East Grove Blues

I have been a bit hesitant lately to write much after my last debacle. For a while I was posting changes/feelings and everything under the sun every single day. I feel like I was taking it too far so I have scaled back to safer things like dreams. Last nights dreams were wild though and I would not post them on the internet for casual reading.

I am waiting right now before I report in detail on my health and my sleeping patterns. In short they are slowly improving. I don’t want to say much more than that in case something horrible happens. I find that if I report one day that things are fine, than the next day they will go to hell and then I will feel like a liar. That makes me feel worse.

Mostly though I just spent to much time obsessing about myself and it’s every detail and not really enjoying life very much. I have said that before so I will leave it at that.

I really like food and I missed it greatly.

I have desided to stop trying any more diets for the moment. They are just not for me. I like food, real food, too much and to give anything up just seems silly to me now. It was a good experience, if anything to get me eating meat again, and so I can’t rail against it. In fact the paleo diet did exactly as promised in many ways. I felt stronger and fitter than ever before, I lost fat and my exercise program improved greatly. The down side was the cost of my mental stability. The diet made me moody and rather depressed. Not because of the food, but the lack of it. I couldn’t eat the things that I love to eat and I had to watch everything that I did eat to make sure it was ’safe’. That stressed me out more often than not and that can make a person more unhealthy than the food.

So here I am, back to square one. Hopefully a little wiser, but more likely not. I have to tack this on to all the other things I have tried and ended up discarding after obsessing about them. The list now stands at: Politics, religion (multiple times), exercise and diet (twice). I have to apologize to all the folks that I preached to about the evils of this and that. If it gets bad again someone has to tell me shut up!

I am blessed to have a family that has been their for me and has done just that several times. They always seem to say the right thing at the right time to shake me out of my stupor. I really do need people to help me come back to reality. Sometimes I start taking the world I create in my head and move it into the world that I am living in. That is not a good thing and leaves me and others hurt. I think I have said it before, but I get lost in my head.

This time I need to be weary of the internet. I tried finding solutions to my problems and ended wandering down a rabbit hole. The hole always had a solution, but it was far away and you kept having to give things up to get there. I feel like I have come out of the maze of roses just in time to head home and begin new things.

There are some positive changes that have occurred because of my little journey. I am no longer exercising like a crazy man for three or four hours a day. I am taking time off and relaxing more. I am eating more meat. When I am eating a balanced meal I don’t feel hungry afterwards. During my trek into vegetarian/vegan land I was always hungry, and paleo world caused the same thing. Now I am eating and when I am done I am full and happy. This also means that I probably eat a bit less and that is ok as well. (That might be wishful thinking though)

The point of this rambling is two fold. Don’t trust any diet with a name and if I am acting stupid I need people to tell me I am stupid.

It is around sixty degrees today and sunny. It feels like spring and that is happiness. It has been a rather long and cold winter so far and any hint at spring makes me feel better. It could still snow in march, or even as late as april, but god willing it won’t. It is supposed to be warm for the rest of the week. The best part is that tomorrow I only have one class and the rest of the day I can spend walking around my middle school. I plan to hike up a mountain and enjoy the fantastic weather.

I hope spring brings with it better feelings. It has been a dark winter with a lot of dark thoughts. I have been on an emotional streak since november and I am ready for a level playing field. Feeling better is just a hope though, but sometimes that is all a person needs to get better. There is some truth to positive thinking and the body can do some pretty amazing things. I will wait and see as patiently as I can, and continue to hope for some better days and happier feelings.

I lost my appetite for a couple of days. That is a strange thing for me. I am used to being hungry, in fact, it feels odd when I am not. I thought about putting more food in my belly, but there was no desire, so I resisted the thought. My brain kept telling me it was time to eat more, but my body just kept saying no. I regained my appetite last night and today it has been going strong again. I almost wonder if I haven’t been sick or something. I don’t feel sick in any way and haven’t had a cold in over in a year.  My body likes to do strange things at times though. I feel like a spectator just waiting to see what will happen next.

