved foods, and the one for drinking a 3rd bottle of water.
I guess I'll try for a perfect score today. I'll try to eat right and not worry about being fat.
I was talking to Sweetie last night about the 80/20 rule. That's something we learn about in sales training. In any situation, the theory goes, most of your results come from a small amount of the total energy you put getting those results. If you can identify that 20 percent of effort that results in 80 percent of your results, you can let all the other stuff go.
I guess in sales the idea is that instead of all the other stuff, you could just do more of that 20 percent, and increase your results without working yourself to death. But I like the underachiever implication of just finding that 20 percent, and being happy with that.
And I think that's what I'm doing with my body and my fitness level most of the time. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being my perfect dream body and 1 being as bad a shape as I could possibly be in, I think I'm about an 8. That is, I'm at 80% out of 100%. And out of all the effort I could possibly put into being in shape and fit and trim and thin and beautiful, I probably only put in about 20%.
And maybe I'm just going to be happy with that.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
blah blah blah
I learned how to make a really nice chart using Excel. It shows the ups and downs of my daily happiness, next to the ups and downs of my adherence to the healthy behavior plan. It's beautiful and fascinating, I think. But I can't figure out how to add it to one of my posts here. Maybe I should have stuck with the on-line programs.I rated my mood at a 6 this morning. I feel kind of miserable, but also kind of resigned and content with being miserable. We find out in two weeks if Sweetie got this latest job in California. If she did, we'll be moving soon.
It seems like I'd be so happy out there that even job hunting couldn't get me down. I feel like I'd be content just working at Starbucks or Safeway, if it meant I got to live where I love. I wonder if that's true? I wonder if I'll get out there and have the same problems I have here. I doubt it.
And anyway, I'm not there yet. We don't know who they're going to offer this job to. They're not going to offer it to me, that's for sure. Thank goodness Sweetie has more marketable skills than I do.
This project is starting to seem kind of pointless. I don't have much to write about. The recipes I thought would be interesting turn out to be kind of boring. I don't really stick to the plan, and I don't know why. But I'm going to keep up with it anyway. Just one look at my beautiful chart is very convincing. Do this makes me feel better. Doing it well actually seems to make me happy. I got up at 5:55 this morning, so I still have a chance at a perfect score. I haven't gotten a perfect score these whole two plus weeks. In the beginning I was almost perfect, but I kept forgetting to brush my teeth after lunch and my afternoon snack. I've gotten better at that.
I've lost a pound and a half in seventeen days, which is so little as to feel negligible. Maybe I should just face the fact that my weight is in the low 170's and toss out all the clothes I have that only fit in the low 150's. But I just can't do it. I love those clothes too much. And even a pound in a half in 17 days is still losing weight. It's almost a tenth of a pound a day. At this rate, I will be back down to my ideal weight of 154 in 190 days.
Of course, the whole goal of this program is not to loose weight. I'm not even supposed to be keeping track. And I give myself my food points even if I eat 2000 calories a day, which is pretty much maintenance for me. And, of course, I don't get my food points everyday.
Actually, I just went and fooled around on my excel spreadsheet, and it's easy to see that I loose food points the most often. Food and sleep are the most difficult things to stick to. Exercise and water have identical scores. Hygiene is the easiest one, especially now that I've started to remember to brush my teeth after meals and snacks.
I don't have anything interesting to write today. It's all blah blah blah, poor me, I struggle so to be happy! Ugh. I'm glad no one reads this. I wonder if this is helpful. I should be tracking whether I write about this in the morning as part of the experiment. I suspect I am happier when I take time to write in the morning, even is all I write is drivel.
I'm going to start writing shorter entries here, and maybe tackling more concrete topics than just whatever I feel like writing. And if I can spend less time writing this crap, maybe I can actually find a little time each morning to work on other things that do seem worthwhile to me. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that would make me happy.
I'd start right now, but it's time for me to go jogging. It's not quite light out right now, dim. I love that. I'd better get out there soon before the sun really gets out of bed.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Nurture
I was so low yesterday. It was morning...which is usually a good time for me. I just felt useless. I felt trapped. I felt like no one is ever going to give me a job that I like, and it's ridiculous to think I could create some kind of career for myself out side of the standard job market.
I gave in and gave up. I stopped trying to do anything useful. I wrapped a blanket around myself and watched every episode of the BBC miniseries version of Sense and Sensibility. Afterward, I felt better. I guess sometimes I just need to nurture myself.
No wonder I'm sad, I'm job hunting. It's just challenging and depressing work. I read over all the want ads, and mostly they are just horrible sounding. Then, once in a great while I find something exciting...something I really think I could do day after day for years. I write a resume and a letter in a cloud of hope. And then that cloud slowly turns to rain as nothing happens over the next couple of weeks. And that's about how long it take to find another something exciting that seems worth applying for, a couple of weeks.
Sweetie says it's not me, it's the economy. I know I write a good resume, and a decent cover letter. It occurred to me this morning that I actually have done the best possible job on my resume. The problem is just that I have a crummy work history and no amount of clever writing is going to cover that up.
It's no wonder I feel low. I'm really not doing a good job of sticking to the health plan I set down for myself two weeks ago. Everyday seems like a new challenge. I had hoped by this time it would just seem like an easy routine, and I would be getting perfect scores every day.
Each day I wake up with the intention of getting a perfect score. Actually today I woke up with the intention of getting a near perfect score, because I'd already let myself sleep in until 7:00 am, losing my "early riser" point.
Yesterday I was going to make a list of qualities that describe my perfect job. I don't know why I didn't do it. I'm going to do it now.
Part time. 20-30 hours a week. Starts between 10am and noon. Ends between two and six. Hours are somewhat flexible and somewhat fixed. Meaning, I can set my hours ahead of time according to my schedule...but that I expected to arrive at the agreed upon time and stay until I said I would each day.
Local. I can ride my bike there in 20 minutes or less. The bus that drives past my house also gets me there. The building I work in is either attractive or interesting. I feel happy being there.
I work to support something I believe in. It could be art, or education, or health, or community. I work with people I like and feel like I can learn from. I do work that I enjoy and either feel like I'm good at doing, or feel like I have a lot to learn and will be very good at it someday.
I get paid regularly. $15/hour would be nice. My work makes a clear and positive difference on our domestic finances. My work also makes a clear and positive difference in either the functioning or the finances of the organization I am working for.
Most importantly, this job is the stepping stone to my future of lucrative, meaningful, enjoyable work. This is the place I make connections with people who can help me build a future of good deeds, personal successes and financial stability.
I'm going to write these things down on paper now.
I feel okay right now.
I gave in and gave up. I stopped trying to do anything useful. I wrapped a blanket around myself and watched every episode of the BBC miniseries version of Sense and Sensibility. Afterward, I felt better. I guess sometimes I just need to nurture myself.
No wonder I'm sad, I'm job hunting. It's just challenging and depressing work. I read over all the want ads, and mostly they are just horrible sounding. Then, once in a great while I find something exciting...something I really think I could do day after day for years. I write a resume and a letter in a cloud of hope. And then that cloud slowly turns to rain as nothing happens over the next couple of weeks. And that's about how long it take to find another something exciting that seems worth applying for, a couple of weeks.
Sweetie says it's not me, it's the economy. I know I write a good resume, and a decent cover letter. It occurred to me this morning that I actually have done the best possible job on my resume. The problem is just that I have a crummy work history and no amount of clever writing is going to cover that up.
It's no wonder I feel low. I'm really not doing a good job of sticking to the health plan I set down for myself two weeks ago. Everyday seems like a new challenge. I had hoped by this time it would just seem like an easy routine, and I would be getting perfect scores every day.
Each day I wake up with the intention of getting a perfect score. Actually today I woke up with the intention of getting a near perfect score, because I'd already let myself sleep in until 7:00 am, losing my "early riser" point.
Yesterday I was going to make a list of qualities that describe my perfect job. I don't know why I didn't do it. I'm going to do it now.
Part time. 20-30 hours a week. Starts between 10am and noon. Ends between two and six. Hours are somewhat flexible and somewhat fixed. Meaning, I can set my hours ahead of time according to my schedule...but that I expected to arrive at the agreed upon time and stay until I said I would each day.
Local. I can ride my bike there in 20 minutes or less. The bus that drives past my house also gets me there. The building I work in is either attractive or interesting. I feel happy being there.
I work to support something I believe in. It could be art, or education, or health, or community. I work with people I like and feel like I can learn from. I do work that I enjoy and either feel like I'm good at doing, or feel like I have a lot to learn and will be very good at it someday.
I get paid regularly. $15/hour would be nice. My work makes a clear and positive difference on our domestic finances. My work also makes a clear and positive difference in either the functioning or the finances of the organization I am working for.
Most importantly, this job is the stepping stone to my future of lucrative, meaningful, enjoyable work. This is the place I make connections with people who can help me build a future of good deeds, personal successes and financial stability.
I'm going to write these things down on paper now.
I feel okay right now.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Basic Breakfast
I think it's funny that we have certain foods associated exclusively with breakfast. Some of my favorite suppers are these kinds of foods: scrambled eggs with potatoes and broccoli, french toast with asparagus. Of course, I would never have cold cereal for supper...but I would have it for dessert!
There is one food that I really save only for the mornings and that's hot porridge. It is the perfect morning meal. Here's the breakdown:
1/3 cup raw oats
200g plain fat free yogurt
20g slivered almonds
200g apple, chopped
cinnamon
powdered ginger
Serves one.
Cook the oats and the apple in 2/3 cup water. Top with yogurt and almonds. Dust lightly with cinnamon and heavily with powdered ginger.
That's the basic recipe. It provides a perfect balance of fat, protein, grain and fruit/veg. And there's a million substitutions that can make it more interesting.
Substitute a cup of cooked grains for the 1/3 cup of oats can be interesting. If you replace the yogurt with almond or hazelnut milk (my favorite) and use it for cooking, the result is a kind of rice pudding (if you used rice), if you simmer it gently for long enough.
Or, if you're lucky enough to live near a health food store, you can find all kinds of other grains including barley, rye, wheat, and triticale, in a rolled and flaked form that can be cooked and eaten like oats.
And of course, you can replace the almonds with any calorically equivalent amount of other nuts or seeds. I've really been into sunflower seeds lately.
But the real place to play around is with the fruit. I usually cook the fruit with the cereal if I am using apples or raisins. But fresh berries are wonderful just piled on top of the yogurt at the end. Peaches, nectarines, plums and bananas are also fabulous. I keep bags of frozen strawberries and cherries in the freezer, for days when I am all out of fresh fruit. You can just dump the frozen stuff in right with the oatmeal at the beginning of cooking. It will turn the cereal pink or purple...but I don't mind that. It's still the perfect way to start the day.
Looking Forward
The weekend was lovely. Relaxed. Beautiful weather. We stayed home. We read. We played with the dog. We watched movies. We ate simple meals.
Weekends are nice because, even though I don't have a job, I feel like it's a break. There's no pressure on me to do anything meaningful or useful all day long. I can pretend to be like normal people, like people with jobs.
Today is Monday. I feel completely ugh. I woke up this morning and I thought, no wonder I feel this way...I don't have anything to look forward to. On top of that, I have a few unpleasant things to face. I have to call the car dealership again and try to squeeze some money out of them because they told me my car had never been in an accident and, according to my recent bill for $700, it had. I have to look for jobs, which is disheartening and demoralizing. Then, if I find one that might be okay, I have to apply for it, which takes a lot of effort and concentration and usually doesn't result in anything. As always, I need to do dishes and laundry and keep the house looking nice in case someone wants to look at it. Actually showing the house might be fun, except that I have given up on hoping that anyone will ever buy it.
I miss California. I miss the fog and the ocean air. I miss the palm trees and the golden poppies. I miss the rolling hills and the ocean views. I miss the dolphins and the otters. I miss my sailboat. I miss absolutely everything about it.
I'm not going to fight that missing feeling anymore. I wont try to assuage it with the hope that we'll move there soon. I've just got to face the fact that we are here, not there, and we may never ever be there again. That is so sad. But, it's certainly not the worst thing that could happen to a person. I just finished reading a book about the holocaust. Before that, I was reading a book a bout slavery. So, it's really clear there's nothing too bad going on in my life. I can bear the sadness of never living where I feel at home again.
So I'm looking this town square in the face, and I've got to find a way to make peace with it and learn to be happy here. I have spent the last two years refusing to be happy here. I guess I felt like if I got happy here, we would never leave. But now I know we may never leave anyway, and even if we do leave, we may not go there. So now I'm going to refuse to be sad here. I've got to learn to be happy.
This healthy behavior experiment seems to be helping. At least, it's interesting. But, of course, it's not enough. I need something to look forward to today.
I'm going to make a dream list for the perfect job. Just making the list should be fun, and maybe it will actually help me find what I want. It's worked before.
Also, I will continue to pursue the folks at the Spanish and English non-profit. I want to make a connection there that might pay off in several ways.
I need things to look forward to. Right now, all I really look forward to is meals. That's kind of sad. It's really true. I can't think of a single other thing I look forward to. Well, I guess I look forward to Sweetie coming home at the end of the work day. And, I look forward to reading, when I have a good book going. While I don't exactly look forward to sleeping, I do enjoy it. Actually, I'm still kind of groggy right now, and even though I've been up for 45 minutes, I am looking forward to the next time I get to lie down and sleep.
I really need something else in my life that I can look forward to. I guess that's what my challenge will be today with the list. I need to be able to describe a job that I would actually look forward to every day. Right now, I'm looking forward to that.
Weekends are nice because, even though I don't have a job, I feel like it's a break. There's no pressure on me to do anything meaningful or useful all day long. I can pretend to be like normal people, like people with jobs.
Today is Monday. I feel completely ugh. I woke up this morning and I thought, no wonder I feel this way...I don't have anything to look forward to. On top of that, I have a few unpleasant things to face. I have to call the car dealership again and try to squeeze some money out of them because they told me my car had never been in an accident and, according to my recent bill for $700, it had. I have to look for jobs, which is disheartening and demoralizing. Then, if I find one that might be okay, I have to apply for it, which takes a lot of effort and concentration and usually doesn't result in anything. As always, I need to do dishes and laundry and keep the house looking nice in case someone wants to look at it. Actually showing the house might be fun, except that I have given up on hoping that anyone will ever buy it.
I miss California. I miss the fog and the ocean air. I miss the palm trees and the golden poppies. I miss the rolling hills and the ocean views. I miss the dolphins and the otters. I miss my sailboat. I miss absolutely everything about it.
I'm not going to fight that missing feeling anymore. I wont try to assuage it with the hope that we'll move there soon. I've just got to face the fact that we are here, not there, and we may never ever be there again. That is so sad. But, it's certainly not the worst thing that could happen to a person. I just finished reading a book about the holocaust. Before that, I was reading a book a bout slavery. So, it's really clear there's nothing too bad going on in my life. I can bear the sadness of never living where I feel at home again.
So I'm looking this town square in the face, and I've got to find a way to make peace with it and learn to be happy here. I have spent the last two years refusing to be happy here. I guess I felt like if I got happy here, we would never leave. But now I know we may never leave anyway, and even if we do leave, we may not go there. So now I'm going to refuse to be sad here. I've got to learn to be happy.
This healthy behavior experiment seems to be helping. At least, it's interesting. But, of course, it's not enough. I need something to look forward to today.
I'm going to make a dream list for the perfect job. Just making the list should be fun, and maybe it will actually help me find what I want. It's worked before.