So I keep doing research on the internet. It is so weird. I will read one report and then read a different one that says the exact opposite thing. For example one will say eat tofu and then another will cast it as the devil and must be avoided. I really do think there is something for everyone. The most important thing I have learned is to just experiment and see what works and what does not. The other day I tried some fatty pork and that was a huge mistake. It was badness for several hours. On the hand lean pork heart is fine. I wish I could get my hands on some grass fed beef from the farm and see how that works in my GI track. Hopefully I will find out soon enough.

In four weeks I will be getting on a plane and heading for home. Perhaps by then it will have stopped snowing in Iowa as well and spring will be following. I can’t wait to see the progression of flowers in the timber again. It is such a beautiful thing and the best part is that after/during the flowers there are mushrooms to eat. Glorious mushrooms! It is truly spring when I start thinking about a ‘mess a’ rooms’ in the skillet.

So monday night is typically movie night for me. Tonight’s showing was No Impact Man. It was a really well done and informal movie about a family trying to leave as little as possible for an entire year. You can read about it yourself and I would recommend the movie.

I have a lot of thoughts on it at the moment. I think the biggest thing for me is to shop as locally as you can, eat seasonally and responsibly.  Those are terribly broad statements and just saying them doesn’t change anything about anyone. They make a really good point in the movie though, if you can change yourself than perhaps others will follow your example. Just be sure that your being a good example. Which I am not seemingly more times than not. I am learning that slowly at the moment. I get on my rants, but who is to say that I am right. I think I am, but I am often not and as frustrating as that is for me, it must be even more so for my friends and family. Who wants to listen to some kid talk about health and make them feel horrible about themselves. It’s better just to do and let others make up their own minds. I know I learned that in the Peace Corps, but here I am relearning it again. I am not sure why I don’t learn these lessons better, or why I have to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. One of these days I will get it right.

I think in the end of the movie they really learned to balance their lives between modernity and green living. I honestly believe that to move forward as people we need to find that balance like they did. If we can then there is hope yet and I choose to believe in that hope.

The food looked so good. I miss cheese and I would love a loaf of bread right now. I’ve been having mixed results on my current experiment. Some days I feel really good and some days I feel awful. Like most people I want results right away, but I know it can takes months for real change to occur. I have to remember to be patient. The hardest thing for me right now is the quality of food that I can get. Food in Japan is amazing, and while I am fairly sure it is grown close by, I am not sure what they put on it. I know where the fish is coming from, but I don’t know where any other meat is, or what they are feeding it. That is frustrating. I could be switching my diet around to eat better, only to find out that I am eating worse things because of what they put in/on it. They also wrap everything in plastic. I hate plastics, it’s such a huge waste. What ever happened to clothe bags?

I am looking forward to getting home and being able to grow my own food and to talk to the other farmers about how they raise their crops/animals. I am just looking forward to coming home.

I will end on something I rarely will ever mention. Wisdom from the TV. Yes I said the TV.  A long time ago when I spent hours in front of the idiot box I saw an episode of King of the Hill where Hank, the main character, had some trouble with passing his food. He went to the doctor and they tried all sorts of different diets and medications and nothing worked. Eventually he got fed up and went back to his normal eating habits and everything went back to normal. He didn’t have any more problems. I feel like Hank at the moment. I keep trying different things to make myself better, but perhaps I am just causing more problems.

I’ll just have to see how it goes.

After a some very interesting dreams and a thorough cleaning of the system this morning I am feeling much better. In fact I feel pretty amazing. My energy levels are back and I have a general feeling of euphoria that is not that common. It’s like I had a cold yesterday and felt horrible, and today the cold is gone and I feel like I could conquer the world.

I had a much needed night by myself last night. I got a little walk in and I did some internet research. The research was fruitful and has helped me in my my mood and well being. The internet is such an amazing tool, but like all tools it can be dangerous. I have to remind myself of that so I don’t get carried away by someones opinions that are not actually based in facts. That is part of the reason I got carried into the mess physically that I am.

This is my current theory and is subject to change. It seems that I trained to long and to hard, like three to five hours everyday to hard. I upset a careful balance and I am paying for it now. I worked so hard that it is likely that I was deficient in many vital vitamins and nutrients. That is not a good way to stay healthy, and I didn’t. I am attempting to reverse the effects with better diet and proper exercise. It might be a while before I run for two and half hours again. A half hour yes, an hour maybe, but no longer. It’s not needed and it does more harm than good. Sometimes it takes a whamping for us to know our limits. I have repeated this process more times than I would care to admit.

There are some things on the emotional side as well, but I am not willing to go into those until after I work through them. As seriously as I take them, it shouldn’t effect my everyday mood or how I will act towards people. I tend to keep my demons to myself until I can work ‘em out. I am sure they will find a way out here after a while, but I am not ready for that kind of openness or what it might mean.

I had some cool dreams last night that really helped to identify a lot of the issues I am/need to work with over the next couple of months. I don’t know what it is about my dreams but them seem awfully prophetic to me. Perhaps I am reading into them to much, but anything that can help me be a healthy stable individual is welcome.

I have Yoga tonight and that always makes me feel better. If I feel any better I might just start dancing.

I have had several days in the last month that I have fasted, but what about the opposite. To have one without the other would be out of balance. (This could be just a bad excuse to eat a lot.) When I do eat, I do eat a lot, but I generally try to eat well. My idea of eating well is always changing, and if I was smarter and wiser I would just relax about it and wing it, but sadly I am not. For some reason I feel like I need to be on top of it and I need to be hyper aware of everything that I consume. Sometimes I eat things that I know are not ‘healthy’. I do it consciously and know many of the outcomes of eating said food. It usually doesn’t stop me though.

Today is one of those days. It is a New Moon, Valentines Day, Tet and the Chinese New Year. That sure is a lot of different holidays wrapped up in one day and so the folks at Ocean’s decided to have a Gyoza making party. A Gyoza is a meat and cabbage filled dumpling that is either fried or boiled. I am avoiding carbs at the moment, but I made an exception for a ‘Feast Day’. I ate, and I ate some more of the little pockets of delicious goodness for about three hours. We spent about two hours making them, while consuming them as they came, and then another hour having lunch.

My stomach was very angry at first but after about a half hour it settled down and I was able to eat more of them. I felt full surprisingly quickly and I spent most of the ‘brunch’ just grazing on a couple here and a couple there. After the lunch part the chocolate came out for Valentines Day and I proceeded to mow down many chocolates and cookies. I heart cookies. They are so good even if they are horrible for you.

Horrible is a terrible word though. They can be hard on your body, but at the same time they can make you feel better. If you are willing to make that trade off and just enjoy life as it comes than it shouldn’t be a big deal. I don’t think it is. As much as I rant about eating well, or not eating at all, I also enjoy group meals with lots of food that I wouldn’t normally eat. You can sit at home and be healthy, but terribly unhappy, or you can take the good with the bad and just have a good time. I wouldn’t and won’t do a Feast Day everyday, but now and again is a lot of fun, and the friendships you make can keep you as healthy as a salad can.

There are many types of health, and emotional health is just as important as physical health. In fact they usually go hand in hand. I think that being healthy is knowing that one day isn’t going to kill you, but also having the will to make it just one day. Your body can adapt quickly to just about anything as long as your not feeding it crap all the time. Life is pretty short and we should all enjoy it while we can. Finding that balance is part of that and can make us even happier in the long run.

I have to make one note. Do not continue a fast through the night when you need to be rested for school the next day. I was hoping for a good nights sleep, and even went to bed before eight. It took me forever to fall asleep and I woke up several times at night.

One interesting side effect of the fast was that I dreamed about food all last night. Eating it or not eating it, it was all about food. Strange enough, when I woke up, I wasn’t that inclined to eat, but once I got started there was little stopping me.

I had a huge breakfast. Fish, broccoli, banana, strawberries and fish/tomato soup that was heavenly. I cooked it for so long yesterday that I could chew and eat the bones. That means lots of minerals and calcium for me. I haven’t been that hungry since then. I have been eating more out of habit than anything else. It is so strange actually being full all day. Is this what most people feel like? It is not a feeling that I am used to. Much of the time, even after I have eaten, I am still hungry on some level. After a while you kind of get used to the feeling, which is why today has been so strange for me.