Also, I will continue to pursue the folks at the Spanish and English non-profit. I want to make a connection there that might pay off in several ways.
I need things to look forward to. Right now, all I really look forward to is meals. That's kind of sad. It's really true. I can't think of a single other thing I look forward to. Well, I guess I look forward to Sweetie coming home at the end of the work day. And, I look forward to reading, when I have a good book going. While I don't exactly look forward to sleeping, I do enjoy it. Actually, I'm still kind of groggy right now, and even though I've been up for 45 minutes, I am looking forward to the next time I get to lie down and sleep.
I really need something else in my life that I can look forward to. I guess that's what my challenge will be today with the list. I need to be able to describe a job that I would actually look forward to every day. Right now, I'm looking forward to that.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Low Points, High Score
Yesterday was Saturday. I took a break. I slept in late, I didn't write or run or even look at my yoga mat. I ate healthy well-balanced meals, with movie house popcorn, peanut m&m's, Kaluha and Bailey's Irish Liquor afterwards. I felt bold enough to do this, to risk unhappiness in this way, because Sweetie was home with me, and there was nothing much we had to do. We both spent the whole day lazing around the house, reading books, enjoying the perfect early-fall weather. I just knew that no matter what happened that whole day, I was going to feel pretty happy. So I ate whatever appealed to me and pretended I didn't own work-out shoes.
My compliance score was only 36.66. That's equal to the lowest scores I've gotten since my baseline day. But, my happiness score was 70! That's just a few points short of my all time high.
To do the same today, even though it's Sunday and Sweetie and I have a similar day ahead of us, would be too much like taunting. Whatever devil brings my depression to me, I'd rather not demand his attention.
The line chart I'm making on Excel shows my Happiness points and my Compliance scores right next to each other, day by day. The Happiness points, in blue, make me think of a lazy little brother, chasing his elder sibling down the length of a soccer field. The older boy is energetic. He darts and feints from side to side, running wide to cover as much ground as possible. The other one, on shorter legs, can't keep up, so he cuts the corners and just barely manages to follow in the same general direction.
There are some days, of course, where the compliance score lurches up or down, and the happiness rating continues gently in the same opposing direction it was going the day before. You can still easily see, however, without calculating the official correlation value, that the two variables are somehow connected. I can't help but wonder, if I could find a way to shift the chart over, if the relationship would be even stronger. My guess is that if I matched each day's happiness score with the compliance of, not that actual day...but the day before, that the relationship would show up even stronger.
So I'm a little wary today. I scared that yesterdays disregard for all the things that have shown to be influential on my happiness, will hit me hard to day. I don't want to go through the day in a grey fog of hopelessness. Ugh. If I'm lucky, Sweetie's presence throughout the day, and our free passes to the batting cages and go cart track, will keep me buoyed up.
My compliance score was only 36.66. That's equal to the lowest scores I've gotten since my baseline day. But, my happiness score was 70! That's just a few points short of my all time high.
To do the same today, even though it's Sunday and Sweetie and I have a similar day ahead of us, would be too much like taunting. Whatever devil brings my depression to me, I'd rather not demand his attention.
The line chart I'm making on Excel shows my Happiness points and my Compliance scores right next to each other, day by day. The Happiness points, in blue, make me think of a lazy little brother, chasing his elder sibling down the length of a soccer field. The older boy is energetic. He darts and feints from side to side, running wide to cover as much ground as possible. The other one, on shorter legs, can't keep up, so he cuts the corners and just barely manages to follow in the same general direction.
There are some days, of course, where the compliance score lurches up or down, and the happiness rating continues gently in the same opposing direction it was going the day before. You can still easily see, however, without calculating the official correlation value, that the two variables are somehow connected. I can't help but wonder, if I could find a way to shift the chart over, if the relationship would be even stronger. My guess is that if I matched each day's happiness score with the compliance of, not that actual day...but the day before, that the relationship would show up even stronger.
So I'm a little wary today. I scared that yesterdays disregard for all the things that have shown to be influential on my happiness, will hit me hard to day. I don't want to go through the day in a grey fog of hopelessness. Ugh. If I'm lucky, Sweetie's presence throughout the day, and our free passes to the batting cages and go cart track, will keep me buoyed up.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Hypnotherapy and Happiness
A few years ago, I had a good job that required me to dress up every day. A lot of people would have hated this, most of the people I know, in fact. But, I loved it. I delighted in my little skirt suits and dresses. I treasured my high-heeled shoes and tailored jackets. I felt beautiful and smart every day. I felt sexy and fit.
Of course, it wasn't just the clothes that made me feel good in my body. This was also a time in my life when I was running long distance trail races on the weekends, training all through the week, and eating very well. I weighed 154 lbs., 20 less than I do know. And I'm sure most of it was long lean endurance-style muscle.
I looked so good that perfect strangers would come up to me at parties just to tell me that I was beautiful. That always felt a little weird, but good too. My favorite stranger compliment came not at a party, but at a hotel. And it wasn't even directed to me, but I overheard it too clearly to misunderstand. I was at one of the big chain hotels that I visited often when I was traveling for work. I wasn't even staying there, I was just sitting in the lobby to use the free internet. Some special corporate event was happening a little ways down the hall from me. Outside one of the conference rooms, a white canvas sheet was hanging from the wall. One of those large umbrellas that photographers use to reflect light was standing in front of it. Occasionally, some businessy looking person would emerge from the room with a photographer. They would stand in serious discussion for a minute. The business person would perhaps duck into the bathroom for a moment. Then the photographer would click off a round of shots, while the other person experimented with various poses and expressions under the big umbrella.
I wasn't paying too much attention to this whole scene. I had spreadsheets to interpret, expense reports to compose, and a business plan to write. But there are some things one can't ignore, like one's bladder.
I headed for the bathroom and left my computer and paperwork in my chair. I wasn't going far, wouldn't be gone long, and I felt safe at this hotel. So, when I strolled past the umbrella stand in my red leather shoes which matched my red leather purse, the swing of my skirt wasn't hampered by a heavy computer bag pressing against it. The fold of my tailored collar wasn't crushed by a fat padded strap. Free of that burden for probably the first time that day, I'm sure I was walking even taller and straighter than usual, and enjoying the light click click click of my shoes on the polished floor.
At that moment, the person being photographed was a woman. She was a little older than me, maybe in her forties. And she was dressed a little like me, in a navy business suit and heels. I swept past them just as they were entering the pre-photo huddle. And even though their voices were hushed, I could hear every word.
"How do you want to look?" the photographer asked?
"I want to look like that!" the woman answered with a little laugh and what I'm convinced must have been a glance or gesture toward me. I was the only other person around.
That candid comment lives in my memory hall of fame, under the label "best compliment." (Well, best compliment on my appearance, anyway. My recent best compliment in the skills category is "Damn. This woman knows how to write a resume!" Does it make sense that my favorite compliments were not directed to me, but overheard?)
Does it make sense to care about how other people think you look?
I have a friend who is a massage therapist trying to build up her client base in a new town. She has an add in the paper, like a lot of them do. But, where other people put a picture of themselves, she has a list of her training credentials. She argues that this is much more relevant information. But she suspects that the ads with the photos get more calls. People want to make decisions with their eyes. How we look matters. She understands this, and rebels against it. She thinks it's wrong, and unfair. But, I just don't know.
We are visually oriented animals. How could we not make decisions based on what we see first and foremost? Why would we even pretend not to?
She and I come from different sides of the issue. I'm tall, and even now, kind of thin. I've got blue eyes, symmetrical features and good skin. Importantly, I'm feminine looking. Most importantly, I'm white.
She's white too, and I think she's beautiful. But she doesn't fit the current U.S. standard of beauty as well as I do. She's short, and tomboyish. I would even say butch, except that I know that's not a word she uses to describe herself.
Her refusal to put her picture on her ad seems ridiculous to me. But maybe it wouldn't seem ridiculous if I hadn't spent my teen years being occasionally told that I could be a model.
I guess my point is that I really enjoyed feeling beautiful, and being thought beautiful by others.. I enjoyed having clothes that flattered my figure and helped me to look as stunning and lovely as possible. I really enjoyed living in that trim fit body that made finding clothes so easy. (For the first time in my life, I could a suit where the top was the SAME size as the bottom.)
Then a bunch of unplanned things happened. I lost my job. I got diagnosed with breast cancer. I started eating oatmeal cookies and ice cream for most meals. I had surgery. I recovered from surgery. I moved away from my beautiful California beach home with it's doorstep access to a net work of trails that cut through rolling hills and sand dunes. I moved to this rocky mountain place, where all the trails on the east side are dead flat and boring, and all the trail to the west try to kill you with their sharp rocks, and sharper ascents. I got married and started cooking meals that another person, who wasn't really interested in raw vegetables and ancient grains, might enjoy. I remained unemployed and got depressed. I lived through a cold winter that I really didn't own the proper clothes for.
At the end of a year, I had gained twenty pounds. It's the end of two years now, and I still weigh 174. I've made numerous attempts to lose that weight. The fist serious and successful attempt was almost a year ago. I called it "100 days of fitness." I got down to 158. And let me tell you, I felt great! I looked great too. One day, I was actually able to wear one of the skirt suits I had brought with me from my former life.
But it didn't last. Some kind of internal switch flipped and I started binging on cookies and cakes and chocolate. I stopped exercising and drank wine instead. Before I knew it, I was back at 174. I didn't worry too much. It had seemed pretty easy to lose weight, so I when I had gotten the binging out of my system, I tried again.
It worked again. This time I got down to 164 really quickly. But then the switch went off again. I suddenly didn't care about losing weight as much as I cared about chocolate-covered peanuts. And just as suddenly, I was at 174 again.
This happened so many times that I started to recognize it as a pattern. At 164 I would be seized by an urge to freak out and pig out. Then, as soon as I'd plumped up by 10 pounds, the urge would vanish and I would effortlessly follow my fitness and diet routine until I dropped those 10 pounds. As soon as I hit 164 again, boom, back up the scale.
I couldn't figure it out. When I hit the low end, there was no way I could imagine having the interest or will power to keep from eating every gooey sweet fatty desert that crossed my path. When I hit the high end, crunchy vegetables and whole grain dishes were so satisfying that I couldn't imagine ever being led to disaster by my sweet tooth. My consciousness changed with the scale.
Right around the time I was noticing this trend, a friend of mine offered to trade me some work. She could pay me with her skills, which included card-readings and hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy! Isn't that what people used to stop smoking, stop drinking, and stop binge eating? I didn't know if it would work. But, I was ready to try.
The session was interesting. We talked for a while about my issues around fitness and fat. I did suddenly make the connection that maybe being thin and weighing 154 might bring up a deep subconscious fear for me. That's how much I weighed when my life fell apart, when I lost my job and got cancer...did I mention my pink slip and my diagnosis came on the same day, less than 30 minutes from each other? Did I mention my company car was the only one I had and that they took it from me that very day? Did I mention that I suddenly couldn't afford the beautiful beach home I loved so much, and had to move in with friends who lived in a different town?
Maybe that's why I resist getting within 10 lbs of my goal weight. Or maybe not. But I felt like I wasn't even going to have to figure it out. My friend was going to fix me with her hoo-doo voo-doo.
I got comfortable on the sofa and she pulled up a chair. She led me through a guided meditation that I don't really remember. Then she left and I took a nap. When I woke up, I didn't really feel any different. But, over the next few days, I did begin to notice something. Something was gone, and it wasn't my extra pounds.
Ever since I'd started gaining weight, I had felt fat and unattractive. I had lamented my thickening waistline and criticized my self for my widening thighs. I felt sad that I wasn't sexy any more and wassure I would never really be happy again until I weighed 154 and could fit into all my beautiful business clothes again.
But suddenly, after the hypnotherapy session, those feelings were gone. The lament, the sadness, the criticism...all gone! I wasn't 154 again, as I had hoped I soon would be. Instead, within a matter of days, I started to feel like I used to feel when I weighed 154.
I felt tall and leggy. I felt sexy and smart. I didn't feel skinny exactly, but who really wants to feel "skinny?" I felt luscious and desirable and perfectly proportioned. I felt at ease in my skin and proud of my body. I felt beautiful. I felt right.
It's been months now, and that feeling has stayed with me. Before I started the current happiness experiment, I ate absolutely whatever I felt like eating, and I never did weigh any more than 174. Maybe this is just my natural weight. Maybe I will never weigh 154 again. Unbelievably, after so many months of struggling, I'm okay with that. Because that's what my hypnotherapy session seemed to teach me, that just exactly they way I am right now, I'm okay.
Of course, it wasn't just the clothes that made me feel good in my body. This was also a time in my life when I was running long distance trail races on the weekends, training all through the week, and eating very well. I weighed 154 lbs., 20 less than I do know. And I'm sure most of it was long lean endurance-style muscle.
I looked so good that perfect strangers would come up to me at parties just to tell me that I was beautiful. That always felt a little weird, but good too. My favorite stranger compliment came not at a party, but at a hotel. And it wasn't even directed to me, but I overheard it too clearly to misunderstand. I was at one of the big chain hotels that I visited often when I was traveling for work. I wasn't even staying there, I was just sitting in the lobby to use the free internet. Some special corporate event was happening a little ways down the hall from me. Outside one of the conference rooms, a white canvas sheet was hanging from the wall. One of those large umbrellas that photographers use to reflect light was standing in front of it. Occasionally, some businessy looking person would emerge from the room with a photographer. They would stand in serious discussion for a minute. The business person would perhaps duck into the bathroom for a moment. Then the photographer would click off a round of shots, while the other person experimented with various poses and expressions under the big umbrella.
I wasn't paying too much attention to this whole scene. I had spreadsheets to interpret, expense reports to compose, and a business plan to write. But there are some things one can't ignore, like one's bladder.
I headed for the bathroom and left my computer and paperwork in my chair. I wasn't going far, wouldn't be gone long, and I felt safe at this hotel. So, when I strolled past the umbrella stand in my red leather shoes which matched my red leather purse, the swing of my skirt wasn't hampered by a heavy computer bag pressing against it. The fold of my tailored collar wasn't crushed by a fat padded strap. Free of that burden for probably the first time that day, I'm sure I was walking even taller and straighter than usual, and enjoying the light click click click of my shoes on the polished floor.
At that moment, the person being photographed was a woman. She was a little older than me, maybe in her forties. And she was dressed a little like me, in a navy business suit and heels. I swept past them just as they were entering the pre-photo huddle. And even though their voices were hushed, I could hear every word.
"How do you want to look?" the photographer asked?
"I want to look like that!" the woman answered with a little laugh and what I'm convinced must have been a glance or gesture toward me. I was the only other person around.
That candid comment lives in my memory hall of fame, under the label "best compliment." (Well, best compliment on my appearance, anyway. My recent best compliment in the skills category is "Damn. This woman knows how to write a resume!" Does it make sense that my favorite compliments were not directed to me, but overheard?)
Does it make sense to care about how other people think you look?
I have a friend who is a massage therapist trying to build up her client base in a new town. She has an add in the paper, like a lot of them do. But, where other people put a picture of themselves, she has a list of her training credentials. She argues that this is much more relevant information. But she suspects that the ads with the photos get more calls. People want to make decisions with their eyes. How we look matters. She understands this, and rebels against it. She thinks it's wrong, and unfair. But, I just don't know.
We are visually oriented animals. How could we not make decisions based on what we see first and foremost? Why would we even pretend not to?
She and I come from different sides of the issue. I'm tall, and even now, kind of thin. I've got blue eyes, symmetrical features and good skin. Importantly, I'm feminine looking. Most importantly, I'm white.
She's white too, and I think she's beautiful. But she doesn't fit the current U.S. standard of beauty as well as I do. She's short, and tomboyish. I would even say butch, except that I know that's not a word she uses to describe herself.
Her refusal to put her picture on her ad seems ridiculous to me. But maybe it wouldn't seem ridiculous if I hadn't spent my teen years being occasionally told that I could be a model.
I guess my point is that I really enjoyed feeling beautiful, and being thought beautiful by others.. I enjoyed having clothes that flattered my figure and helped me to look as stunning and lovely as possible. I really enjoyed living in that trim fit body that made finding clothes so easy. (For the first time in my life, I could a suit where the top was the SAME size as the bottom.)
Then a bunch of unplanned things happened. I lost my job. I got diagnosed with breast cancer. I started eating oatmeal cookies and ice cream for most meals. I had surgery. I recovered from surgery. I moved away from my beautiful California beach home with it's doorstep access to a net work of trails that cut through rolling hills and sand dunes. I moved to this rocky mountain place, where all the trails on the east side are dead flat and boring, and all the trail to the west try to kill you with their sharp rocks, and sharper ascents. I got married and started cooking meals that another person, who wasn't really interested in raw vegetables and ancient grains, might enjoy. I remained unemployed and got depressed. I lived through a cold winter that I really didn't own the proper clothes for.
At the end of a year, I had gained twenty pounds. It's the end of two years now, and I still weigh 174. I've made numerous attempts to lose that weight. The fist serious and successful attempt was almost a year ago. I called it "100 days of fitness." I got down to 158. And let me tell you, I felt great! I looked great too. One day, I was actually able to wear one of the skirt suits I had brought with me from my former life.
But it didn't last. Some kind of internal switch flipped and I started binging on cookies and cakes and chocolate. I stopped exercising and drank wine instead. Before I knew it, I was back at 174. I didn't worry too much. It had seemed pretty easy to lose weight, so I when I had gotten the binging out of my system, I tried again.
It worked again. This time I got down to 164 really quickly. But then the switch went off again. I suddenly didn't care about losing weight as much as I cared about chocolate-covered peanuts. And just as suddenly, I was at 174 again.
This happened so many times that I started to recognize it as a pattern. At 164 I would be seized by an urge to freak out and pig out. Then, as soon as I'd plumped up by 10 pounds, the urge would vanish and I would effortlessly follow my fitness and diet routine until I dropped those 10 pounds. As soon as I hit 164 again, boom, back up the scale.
I couldn't figure it out. When I hit the low end, there was no way I could imagine having the interest or will power to keep from eating every gooey sweet fatty desert that crossed my path. When I hit the high end, crunchy vegetables and whole grain dishes were so satisfying that I couldn't imagine ever being led to disaster by my sweet tooth. My consciousness changed with the scale.
Right around the time I was noticing this trend, a friend of mine offered to trade me some work. She could pay me with her skills, which included card-readings and hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy! Isn't that what people used to stop smoking, stop drinking, and stop binge eating? I didn't know if it would work. But, I was ready to try.
The session was interesting. We talked for a while about my issues around fitness and fat. I did suddenly make the connection that maybe being thin and weighing 154 might bring up a deep subconscious fear for me. That's how much I weighed when my life fell apart, when I lost my job and got cancer...did I mention my pink slip and my diagnosis came on the same day, less than 30 minutes from each other? Did I mention my company car was the only one I had and that they took it from me that very day? Did I mention that I suddenly couldn't afford the beautiful beach home I loved so much, and had to move in with friends who lived in a different town?
Maybe that's why I resist getting within 10 lbs of my goal weight. Or maybe not. But I felt like I wasn't even going to have to figure it out. My friend was going to fix me with her hoo-doo voo-doo.
I got comfortable on the sofa and she pulled up a chair. She led me through a guided meditation that I don't really remember. Then she left and I took a nap. When I woke up, I didn't really feel any different. But, over the next few days, I did begin to notice something. Something was gone, and it wasn't my extra pounds.
Ever since I'd started gaining weight, I had felt fat and unattractive. I had lamented my thickening waistline and criticized my self for my widening thighs. I felt sad that I wasn't sexy any more and wassure I would never really be happy again until I weighed 154 and could fit into all my beautiful business clothes again.
But suddenly, after the hypnotherapy session, those feelings were gone. The lament, the sadness, the criticism...all gone! I wasn't 154 again, as I had hoped I soon would be. Instead, within a matter of days, I started to feel like I used to feel when I weighed 154.
I felt tall and leggy. I felt sexy and smart. I didn't feel skinny exactly, but who really wants to feel "skinny?" I felt luscious and desirable and perfectly proportioned. I felt at ease in my skin and proud of my body. I felt beautiful. I felt right.
It's been months now, and that feeling has stayed with me. Before I started the current happiness experiment, I ate absolutely whatever I felt like eating, and I never did weigh any more than 174. Maybe this is just my natural weight. Maybe I will never weigh 154 again. Unbelievably, after so many months of struggling, I'm okay with that. Because that's what my hypnotherapy session seemed to teach me, that just exactly they way I am right now, I'm okay.
Ups and Downs
It's been two days since I've written anything here. Whether or not I find the time in the morning...or anytime during the day or night...to write is not something I've been tracking on my health and happiness log. But it does seem highly correlated with my happiness. It also seems correlated with my compliance to the healthy behavior plan. Tuesday was bad and Wednesday was worse. Last night I could barely bring myself to care whether or not I washed my face. I finally did, but it just as easily could have gone the other way.
The real question is: did I feel so lousy the last two days because I didn't adher to the plan, or did I just feel too lousy to care about sticking too it? I don't know that it really matters. I don't know that one causes the other any more than the left side of a rail road track causes the right side.
But they do seem to be inextricably related. And since there is only one of them I can control, I might as well think of that one as "causing" the changes in the other one.
Of course, that control is not perfect. If it was, I'd have a score of %100 every day, never a paltry 36, like yesterday.
I practically leaped out of bed this morning when the alarm clock rang at 5:30. I would have liked to sleep longer. I still feel sleepy, and wish I could put my head back on the pillow for another two hours. But I feel like the connection between getting up early and starting on the routine are so critical to my mood for the rest of the day, that I'd just as soon go stick my foot in the hornets' nest down the street as stay in bed another minute. Who in their right mind would take a couple hours of sleep over a whole day's happiness?
Another thing the last two days have in common is our social supper activities. Tuesday night we had supper at a neighbors house. Last night we had supper here, with neighbors from the other side. We adore all these people. We miss them when we don't see them and look forward to spending time with them. But, when it comes down to it, I think I just really don't like eating as a social activity. I'd rather go on a hike together, or help someone clean out their garage. I need to craft a social life that does not revolve around sit-down suppers.
Thank goodness we don't have any plans tonight, or tomorrow night. I think maybe we don't have any plans all weekend, but that seems to good to be true.
If it is true I'm going to look for some kind of interesting art event, and invite my cousin to go with me. And I'm going to work on the Excel spreadsheet tutorial I've been studying so I can learn how to keep track of my data from this experiment, and even produce my own line graphs. (The charts and graphs available on those websites have too many restrictions and glitches.)
Another thing that's been messing up my schedule, my compliance, and my happiness the last few days, ironically, is rowing. I used to love to go out to the local reservoir early in the morning and get a work-out on an 8 person sweep boat. I still love it, but I can't figure out how to fit it into my schedule. It takes up the whole morning. I don't get home until 7:45, usually. And then I don't find time to write, do yoga, or to take the dog for a walk...and I feel guilty about that all day.
But I do love rowing. I want to keep it. Maybe I will try and keep it up two days a week. I could do Saturdays, since Sweetie sleeps in. I might still be able to get my writing for the day done while the house is still quiet. We could still do yoga together, we'd just do it a little bit later. And we could both take the dog for a hike later in the day.
I think they are starting Sunday rowing too. This seems like a good solution, weekend rows. But somehow, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like the right solution. Maybe Sunday just needs to be a day off. That's how it feels...like I do need just one day when it is okay to sleep in and not write and let Sweetie worry about the dog altogether. I think it would be better to pick a weekday...maybe Wednesday...for going out in a sculling single. Maybe I could go later, like around 7:00, which would still give me time to do my writing. That feels better.
Well, blah blah blah. That's all I have to write about for now. I'm really feeling hopeful about having a good day today. Sorry I didn't have anything more interesting to write about. Maybe tomorrow I'll start with recipes.
The real question is: did I feel so lousy the last two days because I didn't adher to the plan, or did I just feel too lousy to care about sticking too it? I don't know that it really matters. I don't know that one causes the other any more than the left side of a rail road track causes the right side.
But they do seem to be inextricably related. And since there is only one of them I can control, I might as well think of that one as "causing" the changes in the other one.
Of course, that control is not perfect. If it was, I'd have a score of %100 every day, never a paltry 36, like yesterday.
I practically leaped out of bed this morning when the alarm clock rang at 5:30. I would have liked to sleep longer. I still feel sleepy, and wish I could put my head back on the pillow for another two hours. But I feel like the connection between getting up early and starting on the routine are so critical to my mood for the rest of the day, that I'd just as soon go stick my foot in the hornets' nest down the street as stay in bed another minute. Who in their right mind would take a couple hours of sleep over a whole day's happiness?
Another thing the last two days have in common is our social supper activities. Tuesday night we had supper at a neighbors house. Last night we had supper here, with neighbors from the other side. We adore all these people. We miss them when we don't see them and look forward to spending time with them. But, when it comes down to it, I think I just really don't like eating as a social activity. I'd rather go on a hike together, or help someone clean out their garage. I need to craft a social life that does not revolve around sit-down suppers.
Thank goodness we don't have any plans tonight, or tomorrow night. I think maybe we don't have any plans all weekend, but that seems to good to be true.
If it is true I'm going to look for some kind of interesting art event, and invite my cousin to go with me. And I'm going to work on the Excel spreadsheet tutorial I've been studying so I can learn how to keep track of my data from this experiment, and even produce my own line graphs. (The charts and graphs available on those websites have too many restrictions and glitches.)
Another thing that's been messing up my schedule, my compliance, and my happiness the last few days, ironically, is rowing. I used to love to go out to the local reservoir early in the morning and get a work-out on an 8 person sweep boat. I still love it, but I can't figure out how to fit it into my schedule. It takes up the whole morning. I don't get home until 7:45, usually. And then I don't find time to write, do yoga, or to take the dog for a walk...and I feel guilty about that all day.
But I do love rowing. I want to keep it. Maybe I will try and keep it up two days a week. I could do Saturdays, since Sweetie sleeps in. I might still be able to get my writing for the day done while the house is still quiet. We could still do yoga together, we'd just do it a little bit later. And we could both take the dog for a hike later in the day.
I think they are starting Sunday rowing too. This seems like a good solution, weekend rows. But somehow, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like the right solution. Maybe Sunday just needs to be a day off. That's how it feels...like I do need just one day when it is okay to sleep in and not write and let Sweetie worry about the dog altogether. I think it would be better to pick a weekday...maybe Wednesday...for going out in a sculling single. Maybe I could go later, like around 7:00, which would still give me time to do my writing. That feels better.
Well, blah blah blah. That's all I have to write about for now. I'm really feeling hopeful about having a good day today. Sorry I didn't have anything more interesting to write about. Maybe tomorrow I'll start with recipes.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Raw Enough
I just finished a really excellent book called Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, by Richard Wrangham.
In it, he makes an extremely convincing case for the idea that learning to control fire and using it to cook meat and plant foods, was the defining event that turned us into humans. By humans, he doesn't mean our current species, Homo Sapiens. He is instead referring to the change that birthed our genus, Homo. We don't think of it very often, but there have actually been three species of so-called humans. The first was Homo Erectus, which evolved from our ape-like ancestors, the habilines, almost 2 million years ago. (The second was Homo Heidelbergensis and its no wonder most of us are not familiar with this name. I can hardly figure out how to pronounce it, much less remember it.)
I'm not going to report all his theories here. But, if you are interested, I strongly suggest this book. It's extremely well organized and his points are well-argued.
Reading it has me thinking a lot about raw food, and it's proper place in a healthy modern diet. According to Wrangham and his excellent sources, the main advantage of eating cooked food is faster, easier access to a significantly greater amount of energy. For our initially foraging, and later hunting and gathering predecessors, this was an obvious advantage. More fuel to grow and move with meant greater odds of survival for oneself and one's offspring.
But in the context of our safe sedentary lifestyles, most of us are facing an upside-down challenge, evolutionarily speaking. Now we do better when we manage to expend more effort, not less. And if we suffer from any scarcity, it is of vitamins and micro-nutrients, not calories. No wonder raw foodists claim to feel healthier when they give up cooked meals. Their method might be all wrong according to our biology, but it is the perfect antidote to the poisonous effects of our current food culture.
I'm not considering switching to an all raw diet. It's too much work, for one. I would miss cooked food too much, for another. But mostly, I just don't feel like I need such a dramatic shift in my habits. But I am going to make some small changes.
For this phase of my experiment I'm eating four meals a day. (Or three meals and a fourth meal's worth of snacks spaced throughout.) Each of these meals has four components: one serving of healthy fat-based food, one of lean protein, one of whole grain or other plant based starch, and one of fruit or vegetables. That's sixteen servings in all, each providing roughly 100 calories.
Other than an occasional splurge at my favorite sushi restaurant, I can't imagine eating my protein portions raw. Raw meat disgusts me. Fresh beans are impossible to get, and indegestible when they're dried. I can barely watch that scene in Rocky where he drinks the raw eggs. Yuck.
Starches don't seem any more promising. One time, when I was traveling and hungry a
nd without access to a stove or a store, I tried to eat a raw sweet potato by slicing it very thin. It crunched nicely, but tasted awful. I was nauseated for hours afterward. It's true, I do sometimes eat my oats raw. They are surprisingly good just sprinkled on top of yogurt with some fresh ground flax seed and mixed berries. But of all the others I know: rice, wheat, quinoa, teff, amaranth, I can't think of any that I would be able to chew without cooking. Of course the raw foodists remember that these things are actually seeds, and they sprout them. But again that's too much work.
The fat category offers a few more options. Cold-pressed olive oil probably counts as raw. And I already buy raw nuts and nut-butters when I can find them. Oh, and avacado is a delicious raw fat, of course. But I'm not giving up butter, or mayonnaise, or the oils I use to cook with. Anyway, fatty foods are so calorically dense, it probably doesn't matter much which way I eat them. And the kind of micro-nutrients that raw-only enthusiasts rave about are probably only present in minutes amounts anyway.
The real area to focus on, it seems, if I want to eat more raw stuff, is fruits and vegetables. Fruits are easy. I can't really think of any that I don't like raw just as well, or better, than I like cooked. The only time I ever eat them cooked is when I run out of fresh ones at home have to turn to the freezer or the canned goods shelf if I want any fruit at all. And vegetables offer a lot of options: carrots, cauliflower, sugar-snap and snow peas, peppers, jicama, cucumber, celery, radishes, tomatoes. Even summer squash, beet roots and onions are good in small amounts when added to other dishes.
But I'm can't give up all my cooked veggies. What would I do without creamy cauliflower soup, home-made babaganoush, chick-pea saag and grilled asparagus? I would be sad. And, the whole point of this project is to be happy!