I made some serious improvements with my workout today. I was shocked that I could hold an unassisted handstand. I felt stronger in everything I did. This seems like it would be counter intuitive. Shouldn’t I be weaker after a fast? I have no complaints though, it is always nice to see large gains over a few day period.

The reason I changed my diet was for its anti-inflammatory properties, but I am seeing a lot of other benefits emerging. I am feeling stronger and I am loosing a lot of fat. (relatively) Again it seems counter intuitive to me considering I eat a lot of fats/oils. But I won’t complain. I am more concerned with how I sleep and feel, and less with strength and weight change. So far I feel pretty good and I’ll probably do another fast here in a couple of weeks. Next time I will eat the night before I go to school. Not getting a good nights sleep usually hampers everything that I do. Today seems to be the exception, but I don’t want to take any chances next time.

I am getting pretty good at avoiding my rice during lunch. Near the end of the meal while everyone is talking I quickly dump the stuff in a prepared bag in my pocket. I feel like I am sneaking candy or something in school instead of not eating something that is ’supposed’ to be good for me. Some of the kids always seem to notice me do it, but luckily they are to scared to talk to me to ask me any serious questions.

I always feel drained after classes. I have one left to go and then I can relax at home for a couple of hours before going to Yoga. Yoga always makes me feel better and more awake. As much as I have said that I am feeling stronger, I am still tired from the kids at the end of the work day. Physical and mental tiredness are two different kinds of animals, but they cause the same feelings within me. I am definitely not unhappy about it being Friday.

The title is a really bad pun, but I will have to get to that later. It was better than Fantastic Fun not eating until Friday. That seemed long and a little boring so I went with the shorter one.

Now that I have put you to sleep I can continue to the actual topic. I fasted again today. So far I am setting into a fast every couple of weeks or so. I am not putting a schedule on it, mostly because I hate doing that sort of thing. I want it to stay a fluid thing and to not let my body get too used to the act. I can’t say whether fasting is fun or not, it is definitely interesting and in that way it can be enjoyable. It is a battle of will, and anytime you win than you are usually going to have some sort of happy feelings.

I had the day off so that is why I choose today. Having it today seemed logical, because there would be no other stresses on me besides not eating. I wouldn’t recommend trying to fast when you have deadlines to make or school kids to teach. I couldn’t even imagine how unbearable that would be. I, being the person that I am, added stress to my fast by running. Which is how I came up with the title. I know it is lame, but I couldn’t help myself.

It seems like a silly thing to do when you are not eating food, but it was actually rather nice. First I went for a nice slow walk. Then I took a nap. Afterward I did a nice paced mile run. Lastly I sprinted/walked for about ten minutes. All the while I was wonderfully barefoot and very happy about it. Running barefoot in the grass is one of the best, most freeing experiences in the world. I felt fine throughout my walk-run and my hunger even disappeared for a couple of hours. I mean no hunger at all, like I had had a decent meal. If that is normal than I will walk-run the next time I fast.

I had a little trouble at Onsen later on in the day. This happened during the last fast as well, so I was not surprised by it. Really hot water and no food makes for a very dizzy me. I just had to remember to take it slow and to not spend to much time in the bath at once. This is good advice for anyone, and it is good to have it reinforced, because sometimes I tend to forget.

The not eating part of the fast was much easier this time. I think I was more prepared for it mentally, so I had much less trouble during meal times. I knew I wasn’t going to eat, and no matter how much I wanted to give in I just wasn’t going to do it. I can wait until tomorrow, it is not going to kill me. In fact I have been cooking all night. I have taken to having fish and vegetable soup with my morning meal, and I finished the last one off on Wednesday, so tonight its back to cooking. I will admit to tasting the broth, but I haven’t partaken in anything solid. That is an amazing feat for me.

Tomorrow will be back to normal and I am looking forward to my morning banana!

I have started doing my paperwork for leaving Japan without burning any bridges on the way out. There are far to many papers, that are mostly confusing and are all very much making me worry. I hate doing paperwork, it seems like such a waste of time and yet I can see it’s need. (Pay check and whatnot) I am paranoid I will forget something important and/or not turn in everything on time and I won’t be able to leave when I want to. All in all it’s turned me into a mess this morning.