I'll make a compromise. From now on, when I'm planning my meals for the day, I will commit to including at least two raw servings of fruit or vegetables. That's half my allotment. I know it doesn't sound like much. It's only 12.5% of my daily calorie intake. But it's probably a lot more than most people eat. Especially when you consider that I am not measuring servings by size, but by calories.
According to the Food Pyramid guide, a serving size of most vegetables is one-half cup. For leafy greens, it's a whole cup. But even a whole cup of fresh salad leaves is less than 10 calories! I don't even count mixed raw greens on my food plan because they are negligible, calorie-wise. I use them as a bed under my meal. It adds color, crunch, volume, interest and of-course, nutrients. When it comes to other vegetables, I probably eat between three and seven of the standard "servings" at every meal.
For instance, 100 calories of carrots is 240 g. That's about 3 carrots. Chopped up, I bet they'd fill a cup and a half. Compared to other fresh vegetables, carrots are relatively calorie dense. Cucumber is on the other end of the scale. It takes 880 g to make up 100 calories. I don't know how many half-cups that it, but peeled and sliced with a little lemon on top make a huge, and delicious, bowl full.
So I'm going ahead with my two-raw-a-day plan, and feeling confident that my diet is healthy enough. I'll continue to relish dribbling my steamed chard with bsalmic vinegar and sprinkling it with dried cranberries or baking bits of tofu and turkey bacon inside fat rolls of green cabbage. And the next time I'm saying grace at the table, there will be a nod for those blessed habilines who captured the flames and passed them down to me.
In it, he makes an extremely convincing case for the idea that learning to control fire and using it to cook meat and plant foods, was the defining event that turned us into humans. By humans, he doesn't mean our current species, Homo Sapiens. He is instead referring to the change that birthed our genus, Homo. We don't think of it very often, but there have actually been three species of so-called humans. The first was Homo Erectus, which evolved from our ape-like ancestors, the habilines, almost 2 million years ago. (The second was Homo Heidelbergensis and its no wonder most of us are not familiar with this name. I can hardly figure out how to pronounce it, much less remember it.)
I'm not going to report all his theories here. But, if you are interested, I strongly suggest this book. It's extremely well organized and his points are well-argued.
Reading it has me thinking a lot about raw food, and it's proper place in a healthy modern diet. According to Wrangham and his excellent sources, the main advantage of eating cooked food is faster, easier access to a significantly greater amount of energy. For our initially foraging, and later hunting and gathering predecessors, this was an obvious advantage. More fuel to grow and move with meant greater odds of survival for oneself and one's offspring.
But in the context of our safe sedentary lifestyles, most of us are facing an upside-down challenge, evolutionarily speaking. Now we do better when we manage to expend more effort, not less. And if we suffer from any scarcity, it is of vitamins and micro-nutrients, not calories. No wonder raw foodists claim to feel healthier when they give up cooked meals. Their method might be all wrong according to our biology, but it is the perfect antidote to the poisonous effects of our current food culture.
I'm not considering switching to an all raw diet. It's too much work, for one. I would miss cooked food too much, for another. But mostly, I just don't feel like I need such a dramatic shift in my habits. But I am going to make some small changes.
For this phase of my experiment I'm eating four meals a day. (Or three meals and a fourth meal's worth of snacks spaced throughout.) Each of these meals has four components: one serving of healthy fat-based food, one of lean protein, one of whole grain or other plant based starch, and one of fruit or vegetables. That's sixteen servings in all, each providing roughly 100 calories.
Other than an occasional splurge at my favorite sushi restaurant, I can't imagine eating my protein portions raw. Raw meat disgusts me. Fresh beans are impossible to get, and indegestible when they're dried. I can barely watch that scene in Rocky where he drinks the raw eggs. Yuck.
Starches don't seem any more promising. One time, when I was traveling and hungry a
nd without access to a stove or a store, I tried to eat a raw sweet potato by slicing it very thin. It crunched nicely, but tasted awful. I was nauseated for hours afterward. It's true, I do sometimes eat my oats raw. They are surprisingly good just sprinkled on top of yogurt with some fresh ground flax seed and mixed berries. But of all the others I know: rice, wheat, quinoa, teff, amaranth, I can't think of any that I would be able to chew without cooking. Of course the raw foodists remember that these things are actually seeds, and they sprout them. But again that's too much work.The fat category offers a few more options. Cold-pressed olive oil probably counts as raw. And I already buy raw nuts and nut-butters when I can find them. Oh, and avacado is a delicious raw fat, of course. But I'm not giving up butter, or mayonnaise, or the oils I use to cook with. Anyway, fatty foods are so calorically dense, it probably doesn't matter much which way I eat them. And the kind of micro-nutrients that raw-only enthusiasts rave about are probably only present in minutes amounts anyway.
The real area to focus on, it seems, if I want to eat more raw stuff, is fruits and vegetables. Fruits are easy. I can't really think of any that I don't like raw just as well, or better, than I like cooked. The only time I ever eat them cooked is when I run out of fresh ones at home have to turn to the freezer or the canned goods shelf if I want any fruit at all. And vegetables offer a lot of options: carrots, cauliflower, sugar-snap and snow peas, peppers, jicama, cucumber, celery, radishes, tomatoes. Even summer squash, beet roots and onions are good in small amounts when added to other dishes.
But I'm can't give up all my cooked veggies. What would I do without creamy cauliflower soup, home-made babaganoush, chick-pea saag and grilled asparagus? I would be sad. And, the whole point of this project is to be happy!
I'll make a compromise. From now on, when I'm planning my meals for the day, I will commit to including at least two raw servings of fruit or vegetables. That's half my allotment. I know it doesn't sound like much. It's only 12.5% of my daily calorie intake. But it's probably a lot more than most people eat. Especially when you consider that I am not measuring servings by size, but by calories.
According to the Food Pyramid guide, a serving size of most vegetables is one-half cup. For leafy greens, it's a whole cup. But even a whole cup of fresh salad leaves is less than 10 calories! I don't even count mixed raw greens on my food plan because they are negligible, calorie-wise. I use them as a bed under my meal. It adds color, crunch, volume, interest and of-course, nutrients. When it comes to other vegetables, I probably eat between three and seven of the standard "servings" at every meal.
For instance, 100 calories of carrots is 240 g. That's about 3 carrots. Chopped up, I bet they'd fill a cup and a half. Compared to other fresh vegetables, carrots are relatively calorie dense. Cucumber is on the other end of the scale. It takes 880 g to make up 100 calories. I don't know how many half-cups that it, but peeled and sliced with a little lemon on top make a huge, and delicious, bowl full.
So I'm going ahead with my two-raw-a-day plan, and feeling confident that my diet is healthy enough. I'll continue to relish dribbling my steamed chard with bsalmic vinegar and sprinkling it with dried cranberries or baking bits of tofu and turkey bacon inside fat rolls of green cabbage. And the next time I'm saying grace at the table, there will be a nod for those blessed habilines who captured the flames and passed them down to me.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Charting Progress
When I started this project a week ago I thought I'd be filling out a whole page of data every day. But, very quickly I started to narrow the report down to just the information that seemed to be the most relevant, and the most understandable.
I got rid of any information that tried to measure my actual state of health. Instead, I am only calculating how well I adhere to the health program I devised on day one. I figure I can only test one hypothesis at a time. The one I'm testing now is: does following this particular routine of "healthy" behaviors affect my daily happiness? I cannot also be following: does this particular routine of "healthy" behaviors affect my daily health.
So, I stopped measuring weight, personal perception of health, physical comfort, and appearance. They weren't very useful measurements anyway, and there wasn't any way to combine them into a coherent daily score. I am, however, still listing symptoms if they are significant. For example, on Day 5, my right foot was so swollen from a bee sting I'd gotten while jogging the previous morning, that I was unable to walk. It is interesting and predictable that Day 5 was also the day with my lowest compliance rating, and my lowest happiness score.
The primary comparison I am making each day is between my Happiness Mean Score and my Compliance Rating.
I find my Happiness Mean Score by averaging the four measurements I take each day (waking, bedtime, day's high, and lowpoint) and multiplying it by 10.
I find my Compliance Rating by dividing the sum of all my possible point in the 5 health categories (Food, Exercise, Water, Sleep and Hygeine) by 15 and multiplying by 100.
I can tell something about the relationship between Happiness and Health (y behavior) by just looking at the numbers.
Baseline 50.00:10.00
Day 2 61.25:96.00
Day 3 58.75:86.66
Day 4 53.75:96.00
Day 5 50.00:66.00
Day 6 65.00:90.00
Day 7 70.00:96.00
But to really see what's going on, I have to make a chart.
I made this one at a free website called Chart Tool.
http://www.onlinecharttool.com/graph.php
It was super easy to make, and I can create a profile and save my charts. It's vital to be able to save the chart, so I can go in and add data as the experiment progresses.
But, the maximum number of data groups I can track is four. This is fine for just looking at the Mean and the Total. But, I'd really like to make a chart that had all the details one it including: waking happiness, sleep score, daily happiness high, food compliance, etc.
If I made a chart with all the details I want to look at, that would be 10 data groups.
So, this site is insufficient for my needs. Also, the end product looks a little fuzzy, doesn't it?
This next chart is MUCH crisper looking.
I made this one at a site called ChartGO.
http://www.chartgo.com/resetall.do?from=generaljsp
The first problem with this one was that it was difficult to use. But, after some experimenting I was able to figure it out.
The second problem is that, while I seem to be able to go back into the chart and make changes (I'll have to wait and find out if the chart is still there to be edited tomorrow) the link that enables me to share the chart on this blog is the sort that needs to be updated in some special way, or the blog keeps showing the old one. I remember having this problem with posting photos on my old blog. A friend told me how to fix it but I don't remember how. If I can figure it out, I will definitely be using this site.
Well, I'd like to write some more this morning. I've spent most of my time playing with charts instead of writing. But, it's time to go running. If I want to get a good compliance score today I'd better put my shoes on and go. According to the data above there is a high probability I'll be happy if I do.
I got rid of any information that tried to measure my actual state of health. Instead, I am only calculating how well I adhere to the health program I devised on day one. I figure I can only test one hypothesis at a time. The one I'm testing now is: does following this particular routine of "healthy" behaviors affect my daily happiness? I cannot also be following: does this particular routine of "healthy" behaviors affect my daily health.
So, I stopped measuring weight, personal perception of health, physical comfort, and appearance. They weren't very useful measurements anyway, and there wasn't any way to combine them into a coherent daily score. I am, however, still listing symptoms if they are significant. For example, on Day 5, my right foot was so swollen from a bee sting I'd gotten while jogging the previous morning, that I was unable to walk. It is interesting and predictable that Day 5 was also the day with my lowest compliance rating, and my lowest happiness score.
The primary comparison I am making each day is between my Happiness Mean Score and my Compliance Rating.
I find my Happiness Mean Score by averaging the four measurements I take each day (waking, bedtime, day's high, and lowpoint) and multiplying it by 10.
I find my Compliance Rating by dividing the sum of all my possible point in the 5 health categories (Food, Exercise, Water, Sleep and Hygeine) by 15 and multiplying by 100.
I can tell something about the relationship between Happiness and Health (y behavior) by just looking at the numbers.
Baseline 50.00:10.00
Day 2 61.25:96.00
Day 3 58.75:86.66
Day 4 53.75:96.00
Day 5 50.00:66.00
Day 6 65.00:90.00
Day 7 70.00:96.00
But to really see what's going on, I have to make a chart.
I made this one at a free website called Chart Tool.
http://www.onlinecharttool.com/graph.php
It was super easy to make, and I can create a profile and save my charts. It's vital to be able to save the chart, so I can go in and add data as the experiment progresses.
But, the maximum number of data groups I can track is four. This is fine for just looking at the Mean and the Total. But, I'd really like to make a chart that had all the details one it including: waking happiness, sleep score, daily happiness high, food compliance, etc.
If I made a chart with all the details I want to look at, that would be 10 data groups.
So, this site is insufficient for my needs. Also, the end product looks a little fuzzy, doesn't it?
This next chart is MUCH crisper looking.
I made this one at a site called ChartGO.
http://www.chartgo.com/resetall.do?from=generaljsp
The first problem with this one was that it was difficult to use. But, after some experimenting I was able to figure it out.
The second problem is that, while I seem to be able to go back into the chart and make changes (I'll have to wait and find out if the chart is still there to be edited tomorrow) the link that enables me to share the chart on this blog is the sort that needs to be updated in some special way, or the blog keeps showing the old one. I remember having this problem with posting photos on my old blog. A friend told me how to fix it but I don't remember how. If I can figure it out, I will definitely be using this site.
Well, I'd like to write some more this morning. I've spent most of my time playing with charts instead of writing. But, it's time to go running. If I want to get a good compliance score today I'd better put my shoes on and go. According to the data above there is a high probability I'll be happy if I do.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Eating: Not Too Much
Mr. Pollen's next bit of advice, "Not Too Much," sounds easy to follow. We've all heard it before, and even if we hadn't, we'd probably each figure it out for ourselves. It's a pretty self-evident solution to our main symptom of food related misbehavior: obesity.
So, why don't more people follow it? Why are we facing an epidemic of overweight adults and children in this country?
This mystery is similar to the one I was thinking about when I first started this project: why don't people do the things they need to do in order to be healthier? But I don't think it's the same answer. Like I wrote before, (at least, this is what I remember writing...I'll have to go back and read it to be sure) I think the problem with us not being healthier is two fold. The first problem is that we don't really know how to be healthier. There is so much conflicting advice and so many things to do, it's hard to figure it all out. And secondly, I just don't think the motivation is very strong. "Healthier" is such a vague quality. Most people associate it with living longer, which is a distance reward. Actually, most people associate it with maybe living longer, which is a kind of gamble that probably just doesn't seem really worth it compared to the immediate temptation and certain gratification of most unhealthy behaviors.
But with eating less, it's not confusing. It's simple. As the coach tells the team in that silly cheer-leading movie, "Think about what you eat every day and cut it in half." A person wouldn't even need to be that specific, or that extreme. Even just eating slightly less would have an effect.
And, it's not a vague goal like health. Being thin, or at least a little thinner, is a really attractive reward for most people.
So why is the instruction: "Eat Less" so seldom obeyed in this country? I think to answer that, we need to ask another question. Eat less than what? The obvious response is, less than we do. That's the answer that makes obedience sound easy. But the real answer is, less than we want. And that reveals why it's difficult.
So, the next question is, why do we want to eat more than our bodies need?
I can understand why, evolutionarily speaking, we are wired to eat a little bit more than our bodies need. Surely our ancestors, who relied on wily game and the seasonal fluctuations of edible plants, instead of 24-hour grocery stores, experienced periods of privation. During those times, a good store of fat wouldn't just come in handy. It would be life-saving.
But if that "good store" was so abundant that an individual's physical fitness was compromised, it seems like the burden would have outweighed the benefits. A pre-historic person who couldn't walk all day, and occasionally run quickly, probably wouldn't have survived long in a primitive environment anyway.
Maybe that just didn't happen. Maybe it was impossible for people to gain too much weight before the advent of agriculture and modern conveniences. Maybe there just wasn't enough food around to get fat on. Even in times of abundance, maybe there was too much physical effort required for simple daily living. Both those propositions seem highly probably.
So, if being overweight was just impossible to do in the early years of our species, it would be no wonder if we hadn't developed any physiological responses to keep us from getting that way. I mean, our skulls haven't developed sufficient strength to withstand the impacts that occur when an accident occurs in a vehicle driving 60 miles pr hour. Like saddlebags and spare tires, high-speed travel wasn't an issue our ancestors dealt with.
So we shouldn't be surprised if the solution is to simply engage our will-power in a fight against our biology. It's not a winning proposition. Just look at all the eco-activists who end up procreating for an example of biological impulses overriding rational decision-making. If it comes down to making the right choices in opposition to the urges that have been built in and reinforced over thousands of generations, it really doesn't look good for us humans. We're probably going to be fat until the climate shifts so dramatically that food production is hampered.
But I think maybe it's not as hopeless as all that. I think maybe we lucked out. (Not about the environment, we're definitely going down in flames on that one.)
Is seems to me that we do have an instinctive tendency to eat the correct amount of food. The reason we end up overweight is that our bodies aren't only in need of food as fuel. I'm going to suggest that we have internal monitors that normally shut down our desire to eat only when we have achieved BOTH of the following criteria each day: we have consumed enough calories AND we have consumed enough nutrients.
When you think about it this way, it's obvious why we keep stuffing our faces long after we've passed the 2,000/day calorie goal that would keep most of us fit. If we've reached that marker by filling up on fats, sugars and starches...which is all most processed foods are...of course our bodies are going to urge us to keep eating. Even with all the "added" vitamins and "enriched" food-products we eat, I am convinced that most of us are suffering from chronic nutrient deficiency.
So if we are really serious about eating "Not Too Much," here is what we need to do. Stop eating nutritionally blank foods. (Of course, if you're following my advice from the previous post about how to "Eat Food," you're already doing this.) Start eating nutritionally dense foods.
These are:
Whole grains
Fresh fruits and vegetables
Plant-based fats
Lean proteins
When I stick to these foods, I'm usually just not hungry at the end of the day. On the contrary, sometimes I have to make a mental decision to eat again, after calculating my day's intake and concluding I haven't eaten enough.
It's such relief, not needing to struggle against that powerful urge to eat, eat, eat. It's almost as much of a relief as it is to give in to that urge. But the side effects are better.
I fit into my clothes. I feel radiant and beautiful. And, sometimes, I feel happy.
So, why don't more people follow it? Why are we facing an epidemic of overweight adults and children in this country?
This mystery is similar to the one I was thinking about when I first started this project: why don't people do the things they need to do in order to be healthier? But I don't think it's the same answer. Like I wrote before, (at least, this is what I remember writing...I'll have to go back and read it to be sure) I think the problem with us not being healthier is two fold. The first problem is that we don't really know how to be healthier. There is so much conflicting advice and so many things to do, it's hard to figure it all out. And secondly, I just don't think the motivation is very strong. "Healthier" is such a vague quality. Most people associate it with living longer, which is a distance reward. Actually, most people associate it with maybe living longer, which is a kind of gamble that probably just doesn't seem really worth it compared to the immediate temptation and certain gratification of most unhealthy behaviors.
But with eating less, it's not confusing. It's simple. As the coach tells the team in that silly cheer-leading movie, "Think about what you eat every day and cut it in half." A person wouldn't even need to be that specific, or that extreme. Even just eating slightly less would have an effect.
And, it's not a vague goal like health. Being thin, or at least a little thinner, is a really attractive reward for most people.
So why is the instruction: "Eat Less" so seldom obeyed in this country? I think to answer that, we need to ask another question. Eat less than what? The obvious response is, less than we do. That's the answer that makes obedience sound easy. But the real answer is, less than we want. And that reveals why it's difficult.
So, the next question is, why do we want to eat more than our bodies need?
I can understand why, evolutionarily speaking, we are wired to eat a little bit more than our bodies need. Surely our ancestors, who relied on wily game and the seasonal fluctuations of edible plants, instead of 24-hour grocery stores, experienced periods of privation. During those times, a good store of fat wouldn't just come in handy. It would be life-saving.
But if that "good store" was so abundant that an individual's physical fitness was compromised, it seems like the burden would have outweighed the benefits. A pre-historic person who couldn't walk all day, and occasionally run quickly, probably wouldn't have survived long in a primitive environment anyway.
Maybe that just didn't happen. Maybe it was impossible for people to gain too much weight before the advent of agriculture and modern conveniences. Maybe there just wasn't enough food around to get fat on. Even in times of abundance, maybe there was too much physical effort required for simple daily living. Both those propositions seem highly probably.
So, if being overweight was just impossible to do in the early years of our species, it would be no wonder if we hadn't developed any physiological responses to keep us from getting that way. I mean, our skulls haven't developed sufficient strength to withstand the impacts that occur when an accident occurs in a vehicle driving 60 miles pr hour. Like saddlebags and spare tires, high-speed travel wasn't an issue our ancestors dealt with.
So we shouldn't be surprised if the solution is to simply engage our will-power in a fight against our biology. It's not a winning proposition. Just look at all the eco-activists who end up procreating for an example of biological impulses overriding rational decision-making. If it comes down to making the right choices in opposition to the urges that have been built in and reinforced over thousands of generations, it really doesn't look good for us humans. We're probably going to be fat until the climate shifts so dramatically that food production is hampered.
But I think maybe it's not as hopeless as all that. I think maybe we lucked out. (Not about the environment, we're definitely going down in flames on that one.)
Is seems to me that we do have an instinctive tendency to eat the correct amount of food. The reason we end up overweight is that our bodies aren't only in need of food as fuel. I'm going to suggest that we have internal monitors that normally shut down our desire to eat only when we have achieved BOTH of the following criteria each day: we have consumed enough calories AND we have consumed enough nutrients.
When you think about it this way, it's obvious why we keep stuffing our faces long after we've passed the 2,000/day calorie goal that would keep most of us fit. If we've reached that marker by filling up on fats, sugars and starches...which is all most processed foods are...of course our bodies are going to urge us to keep eating. Even with all the "added" vitamins and "enriched" food-products we eat, I am convinced that most of us are suffering from chronic nutrient deficiency.
So if we are really serious about eating "Not Too Much," here is what we need to do. Stop eating nutritionally blank foods. (Of course, if you're following my advice from the previous post about how to "Eat Food," you're already doing this.) Start eating nutritionally dense foods.
These are:
Whole grains
Fresh fruits and vegetables
Plant-based fats
Lean proteins
When I stick to these foods, I'm usually just not hungry at the end of the day. On the contrary, sometimes I have to make a mental decision to eat again, after calculating my day's intake and concluding I haven't eaten enough.
It's such relief, not needing to struggle against that powerful urge to eat, eat, eat. It's almost as much of a relief as it is to give in to that urge. But the side effects are better.
I fit into my clothes. I feel radiant and beautiful. And, sometimes, I feel happy.
Eating: Food
What does it mean to "Eat Right?" There is so much conflicting advice. Whole grains are good but carbs are bad. Alchohol provides empty calories, and a lowered risk of heart disease. Traditional advice tells us not to snack between meals, but my own mother suggests that grazing throughout the day is actually healthier. Even the food pyramid is confusing, with it's 18-26 servings per day.
The best, simplest and most convincing guidelines I've ever heard for how to eat come from Michael Pollen.
Eat Food.
Not Too Much.
Mostly Plants.
This is the framework I'm going to use for building my own "Eat Right" routine.
Today I'm just going to write about the first step: Eat Food.
At first this seems obvious. I mean, we have to eat, right? But I think the most important part of this advice is it's implied corollary: Don't Eat Anything That Isn't Food.
Just thinking about this reminds me of a story my friend Rose told me once, of going into a giant new grocery store. Everything was brand new and shiny. The ceilings soared overhead, the bright lights made metal shelves gleam. Aisle upon aisle stretched out amazingly on either side of her, each on filled with meat, dairy, fruit, vegetable and grain products. And then, arching over one small aisle at the very back she found a pretty sign that boasted, "Nutritional Foods."
"If these foods were nutritional," she asked me, "what were all the others?"
There are a lot of things on a standard grocery shelf that I don't really consider to be food. Most belong to the family of white powders: Sugar, Salt, Flour.
Of course, not all sugars are bad. The sugar in apples is good. The sugar in carrots is great.
And not all flours are bad. The results of simply milling whole wheat, rye or spelt are probably fine. It's the high levels of processing that transform these ingredients of food origin into something our bodies don't really recognize as nutrients.
With grains, as I understand it, extreme processing means removing the germ, which is the part with all the nutrients, and preserving only the starch, which is the part with all the calories. The way they make factory sugar is similar. They remove everything but the calories. They even remove the color, using bleach in many cases. Bleach! That is definitely not a food.
And salt of course, is not really a food in any form. But I do think it's okay in small amounts. The problem of course, shows up when we are eating processed foods where salt is a major ingredient, instead of a light seasoning.
I think it makes sense, when choosing to "Eat Food," to steer away from the white powders, and anything else that is highly processed in a manner which robs it of it's naturally occurring nutrients. White rice might not be a powder, but I'm not going to eat it either.
And then there's the tricky question of alcohol. I'm not much for beer or mixed drinks, but I do love a glass of wine with supper...or lunch...or just by itself. And, there is a growing body of scientific proof that regularly drinking a moderate amount can bring significant health benefits. The benefits, in many cases, have been shown to be as dramatic as the benefits of exercising three times a week. (Of course this is true only in studies designed to measure risk of stroke and heart disease. It does not come up in studies designed to measure weight loss or muscle gain.)
None of these studies have determined, or even suggested, the reason behind drinker's health gains. Scientists investigating the "French Paradox" have identified particular components...I think they're called flavenols?...that might be influential. But these are found only in wine, and the health improving effects have been shown to occur equally for beer or vodka drinkers. So, that doesn't really explain it.
I have my own theory. I think the problems that alcohol affects...heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure...are strongly related to stress. I think a person who drinks in the evenings, spend a few more hours feeling relaxed than a typical teetotaler does. I believe these few hours of relaxation provide enough of a recess from our modern state of chronic stress to have an impact. This explains while similar studies measuring sleep have shown similar benefits for patients who sleep an extra hour or so each night. We are less stressed when we are sleeping.
So, based on the idea that empty calories, like those in white sugar, white flour and alcohol, are bad, I'm not going to include wine in my plan for eating right. And since I'm exercising daily, doing yoga and getting enough sleep, I'm going to assume I'm getting enough stress relief.
And when this study is over, and I've learned something about how to be healthy and happy, I'm going to have a big glass of red wine to celebrate. And maybe some cake.
The best, simplest and most convincing guidelines I've ever heard for how to eat come from Michael Pollen.
Eat Food.
Not Too Much.
Mostly Plants.
This is the framework I'm going to use for building my own "Eat Right" routine.
Today I'm just going to write about the first step: Eat Food.
At first this seems obvious. I mean, we have to eat, right? But I think the most important part of this advice is it's implied corollary: Don't Eat Anything That Isn't Food.
Just thinking about this reminds me of a story my friend Rose told me once, of going into a giant new grocery store. Everything was brand new and shiny. The ceilings soared overhead, the bright lights made metal shelves gleam. Aisle upon aisle stretched out amazingly on either side of her, each on filled with meat, dairy, fruit, vegetable and grain products. And then, arching over one small aisle at the very back she found a pretty sign that boasted, "Nutritional Foods."
"If these foods were nutritional," she asked me, "what were all the others?"
There are a lot of things on a standard grocery shelf that I don't really consider to be food. Most belong to the family of white powders: Sugar, Salt, Flour.
Of course, not all sugars are bad. The sugar in apples is good. The sugar in carrots is great.
And not all flours are bad. The results of simply milling whole wheat, rye or spelt are probably fine. It's the high levels of processing that transform these ingredients of food origin into something our bodies don't really recognize as nutrients.
With grains, as I understand it, extreme processing means removing the germ, which is the part with all the nutrients, and preserving only the starch, which is the part with all the calories. The way they make factory sugar is similar. They remove everything but the calories. They even remove the color, using bleach in many cases. Bleach! That is definitely not a food.
And salt of course, is not really a food in any form. But I do think it's okay in small amounts. The problem of course, shows up when we are eating processed foods where salt is a major ingredient, instead of a light seasoning.
I think it makes sense, when choosing to "Eat Food," to steer away from the white powders, and anything else that is highly processed in a manner which robs it of it's naturally occurring nutrients. White rice might not be a powder, but I'm not going to eat it either.
And then there's the tricky question of alcohol. I'm not much for beer or mixed drinks, but I do love a glass of wine with supper...or lunch...or just by itself. And, there is a growing body of scientific proof that regularly drinking a moderate amount can bring significant health benefits. The benefits, in many cases, have been shown to be as dramatic as the benefits of exercising three times a week. (Of course this is true only in studies designed to measure risk of stroke and heart disease. It does not come up in studies designed to measure weight loss or muscle gain.)
None of these studies have determined, or even suggested, the reason behind drinker's health gains. Scientists investigating the "French Paradox" have identified particular components...I think they're called flavenols?...that might be influential. But these are found only in wine, and the health improving effects have been shown to occur equally for beer or vodka drinkers. So, that doesn't really explain it.
I have my own theory. I think the problems that alcohol affects...heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure...are strongly related to stress. I think a person who drinks in the evenings, spend a few more hours feeling relaxed than a typical teetotaler does. I believe these few hours of relaxation provide enough of a recess from our modern state of chronic stress to have an impact. This explains while similar studies measuring sleep have shown similar benefits for patients who sleep an extra hour or so each night. We are less stressed when we are sleeping.
So, based on the idea that empty calories, like those in white sugar, white flour and alcohol, are bad, I'm not going to include wine in my plan for eating right. And since I'm exercising daily, doing yoga and getting enough sleep, I'm going to assume I'm getting enough stress relief.
And when this study is over, and I've learned something about how to be healthy and happy, I'm going to have a big glass of red wine to celebrate. And maybe some cake.
Limping along
I went running on Wednesday morning and got stung by a flying insect just half a block away from my house. I didn't see what got me. I was just jogging past a bush in my neighbors yard, and suddenly I felt like something reached out and pinched me, hard, on my ankle. I looked down to see a bunch of bright yellow bits speeding around my feet. I didn't stop to examine them. I ran faster!
Thirty minutes later, when I'd completed my loop down to the creek and back, I pulled down my sock to have a look. My skin was red, and felt a little hot to the touch, but otherwise looked okay. I couldn't even tell where the stinger had gone in. So, I went ahead with the rest of my day and didn't think about it much. It did itch a little, so I scratched it. But by bedtime, I'd mostly forgotten about it.
Then, in the middle of the night I woke up with an unbearably itchy and burning sensation all over my right foot. I threw off the covers and hopped out of bed. I thought I'd go get an ice pack from the fridge. But, when my feet hit the floor, I almost fell down. The angle my right foot had landed on had sent a shooting pain up my leg. So I shifted the angle and took a small step. The same pain burst from my foot to my brain. I couldn't understand it, and I was still half asleep. So I kept re-arranging the angle of my step and attempting to move forward normally, but all I could manage was a brief tumble forward until I could swing my other foot back underneath my weight.
When I made it out into the living room, I turned on the light. (I didn't want to wake up Sweetie, but of course with all the fumbling and crashing I did anyway.) Suddenly I understood the problem. My foot was completely swollen. It was so fat, that it was frozen into a half-pointed position, and any pressure that changed the angle of my ankle was incredibly painful.