The worrying and paranoia started seeping into other area’s as well. I starting worrying about my internships and whether I will be able to do them. It then moved to diet and exercise and if it is all really worth it. it basically sent me into this downward spiral of idiocy. I know that I shouldn’t really bother about it and that everything will turn out all right in the end. I shouldn’t have a care in the world right now, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

I just have to ride the wave of emotion and hope for it to settle down. I try to look at it from an objective point of view, as if it isn’t happening to me, but to some other poor soul. I don’t think it makes it any easier, but it does give me some perspective and understanding. I know what is causing it and I know it will go away in time. I just have to be patient with myself. Writing things out generally helps my mood a bit, so I hope this gets it out of my system a little quicker.

I felt terrible on friday as well, but I bounced back and felt great several days after. Today I feel awful and fate willing I will be back on top for the rest of the week. Emotions are such strange things.

Side Note: (possible other cause of frustration) I slept poorly last night and my gums bled this morning. It may have been the school rice or the green tea or just about anything. I guess I won’t know anything for sure until I can just cook for myself everyday.

So after much reading and thought I have decided to give the so called ‘Paleo Diet’ a try. I figured that trying it for a month wouldn’t hurt me any and if it didn’t click then I would return to my ‘normal’ fare. I have talked to many people about food and what you should be eating, and so far the best answer is to just listen to your body and what it is telling you. Michael Pollan put out a new book that sums this up in a few simple words. Eat food, mostly plants, not to much.

I feel a bit like a hypocrite right now. I have been preaching the evils of meat for several years now and here I am eating a lot more meat than I have in a long time. My normal diet consists of mostly fruits and vegetables, but instead of eating carbs (usually rice or bread), I am now eating meat. I am probably still eating less than most Americans, but that doesn’t really make me feel any better. I am also avoiding normal cuts of meat. I have currently eaten random fish bits, oysters and other shell fish, liver and eggs. I’ll probably buy a heart sometime this week and try that out. Luckily I like organ meat a lot, and luckily it is recommended eating. (It’s also a lot cheaper. Eating meat in Japan is expensive)

A bigger change for me is cutting out as much salt as I can. No soy sauce and no miso at home. I have found that salt makes me a lot hungrier than I actually am. It keeps me eating when I should be done and it makes me pee a lot more than I would like to. It was strange eating the school lunch and being able to tell just how much salt they added to everything. It was almost over powering.

I realized instantly that eating a completely paleo diet in Japan is impossible unless you cook all your own food. I have cut down on eating out because of that, but I still have school lunch. I know I have complained about this before, but school lunches, while tasty, are really bad for any type of diet. It is mostly carbs and even veggies have been pickled in salt. I can’t help most of it, but I have been cutting my rice portions in half. Hopefully I will do a lot better when I get home and can completely control my diet.

The question comes up as to why I would keep trying out different diets. I see food as medicine and since last fall I have had some issues with inflammation. So I hit up the internet to find what foods might cause that and what foods might help. That brought me around to the paleo diet and the evidence that says it is anti-inflammatory. A lot of the people who were espousing its benefits said to give it a try, if you don’t get results try something else. I like that kind of attitude so I have decided to give it a try.

While I haven’t been hardcore about it I have still had some interesting effects already. Warning TMI follows! My gums stopped bleeding during brushing and overall tooth health has improved (yes that quickly). My bowel movements are more solid and more frequent. There is something about Japanese food that turns them into unpleasantness and this is correcting it. I am still hungry all the time, but I no longer feel lethargy along with it. My portion size has decreased, because I am feeling full a lot faster. Finally I am sleeping a lot better and I am not waking up nearly as much as I have been the last couple of months. I am really hoping for this trend to continue until I sleep the entire night through.

I don’t know if I would recommend this diet to anyone, but it has shown some interesting side effects already. It is a little hard, mostly because you can’t eat any grains, which means no beer. sigh… Oh well, like I said, I haven’t been a hundred percent about it yet. I’ll keep updating about it as the next few weeks go on. Who knows what might happen at this point.