So, I couldn't go running yesterday. And I can't go today either. On-line research suggests it might be a week before it really heals.
So much for daily exercise.
Thirty minutes later, when I'd completed my loop down to the creek and back, I pulled down my sock to have a look. My skin was red, and felt a little hot to the touch, but otherwise looked okay. I couldn't even tell where the stinger had gone in. So, I went ahead with the rest of my day and didn't think about it much. It did itch a little, so I scratched it. But by bedtime, I'd mostly forgotten about it.
Then, in the middle of the night I woke up with an unbearably itchy and burning sensation all over my right foot. I threw off the covers and hopped out of bed. I thought I'd go get an ice pack from the fridge. But, when my feet hit the floor, I almost fell down. The angle my right foot had landed on had sent a shooting pain up my leg. So I shifted the angle and took a small step. The same pain burst from my foot to my brain. I couldn't understand it, and I was still half asleep. So I kept re-arranging the angle of my step and attempting to move forward normally, but all I could manage was a brief tumble forward until I could swing my other foot back underneath my weight.
When I made it out into the living room, I turned on the light. (I didn't want to wake up Sweetie, but of course with all the fumbling and crashing I did anyway.) Suddenly I understood the problem. My foot was completely swollen. It was so fat, that it was frozen into a half-pointed position, and any pressure that changed the angle of my ankle was incredibly painful.
So, I couldn't go running yesterday. And I can't go today either. On-line research suggests it might be a week before it really heals.
So much for daily exercise.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The Mountains Make Me Cry
I haven't written yet about how long I expect to hold this experiment. When I started, I figured it would be about six weeks. And here's why.
The whole reason I need to do this experiment, the reason I struggle with depression and anxiety and angst, is that I live where I don't want to live. This is hard to explain to a lot of people, especially the other people that live here...and love it.
It's not a bad place. It's beautiful. It's friendly. The weather is mild most of the time. I lived here on purpose for many years (about 13) and wasn't too upset about it. There are bike paths and creeks that weave their way through town. There are mountains on one side, and plains on the other. The sky is usually blue and the sun is usually shining. At night, there are stars.
Really, I'm sure it's one of the prettiest places to live in the country. And, one of the most affluent...which means that the parks and libraries and other public services are really good. There's plenty of access to good food, too. The outskirts of town are peppered with organic farms, and street markets about. The restaurants are great, and after living here for so long, I know exactly which ones to go to for a wonderful meal.
There's a university, and a modern art museum, and a performance art center. There's a place to go to watch street performers, or browse in a really good locally-owned bookstore. It's within reasonable driving distance to a major metropolitan center with an opera house and a small lake where I can rent a sailboat for the afternoon.
So what's the problem with being here? Why does it make me so sad to look out my window in the morning and see the pink light of a new day shining on the rocky cliffs that soar above the town. I don't know. It never used to make me cry.
Almost 5 years ago now, I moved away. I moved to the ocean, to a small beach town with palm trees reaching up to disapear into the daily blanket of fog. There was a bay, filled with parked sail boats. There was a state park of dry desolate hills. There was a coal-burning power plant, with dark dreary stacks that reached into the sky and spoiled the scenery. The town was filled with mostly ugly little houses crammed together on too-small lots. There were no sidewalks or streetlights in the residential areas. It took 20 minutes to drive into the nearest "real" town. The bus system was terrible, and there were no bike paths at all. I loved it.
It was the first place I had ever lived...ever been...where I actually felt at home. I lived there for a little over two years, and I loved it fiercely every minute that I was there. I explored every corner of it, in every spare afternoon or early morning I could find. That's the one thing I feel good about, I really did enjoy it while I had it. I didn't take it for granted or assume I would be able to make the most of it "later."
Which is a good thing, because here it is, "later" and I'm stuck in this beautiful Rocky Mountain town so far away from what feels like home that I cannot drive there in one day. No matter how early I leave in the morning or how late I stay up or how fast I go or how much caffineated soda I drink, I can't do it. I've tried.
It's a beautiful story, how I got here. Sweetie called me on the phone and, totally out of the blue, asked if I wanted to get married. I said yes, which is something I'd been thinking about doing for YEARS...about 15...ever since the last time we talked about it. We agreed that we would live in my beautiful beach town together, happily ever after! But at the time, I had just left a job, and rented out my house to a nice young couple who promised to take care of my cream-colored sofa. I had so much freedom and flexibility it seemed to make sense that I would come out here where we could be together while we both applied for jobs out there in paradise.
But the thing about paradise is...it's hard to get to. Neither of us can find decent jobs. We search on-line constantly, and we fly or drive out there as often as we can for networking and sometimes interviews. It's exhausting mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.
Here is my advice for anyone who lives somewhere they love and feel at home and feel happy. DO NOT LEAVE.
I wonder if I should have stayed put. I wonder if I should have said, "Sure I'll marry you! See you when you get here!"
But then, I might not be married at all! I can't really imagine that. It's only been two years but it's become impossible for me to imagine that I was ever really happy before we lived together and shared our lives. But I know I was...I was happy running on the beach and exploring the hills and watching the dolphins from a cave in the cliff overlooking the tide pools. But I wasn't in love, and I wasn't loved the way I am today...and those two things are kind of incomparable to anything else...any other kind of happiness.
Anyway, it's not worth thinking about. I didn't stay put. I came out here thinking it would be easy to find jobs and sell the house and pack up all our (mostly Sweetie's) stuff and go home. But it hasn't been. Nine days from now, I will have been here exactly two years.
That's what I said when I came out here...two years. When all the steps of immediate relocation started to seem overwhelmingly hard I said, "That's okay, Lover. We're not in a big hurry. We can live here a couple of years if we have to." That's exactly what I said. I remember the moment perfectly.
So, coming up on my two year mark of struggling to have a good attitude about being here, I started to imagine that it was inevitable we would be moving very soon. For a while, it even looked like it was happening. We finally got the house on the market, and were having a fair number of showings. Sweetie had a SECOND job interview scheduled at a place we both thought sounded like a good fit. I had adjusted my own work schedule to less than part time, and had the time and energy to make the move happen as soon as I got the word!
I was ready to call my tennants and tell them we were coming back. I would give them 30 day's notice, plus the remainder of the month. That meant we could move in on Novemeber first... a little more than 6 weeks away. That's why I planned on doing a 6 week happiness experiment. I didn't think I'd need it after October was over.
But when I got the word, it wasn't the one I was hoping for. And suddenly the days are getting shorter. The leaves are turning. The air is cooler in the morning. I actually like this, it reminds me of the fog that rolls in at night and doesn't burn off until the sunny afternoon arrives. But soon it will be winter. There will be snow on the rocky tops and I'll be curled around our wood burning stove, dreaming of palm trees, and marking my moods down so I can study them.
Maybe I can learn to be happy here.
The whole reason I need to do this experiment, the reason I struggle with depression and anxiety and angst, is that I live where I don't want to live. This is hard to explain to a lot of people, especially the other people that live here...and love it.
It's not a bad place. It's beautiful. It's friendly. The weather is mild most of the time. I lived here on purpose for many years (about 13) and wasn't too upset about it. There are bike paths and creeks that weave their way through town. There are mountains on one side, and plains on the other. The sky is usually blue and the sun is usually shining. At night, there are stars.
Really, I'm sure it's one of the prettiest places to live in the country. And, one of the most affluent...which means that the parks and libraries and other public services are really good. There's plenty of access to good food, too. The outskirts of town are peppered with organic farms, and street markets about. The restaurants are great, and after living here for so long, I know exactly which ones to go to for a wonderful meal.
There's a university, and a modern art museum, and a performance art center. There's a place to go to watch street performers, or browse in a really good locally-owned bookstore. It's within reasonable driving distance to a major metropolitan center with an opera house and a small lake where I can rent a sailboat for the afternoon.
So what's the problem with being here? Why does it make me so sad to look out my window in the morning and see the pink light of a new day shining on the rocky cliffs that soar above the town. I don't know. It never used to make me cry.
Almost 5 years ago now, I moved away. I moved to the ocean, to a small beach town with palm trees reaching up to disapear into the daily blanket of fog. There was a bay, filled with parked sail boats. There was a state park of dry desolate hills. There was a coal-burning power plant, with dark dreary stacks that reached into the sky and spoiled the scenery. The town was filled with mostly ugly little houses crammed together on too-small lots. There were no sidewalks or streetlights in the residential areas. It took 20 minutes to drive into the nearest "real" town. The bus system was terrible, and there were no bike paths at all. I loved it.
It was the first place I had ever lived...ever been...where I actually felt at home. I lived there for a little over two years, and I loved it fiercely every minute that I was there. I explored every corner of it, in every spare afternoon or early morning I could find. That's the one thing I feel good about, I really did enjoy it while I had it. I didn't take it for granted or assume I would be able to make the most of it "later."
Which is a good thing, because here it is, "later" and I'm stuck in this beautiful Rocky Mountain town so far away from what feels like home that I cannot drive there in one day. No matter how early I leave in the morning or how late I stay up or how fast I go or how much caffineated soda I drink, I can't do it. I've tried.
It's a beautiful story, how I got here. Sweetie called me on the phone and, totally out of the blue, asked if I wanted to get married. I said yes, which is something I'd been thinking about doing for YEARS...about 15...ever since the last time we talked about it. We agreed that we would live in my beautiful beach town together, happily ever after! But at the time, I had just left a job, and rented out my house to a nice young couple who promised to take care of my cream-colored sofa. I had so much freedom and flexibility it seemed to make sense that I would come out here where we could be together while we both applied for jobs out there in paradise.
But the thing about paradise is...it's hard to get to. Neither of us can find decent jobs. We search on-line constantly, and we fly or drive out there as often as we can for networking and sometimes interviews. It's exhausting mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.
Here is my advice for anyone who lives somewhere they love and feel at home and feel happy. DO NOT LEAVE.
I wonder if I should have stayed put. I wonder if I should have said, "Sure I'll marry you! See you when you get here!"
But then, I might not be married at all! I can't really imagine that. It's only been two years but it's become impossible for me to imagine that I was ever really happy before we lived together and shared our lives. But I know I was...I was happy running on the beach and exploring the hills and watching the dolphins from a cave in the cliff overlooking the tide pools. But I wasn't in love, and I wasn't loved the way I am today...and those two things are kind of incomparable to anything else...any other kind of happiness.
Anyway, it's not worth thinking about. I didn't stay put. I came out here thinking it would be easy to find jobs and sell the house and pack up all our (mostly Sweetie's) stuff and go home. But it hasn't been. Nine days from now, I will have been here exactly two years.
That's what I said when I came out here...two years. When all the steps of immediate relocation started to seem overwhelmingly hard I said, "That's okay, Lover. We're not in a big hurry. We can live here a couple of years if we have to." That's exactly what I said. I remember the moment perfectly.
So, coming up on my two year mark of struggling to have a good attitude about being here, I started to imagine that it was inevitable we would be moving very soon. For a while, it even looked like it was happening. We finally got the house on the market, and were having a fair number of showings. Sweetie had a SECOND job interview scheduled at a place we both thought sounded like a good fit. I had adjusted my own work schedule to less than part time, and had the time and energy to make the move happen as soon as I got the word!
I was ready to call my tennants and tell them we were coming back. I would give them 30 day's notice, plus the remainder of the month. That meant we could move in on Novemeber first... a little more than 6 weeks away. That's why I planned on doing a 6 week happiness experiment. I didn't think I'd need it after October was over.
But when I got the word, it wasn't the one I was hoping for. And suddenly the days are getting shorter. The leaves are turning. The air is cooler in the morning. I actually like this, it reminds me of the fog that rolls in at night and doesn't burn off until the sunny afternoon arrives. But soon it will be winter. There will be snow on the rocky tops and I'll be curled around our wood burning stove, dreaming of palm trees, and marking my moods down so I can study them.
Maybe I can learn to be happy here.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Happiness Scale
This Blog should really be called "The Happiness Hypothesis." That's the real focus. I didn't realize that it would be. But, it is.
Here's what I've worked out about the 1-10 Happiness scale I'm using to rate my state from wake-up time to beddy-bye.
10- Absolutely, perfectly happy. Like I was on my wedding day, or the day Sweetie surprised me with a hot air balloon ride on my birthday. I feel incredibly lucky, and like things just couldn't be any better.
9- Joyful. A strong radiant feeling of being blessed. A deep awareness that anything that seems "wrong" in my life, is small and unimportant and is either actually ok, or doesn't really matter.
8- Content. Pleased with my life. This is the lowest degree of happiness that I will accept as an average rating for my future life. Anything lower than this isn't worth striving for.
7- Feeling optimistic and hopeful. Knowing that everything is going to work out. Calm about whatever my struggles are. Able to really take joy and pleasure in the things that are going right.
6- Feeling pretty neutral about things, like my life isn't especially good or especially bad, but having a positive outlook. Able to look forward to things.
5- Feeling completely neutral. And absence of any strong positive or negative feelings. The important thing about a 5 rating, is that I am still very able to do things and function normally.
4- This is where feelings of sadness, discontent, hopelessness start to outweigh any positive feelings I might have. It takes extra effort to force myself to do things that I otherwise enjoy...like cooking, shopping, taking the dog for an outing and riding my bike.
3- This can be a kind of agony and aching of despair or anxiety that feels like it's eating away at the center or my. The bad feelings begin to have a physical effect on me. Either like a black hole in the pit of my stomach, or a weight coming down on me.
2- This is a zombie kind of state. I'm still able to kind of go through the most important motions of life, but it's like moving through a fog. Every activity feels like it's performed against the weight of heavy feelings.
1- This is about as bad as a person can feel without feeling suicidal. It's coupled with a complete inability to function normally. For reference, I think about how I felt when I was going through my last bad break-up, and at the same time reeling from the news that my father had recently killed himself.
0- Zero is reserved for feeling suicidal. I know what that feels like because I spent most of my 16th year feeling like the only way to escape feeling bad would be to kill myself. But, I haven't felt like that since my teens. I hope I never do again. I don't expect to, despite the family history.
Boy, after writing that it seems like no wonder that I'm motivated to do this project. I was in the hospital at age 15 for suicide attempts. My dad took a lethal dose of morphine on purpose just a few years ago. I've never really put those two things together before to view the worrisome picture that they make.
Of course, I'm not worried, because I think of my teen depression as a developmental stage. And, because I think my father made a calm rational decision based on his level of advancing illness and recent diagnosis of a new disease, Parkinson's. But, maybe he was depressed. Maybe the medical stuff was just an excuse; a rationalization. Maybe my problems growing up weren't just a result of fluctuating hormones and undeveloped cognitive capacity.
It is impossible to say. But thinking about myself and my father in this way just make me more motivated to continue with the experiment and learn as much as I can about the relationship between my health and my feelings. I guess you could say it makes me even happier to do it.
Here's what I've worked out about the 1-10 Happiness scale I'm using to rate my state from wake-up time to beddy-bye.
10- Absolutely, perfectly happy. Like I was on my wedding day, or the day Sweetie surprised me with a hot air balloon ride on my birthday. I feel incredibly lucky, and like things just couldn't be any better.
9- Joyful. A strong radiant feeling of being blessed. A deep awareness that anything that seems "wrong" in my life, is small and unimportant and is either actually ok, or doesn't really matter.
8- Content. Pleased with my life. This is the lowest degree of happiness that I will accept as an average rating for my future life. Anything lower than this isn't worth striving for.
7- Feeling optimistic and hopeful. Knowing that everything is going to work out. Calm about whatever my struggles are. Able to really take joy and pleasure in the things that are going right.
6- Feeling pretty neutral about things, like my life isn't especially good or especially bad, but having a positive outlook. Able to look forward to things.
5- Feeling completely neutral. And absence of any strong positive or negative feelings. The important thing about a 5 rating, is that I am still very able to do things and function normally.
4- This is where feelings of sadness, discontent, hopelessness start to outweigh any positive feelings I might have. It takes extra effort to force myself to do things that I otherwise enjoy...like cooking, shopping, taking the dog for an outing and riding my bike.
3- This can be a kind of agony and aching of despair or anxiety that feels like it's eating away at the center or my. The bad feelings begin to have a physical effect on me. Either like a black hole in the pit of my stomach, or a weight coming down on me.
2- This is a zombie kind of state. I'm still able to kind of go through the most important motions of life, but it's like moving through a fog. Every activity feels like it's performed against the weight of heavy feelings.
1- This is about as bad as a person can feel without feeling suicidal. It's coupled with a complete inability to function normally. For reference, I think about how I felt when I was going through my last bad break-up, and at the same time reeling from the news that my father had recently killed himself.
0- Zero is reserved for feeling suicidal. I know what that feels like because I spent most of my 16th year feeling like the only way to escape feeling bad would be to kill myself. But, I haven't felt like that since my teens. I hope I never do again. I don't expect to, despite the family history.
Boy, after writing that it seems like no wonder that I'm motivated to do this project. I was in the hospital at age 15 for suicide attempts. My dad took a lethal dose of morphine on purpose just a few years ago. I've never really put those two things together before to view the worrisome picture that they make.
Of course, I'm not worried, because I think of my teen depression as a developmental stage. And, because I think my father made a calm rational decision based on his level of advancing illness and recent diagnosis of a new disease, Parkinson's. But, maybe he was depressed. Maybe the medical stuff was just an excuse; a rationalization. Maybe my problems growing up weren't just a result of fluctuating hormones and undeveloped cognitive capacity.
It is impossible to say. But thinking about myself and my father in this way just make me more motivated to continue with the experiment and learn as much as I can about the relationship between my health and my feelings. I guess you could say it makes me even happier to do it.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Report: Baseline
Date: Before Monday Sept 13th, 2010
Day of Study: This is an attempt to identify a baseline. I will use happiness measures from the first (fasting) day of the study, health measurements from today, and do my best to represent compliance on a typical day.
Happiness (Mean) to Compliance (Total) Ratio:
53.75 : 10.00
Happiness
Score: (21.5/4)10=53.75
AM: 6
High: 7.5
Low: 3.5
PM: 4.5
Notes:
Health
Physical Comfort: Okay
Symptoms: None
Appearance: Moderate
Weight: +20 (174)
Push Ups: will measure this later today.
Pull Ups: zero
Mile Speed: will measure this later today.
Compliance
Score: (1.5/15)100=10.00
Food: 0
Exercise: 1
Water: 1
Sleep: 1
Hygiene: 1.5
Notes on Compliance:
Food:(1 point for only eating food on the plan. 1 point for proper calorie intake. 1 point for proper distribution.)
Exercise: (1 point for getting dressed and going out. 1 point for full 30 min cardio. 1 point for full 30 min yoga.)
Sleep:(1 point for getting up early, between 5 and 6. 1 point for going to bed early then night before, between 9 and 10. 1 point for getting at least 8 hours...with a nap or without.)
Water:(1 point each for 32 oz container finished. At least one is plain. One can be flavored with lemon, lime, and/or cayenne. One can be herbal tea.)
Hygiene:(1 point for skin care; sunblock and nightly scrubbing. 1 point for flossing. 1 point for brushing after every meal)
Total possible = 15
Notes on Scoring:
Health score is total divided by 4, times 10. (T/4)10
Compliance score is total divided by 15, times 100. (T/15)100
Day of Study: This is an attempt to identify a baseline. I will use happiness measures from the first (fasting) day of the study, health measurements from today, and do my best to represent compliance on a typical day.
Happiness (Mean) to Compliance (Total) Ratio:
53.75 : 10.00
Happiness
Score: (21.5/4)10=53.75
AM: 6
High: 7.5
Low: 3.5
PM: 4.5
Notes:
Health
Physical Comfort: Okay
Symptoms: None
Appearance: Moderate
Weight: +20 (174)
Push Ups: will measure this later today.
Pull Ups: zero
Mile Speed: will measure this later today.
Compliance
Score: (1.5/15)100=10.00
Food: 0
Exercise: 1
Water: 1
Sleep: 1
Hygiene: 1.5
Notes on Compliance:
Food:(1 point for only eating food on the plan. 1 point for proper calorie intake. 1 point for proper distribution.)
Exercise: (1 point for getting dressed and going out. 1 point for full 30 min cardio. 1 point for full 30 min yoga.)
Sleep:(1 point for getting up early, between 5 and 6. 1 point for going to bed early then night before, between 9 and 10. 1 point for getting at least 8 hours...with a nap or without.)
Water:(1 point each for 32 oz container finished. At least one is plain. One can be flavored with lemon, lime, and/or cayenne. One can be herbal tea.)
Hygiene:(1 point for skin care; sunblock and nightly scrubbing. 1 point for flossing. 1 point for brushing after every meal)
Total possible = 15
Notes on Scoring:
Health score is total divided by 4, times 10. (T/4)10
Compliance score is total divided by 15, times 100. (T/15)100
Report: Template
Date:
Day of Study:
Happiness (Mean) to Compliance (Total) Ratio:
Happiness
Score: (T/4)10=
AM:
High:
Low:
PM:
Notes:
A rating of 10 would be similar to how I felt the day we got married, or the day we went up in a hot air balloon to celebrate my birthday.
A rating of zero would be similar to how I felt after my bad break-up with R or after I found out my dad had killed him self. Zero is feeling so bad I am physically paralyzed if left alone and feel like I might die from the sheer weight of my feelings.
Suicidal feelings would rate in the negative. I don't expect to have those. (I don't expect to be in the zero's either.)
Is it even possible to be at 10 everyday? How about the high 9's? Is seems unreachable...but I'm going to stretch my imagination to believe that it might be possible.
Health
Self Report: (how healthy do I FEEL?)
Physical Comfort:
Symptoms:
Appearance:
Weight:
Compliance
Score: (T/15)100=
Food:
Exercise:
Water:
Sleep:
Hygiene:
Notes on Compliance:
Food:(1 point for only eating food on the plan. 1 point for proper calorie intake. 1 point for proper distribution.)
Exercise: (1 point for getting dressed and going out. 1 point for full 30 min cardio. 1 point for full 30 min yoga.)
Sleep:(1 point for getting up early, between 5 and 6. 1 point for going to bed early then night before, between 9 and 10. 1 point for getting at least 8 hours...with a nap or without.)
Water:(1 point each for 32 oz container finished. At least one is plain. One can be flavored with lemon, lime, and/or cayenne. One can be herbal tea.)
Hygiene:(1 point for skin care; sunblock and nightly scrubbing. 1 point for flossing. 1 point for brushing after every meal)
Total possible = 15
Notes on Scoring:
Health score is total divided by 4, times 10. (T/4)10
Compliance score is total divided by 15, times 100. (T/15)100
Day of Study:
Happiness (Mean) to Compliance (Total) Ratio:
Happiness
Score: (T/4)10=
AM:
High:
Low:
PM:
Notes:
A rating of 10 would be similar to how I felt the day we got married, or the day we went up in a hot air balloon to celebrate my birthday.
A rating of zero would be similar to how I felt after my bad break-up with R or after I found out my dad had killed him self. Zero is feeling so bad I am physically paralyzed if left alone and feel like I might die from the sheer weight of my feelings.
Suicidal feelings would rate in the negative. I don't expect to have those. (I don't expect to be in the zero's either.)
Is it even possible to be at 10 everyday? How about the high 9's? Is seems unreachable...but I'm going to stretch my imagination to believe that it might be possible.
Health
Self Report: (how healthy do I FEEL?)
Physical Comfort:
Symptoms:
Appearance:
Weight:
Compliance
Score: (T/15)100=
Food:
Exercise:
Water:
Sleep:
Hygiene:
Notes on Compliance:
Food:(1 point for only eating food on the plan. 1 point for proper calorie intake. 1 point for proper distribution.)
Exercise: (1 point for getting dressed and going out. 1 point for full 30 min cardio. 1 point for full 30 min yoga.)
Sleep:(1 point for getting up early, between 5 and 6. 1 point for going to bed early then night before, between 9 and 10. 1 point for getting at least 8 hours...with a nap or without.)
Water:(1 point each for 32 oz container finished. At least one is plain. One can be flavored with lemon, lime, and/or cayenne. One can be herbal tea.)
Hygiene:(1 point for skin care; sunblock and nightly scrubbing. 1 point for flossing. 1 point for brushing after every meal)
Total possible = 15
Notes on Scoring:
Health score is total divided by 4, times 10. (T/4)10
Compliance score is total divided by 15, times 100. (T/15)100
Measuring Happiness
Here it is, 5:30 in the morning on the second day of my experiment. There are still a lot of thing I haven't sorted out or explained.
The first is, how am I going to tell if my happiness increases?
The second is, how long am I going to do this?
Of course, the only way to observe happiness is through self-reporting, especially when it comes to self-experimentation. The question is...how do I structure the reporting?
Do I try to locate my level of happiness on a ten point scale?
Do I "take my pulse" at random times throughout the day and jot down the average measurement at the end of the day?
Do I simply try to "sum up" my day's happiness level before I go to bed each night?
Do I recognize different types of happiness?
If I'm happy with my spouse but unhappy with my hair, which one do I count?
The nice thing is, there's no one to make these decisions but me. (The difficult thing is...there's no one to make these decisions but me.)
If I'd been doing this properly, I would have been taking happiness measurements for at least, preferably a month, before the experiment began. I don't really trust my hindsight assessments.
Here's one thing I can be sure of. I wasn't happy enough. I had a big enough whole in my life where happiness should have been, that felt kind of desperate to change something. I conceived of this project and set about trying to influence, and hopefully increase, the level of happiness I have each day.
So I know this: if, weeks into this experiment, I begin to feel that I have an acceptable level of happiness in my life, that is, if I am happy with my degree of happiness, then there is definitely something happening!
But I think I should take some measurements too.
It seems to me that there are two times of day that are the most important when it comes to how I'm feeling. If I feel happy when I first wake up, that's very good. That starts the day off right and gives me a good chance of being happy the whole day through. And, if I feel happy when I go to sleep at night, that's good too. That usually means I can fall asleep fast and easy, have good dreams, and wake up refreshed the next day. There's almost nothing as bad as laying in bed, struggling to sleep, and being kept awake by unhappiness in the form of anxiety, depression or dread.
In addition to those two measurements, I think I'll try to identify a low and high for the day. That shouldn't be too hard.
Yesterday's would be:
am: 6
high: 7.5
low: 3.5
pm: 4.5
Of course, there's a lot of information missing in that report. It doesn't say that I felt happiest when I was riding my bike back from the Shaman event...the one I found really boring and pointless and decided to duck out of at the first break...and enjoying the crisp and sunny fall weather.
And it doesn't explain that I felt lowest in the middle of the day, when I was starting to miss Sweetie, and feeling worried about money and frustrated at being unemployed, and resentful about doing housework and paying bills.
But that's the way it is with quantitative research, you can't explain everything. I guess that's okay.
So, I guess every day I'll need to make a "report" page. It will be a template, with room for the daily happiness numbers, and maybe room for some explanation if I feel like I want to do that.
It should also have room for reporting on the health figures. How will I know if I'm getting healthier or not? How does one go about measuring one's own health?
Well, first, I can just measure how well I'm keeping up with the "get healthy" program. When it comes down to it...I guess it doesn't really matter if it's being healthy that makes me happier, or adhering to the "get healthy" program that makes me happier. Adhering to the program is the only one I really have any control over. If my health level is not related to my efforts at getting healthy, but my efforts at getting healthy ARE related to my happiness level, then continuing with the health program is going to be the only thing that matters. So, for all intensive purposes (that's a joke) during this study I can treat "getting healthier" and "sticking to the program" as functionally synonymous.
But it would be nice to put in a few measurements that attempt to verify the connection between the program and my actual health level. So, I will measure both.
For the program I will list the 5 performance points: Eating right, exercising, drinking water, sleeping well, and hygiene, and account for my degree of compliance.
For my health: I will measure the following indicators:
Physical comfort (how I feel in my body)
Symptoms (any ailments or problems that have arisen)
Appearance (this is self-reported...do I LOOK healthy?)
Those are the three most direct ways I can think of measuring health. Here are a few more measurements that, if in a certain range, imply health. I'll take these measurements weekly.
Weight (I will measure this as pounds distant from my exact midpoint on the BMI chart. Midpoint between 134 and 174 =154. This matches with my personal experience.)
Push Ups (How many can I do in a row?)
Pull Ups (Maybe some day I'll be able to do one and count it!)
Mile Speed (How fast can I run one mile, on a track or smooth course?)
I just remembered, I'm due to get a full blood panel to find my baseline measurements of cholesterol and other things. That's perfect. I'll get it today, and get it again at the end of the study!
I'm not going to count day one in the report, because I didn't exercise, and I didn't eat according to the plan. Maybe I should use the happiness measurement from yesterday as a baseline. I think it's probably pretty standard for how I feel lately.
Of course, I'm hoping to see that my daily values go up. But, I'm also interested to see if they become more stable. Yesterday's swing from 7.5 down to 3.5 was difficult. I wonder, would I trade days like that for a stable 5.5 or 6 that lasted from waking to bed?
I don't know. Maybe I'll find out. I hope I don't. I hope that soon I'm reporting days that hover between 8 and 10. Wouldn't that be nice. It makes me happy just to think about it.
The first is, how am I going to tell if my happiness increases?
The second is, how long am I going to do this?
Of course, the only way to observe happiness is through self-reporting, especially when it comes to self-experimentation. The question is...how do I structure the reporting?
Do I try to locate my level of happiness on a ten point scale?
Do I "take my pulse" at random times throughout the day and jot down the average measurement at the end of the day?
Do I simply try to "sum up" my day's happiness level before I go to bed each night?
Do I recognize different types of happiness?
If I'm happy with my spouse but unhappy with my hair, which one do I count?
The nice thing is, there's no one to make these decisions but me. (The difficult thing is...there's no one to make these decisions but me.)
If I'd been doing this properly, I would have been taking happiness measurements for at least, preferably a month, before the experiment began. I don't really trust my hindsight assessments.
Here's one thing I can be sure of. I wasn't happy enough. I had a big enough whole in my life where happiness should have been, that felt kind of desperate to change something. I conceived of this project and set about trying to influence, and hopefully increase, the level of happiness I have each day.
So I know this: if, weeks into this experiment, I begin to feel that I have an acceptable level of happiness in my life, that is, if I am happy with my degree of happiness, then there is definitely something happening!
But I think I should take some measurements too.
It seems to me that there are two times of day that are the most important when it comes to how I'm feeling. If I feel happy when I first wake up, that's very good. That starts the day off right and gives me a good chance of being happy the whole day through. And, if I feel happy when I go to sleep at night, that's good too. That usually means I can fall asleep fast and easy, have good dreams, and wake up refreshed the next day. There's almost nothing as bad as laying in bed, struggling to sleep, and being kept awake by unhappiness in the form of anxiety, depression or dread.
In addition to those two measurements, I think I'll try to identify a low and high for the day. That shouldn't be too hard.
Yesterday's would be:
am: 6
high: 7.5
low: 3.5
pm: 4.5
Of course, there's a lot of information missing in that report. It doesn't say that I felt happiest when I was riding my bike back from the Shaman event...the one I found really boring and pointless and decided to duck out of at the first break...and enjoying the crisp and sunny fall weather.
And it doesn't explain that I felt lowest in the middle of the day, when I was starting to miss Sweetie, and feeling worried about money and frustrated at being unemployed, and resentful about doing housework and paying bills.
But that's the way it is with quantitative research, you can't explain everything. I guess that's okay.
So, I guess every day I'll need to make a "report" page. It will be a template, with room for the daily happiness numbers, and maybe room for some explanation if I feel like I want to do that.
It should also have room for reporting on the health figures. How will I know if I'm getting healthier or not? How does one go about measuring one's own health?
Well, first, I can just measure how well I'm keeping up with the "get healthy" program. When it comes down to it...I guess it doesn't really matter if it's being healthy that makes me happier, or adhering to the "get healthy" program that makes me happier. Adhering to the program is the only one I really have any control over. If my health level is not related to my efforts at getting healthy, but my efforts at getting healthy ARE related to my happiness level, then continuing with the health program is going to be the only thing that matters. So, for all intensive purposes (that's a joke) during this study I can treat "getting healthier" and "sticking to the program" as functionally synonymous.
But it would be nice to put in a few measurements that attempt to verify the connection between the program and my actual health level. So, I will measure both.
For the program I will list the 5 performance points: Eating right, exercising, drinking water, sleeping well, and hygiene, and account for my degree of compliance.
For my health: I will measure the following indicators:
Physical comfort (how I feel in my body)
Symptoms (any ailments or problems that have arisen)
Appearance (this is self-reported...do I LOOK healthy?)
Those are the three most direct ways I can think of measuring health. Here are a few more measurements that, if in a certain range, imply health. I'll take these measurements weekly.
Weight (I will measure this as pounds distant from my exact midpoint on the BMI chart. Midpoint between 134 and 174 =154. This matches with my personal experience.)
Push Ups (How many can I do in a row?)
Pull Ups (Maybe some day I'll be able to do one and count it!)
Mile Speed (How fast can I run one mile, on a track or smooth course?)
I just remembered, I'm due to get a full blood panel to find my baseline measurements of cholesterol and other things. That's perfect. I'll get it today, and get it again at the end of the study!
I'm not going to count day one in the report, because I didn't exercise, and I didn't eat according to the plan. Maybe I should use the happiness measurement from yesterday as a baseline. I think it's probably pretty standard for how I feel lately.
Of course, I'm hoping to see that my daily values go up. But, I'm also interested to see if they become more stable. Yesterday's swing from 7.5 down to 3.5 was difficult. I wonder, would I trade days like that for a stable 5.5 or 6 that lasted from waking to bed?
I don't know. Maybe I'll find out. I hope I don't. I hope that soon I'm reporting days that hover between 8 and 10. Wouldn't that be nice. It makes me happy just to think about it.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Day Two: Food
It's still day one. I haven't had anything all day but herbal tea and plain water. At 5:30, I got hungry.
So, I went into the kitchen to prepare food for tomorrow. So often, just messing around with food in the kitchen has something of the same effect as actually eating. It's easy to stop thinking about food after spending an hour washing it, cutting it, weighing it, smelling it, looking at it, steaming it, putting it through the blender and washing bits of it off the cooking dishes.
I'm ready to sit down and drink some more water, watch a movie, read a little, and then go to bed.
But first, I thought I'd share my meal plan for tomorrow.
Breakfast: Basic Porridge
100 Calories Fresh Fruit or Vegetable: 100g apple, 15 g raisins
100 Calories Whole Grain or Starch: 1/3 cup raw oats
100 Calories Healthy Fat: 17 g sunflower seeds
100 Calories Lean Protein: 180 g hazelnut milk
plus: cinnamon and powdered ginger
I chopped up the apple pretty small, and combined all ingredients in a small pot with lid. Left the pot in the fridge to sit overnight. In the morning, the oats will be soaked, the raisins with be plump, and it will only take a few minutes to heat up into a hot, delicious, fruity, aromatic porridge.
Lunch: Saag style spinach with chick peas
100 Calories Fresh Fruit or Vegetable: 1/2 bag frozen spinach
100 Calories Whole Grain or Starch: 1 cup steamed brown rice
100 Calories Healthy Fat: 14 g butter
100 Calories Lean Protein: 1/2 of a small (7.75 oz) can of Chick Peas (Hanover is the best!)
plus pepper, salt and curry spice blend.
I made this a double recipe so I can have it again. First, I dumped the whole bag of frozen spinach into a medium sized pot, and added a little water. I let that simmer until hot and slightly soft all through. Added the butter, and stirred in the seasonings. Removed half and blended on low until creamy. Stirred the blended half back into the textured half and added the chick peas.
Will reheat this rich, velvety vegetable dish and pour over rice.
Supper: Experiment with fresh cream-of-corn soup. (Will not make again)
100 Calories Fresh Fruit or Vegetable: 115 g fresh corn (cut right off the cob.)
100 Calories Whole Grain or Starch: 1 slice of whole grain bread, toasted
100 Calories Healthy Fat: 1 cup soy milk
100 Calories Lean Protein: 100 g (12 medium sized) pre-cooked shrimp
plus: turkish cumin, cayenne, ginger and lemon salt.
After cutting the corn off the cob, simmered this with the soy milk. (I don't think I cooked it for long enough.) Added spices. Ran through the blender in an attempt to get it to turn creamy. Gave up. Plopped in shrimp.
Snacks:
100 Calories Fresh Fruit or Vegetable: 112g (7" long) Banana
100 Calories Whole Grain or Starch: 5 Akmak crackers
100 Calories Healthy Fat: 15g (1 Tablespoon) Almond butter
100 Calories Lean Protein: two smart dog brand tofu pups, with mustard.
(These snacks are to be eaten separately, or maybe in pairs, throughout the day...not all together. Tofu pups with almond butter? Yuk.)
I think it's pretty amazing that I can come up with such healthy well-balanced meals considering that were out of the house camping for most of last week and I haven't done any real grocery shopping since August.
Tomorrow I'll think about what all my favorite foods are and go get them, so I can really enjoy them while Sweetie's out of town. (We don't have the same favorite foods.)
So, I went into the kitchen to prepare food for tomorrow. So often, just messing around with food in the kitchen has something of the same effect as actually eating. It's easy to stop thinking about food after spending an hour washing it, cutting it, weighing it, smelling it, looking at it, steaming it, putting it through the blender and washing bits of it off the cooking dishes.
I'm ready to sit down and drink some more water, watch a movie, read a little, and then go to bed.
But first, I thought I'd share my meal plan for tomorrow.
Breakfast: Basic Porridge
100 Calories Fresh Fruit or Vegetable: 100g apple, 15 g raisins
100 Calories Whole Grain or Starch: 1/3 cup raw oats
100 Calories Healthy Fat: 17 g sunflower seeds
100 Calories Lean Protein: 180 g hazelnut milk
plus: cinnamon and powdered ginger
I chopped up the apple pretty small, and combined all ingredients in a small pot with lid. Left the pot in the fridge to sit overnight. In the morning, the oats will be soaked, the raisins with be plump, and it will only take a few minutes to heat up into a hot, delicious, fruity, aromatic porridge.
Lunch: Saag style spinach with chick peas
100 Calories Fresh Fruit or Vegetable: 1/2 bag frozen spinach
100 Calories Whole Grain or Starch: 1 cup steamed brown rice
100 Calories Healthy Fat: 14 g butter
100 Calories Lean Protein: 1/2 of a small (7.75 oz) can of Chick Peas (Hanover is the best!)
plus pepper, salt and curry spice blend.
I made this a double recipe so I can have it again. First, I dumped the whole bag of frozen spinach into a medium sized pot, and added a little water. I let that simmer until hot and slightly soft all through. Added the butter, and stirred in the seasonings. Removed half and blended on low until creamy. Stirred the blended half back into the textured half and added the chick peas.
Will reheat this rich, velvety vegetable dish and pour over rice.
Supper: Experiment with fresh cream-of-corn soup. (Will not make again)
100 Calories Fresh Fruit or Vegetable: 115 g fresh corn (cut right off the cob.)
100 Calories Whole Grain or Starch: 1 slice of whole grain bread, toasted
100 Calories Healthy Fat: 1 cup soy milk
100 Calories Lean Protein: 100 g (12 medium sized) pre-cooked shrimp
plus: turkish cumin, cayenne, ginger and lemon salt.
After cutting the corn off the cob, simmered this with the soy milk. (I don't think I cooked it for long enough.) Added spices. Ran through the blender in an attempt to get it to turn creamy. Gave up. Plopped in shrimp.
Snacks:
100 Calories Fresh Fruit or Vegetable: 112g (7" long) Banana
100 Calories Whole Grain or Starch: 5 Akmak crackers
100 Calories Healthy Fat: 15g (1 Tablespoon) Almond butter
100 Calories Lean Protein: two smart dog brand tofu pups, with mustard.
(These snacks are to be eaten separately, or maybe in pairs, throughout the day...not all together. Tofu pups with almond butter? Yuk.)
I think it's pretty amazing that I can come up with such healthy well-balanced meals considering that were out of the house camping for most of last week and I haven't done any real grocery shopping since August.
Tomorrow I'll think about what all my favorite foods are and go get them, so I can really enjoy them while Sweetie's out of town. (We don't have the same favorite foods.)
Day One: Fast
Okay. Here I am. It's 6:30 in the morning on my first day of "getting healthier." I'd better make a plan on how to do it.
Of course, there's a lot of conflicting advice about how to be healthy. I'm just going to sort through it the best I can. I think the four elements I listed in my previous post seem like a good place to start.
1. Eat Right
2. Exercise
3. Drink Water
4. Sleep
I'm going to add a few more details.
First, because I have a history of skin maladies, some advice from Salma Hayek, "wash your face every night, no matter how tired you are."
And, because my grandfather was a dentist, I really am going to start brushing after every meal and flossing every day.
Finally, because our ozone is vanishing, I'm going to wear serious sunscreen.
I don't think it's too much of a stretch to group these three additional details into one final step:
5. Hygiene.
Step 5 sounds easy. It's the first four that are going to be tricky.
I'm going to take it easy today, and just skip the first two. That may sound crazy to anyone who has never done a cleansing fast. But, I have, and I think it's a good way to jump start a health program. Fasting helps the body to flush out toxins. And, it creates a break in the habit of eating-without-thinking.
Today's a good day for it. My sweetie leaves this morning on an out-of-state trip, so there won't be anyone else cooking or eating in the house. And, for reasons I don't fully understand, I accepted an invitation to attend a free event with a Peruvian shaman. That certainly fits in with the tradition of fasting as a spiritual practice. And finally, because it's not a good idea to exert one's self physically on a no-food day, I don't need to worry about exercising until tomorrow!
I feel happy already!
Of course, there's a lot of conflicting advice about how to be healthy. I'm just going to sort through it the best I can. I think the four elements I listed in my previous post seem like a good place to start.
1. Eat Right
2. Exercise
3. Drink Water
4. Sleep
I'm going to add a few more details.
First, because I have a history of skin maladies, some advice from Salma Hayek, "wash your face every night, no matter how tired you are."
And, because my grandfather was a dentist, I really am going to start brushing after every meal and flossing every day.
Finally, because our ozone is vanishing, I'm going to wear serious sunscreen.
I don't think it's too much of a stretch to group these three additional details into one final step:
5. Hygiene.
Step 5 sounds easy. It's the first four that are going to be tricky.
I'm going to take it easy today, and just skip the first two. That may sound crazy to anyone who has never done a cleansing fast. But, I have, and I think it's a good way to jump start a health program. Fasting helps the body to flush out toxins. And, it creates a break in the habit of eating-without-thinking.
Today's a good day for it. My sweetie leaves this morning on an out-of-state trip, so there won't be anyone else cooking or eating in the house. And, for reasons I don't fully understand, I accepted an invitation to attend a free event with a Peruvian shaman. That certainly fits in with the tradition of fasting as a spiritual practice. And finally, because it's not a good idea to exert one's self physically on a no-food day, I don't need to worry about exercising until tomorrow!
I feel happy already!
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Hypothesis: Health Causes Happiness.
We all know that it's important to eat right, exercise, drink plenty of water and get enough sleep, if we want to be healthy. But, if it's so important...why don't more of us do it?
I think it's because being healthy isn't a clear goal for most of us. That's why the authors of the Declaration of Independence didn't list our inalienable rights as, "life, liberty and the pursuit of healthiness."
We think of health as a kind of default setting, something you have until you lose it...not something you work towards. What if instead, we thought of health the same way some of us think about money? What if we recognized that it's easier and more effective to build upon what we already have, rather than try and get it back after we've lost it?
(As a side note, I'd like to suggest we think about love this way too. I'm sure it would lower the divorce rate.)
If we really wanted to decrease our chances of future suffering, that's what we'd do, build upon our current stores of love, health and money. But, with some exceptions, most of us don't invest in the stock market or contribute to a pension fund because we want to decrease our chances of future suffering. We work to get more money because there is a real and recognized satisfaction that comes from simply having more money. We think more money will make us happier. Whether it will or not is a subject of debate that I'm not going to get into here. Wealth is not my topic, health is.
And here's my hypothesis: Being healthier really does make us happier.
I don't know if social scientists or medical researchers have looked in to this already. A quick search on Google brings up lots of articles that list "Health and Happiness" together as twin blessings, but do not discuss the connection between them. And one 2006 study done at Carnegie Mellon University suggests that being happy causes people to be more healthy, not the other way around.
Since I'm not a scientist or researcher, I'm not going to be able to study a large enough group of people to make a definitive assessment for the general population. I can, however, make a definitive assessment for myself.
So for the duration of this experiment I'm going to eat right, exercise daily, drink plenty of water and get enough sleep. I expect to find that my increasing health will correspond with increasing happiness. If it does, I plan on continuing to do these things. After all, what could be more important than being happy?
If it doesn't, I'll go back to eating french fries and cookies, watching TV, drinking wine and soda and staying up late! It may not make me any happier, but it sounds like fun, doesn't it?
Welcome to my project.
I was going to call this "The Skinny Girl's Cookbook," because I thought it sounded like something fun and catchy that people would want to read. But, I'm not skinny. I'm not even sure I ever want to be anything that could really accurately be called skinny. Plus, I'm almost 40, hardly a girl. Finally, this isn't going to be just a cookbook.
Next, I considered naming it "The Thinking Woman's Diet," to appeal to a more serious and introspective crowd. It's a better name because, along with sharing recipes and food plans, I do want to discuss the deeper issues behind how we choose what we eat. But, I don't want to limit this information just to women. Men and children might benefit from what I'm going to say too. And the word diet, even thought it really just means "the food we eat," has a weight loss implication that isn't really in line with the main spirit of this venture.
So, it's not a cookbook. It's not a diet. This a diary for a science experiment I'll be doing on my own body.
The variables will be food, exercise, sleep, and water. There will be no control group. N=1
I start tomorrow.
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