Monday, December 31, 2007

Life Time Leads to Now

A year old Victoria Boutenko podcast (a celebrity in the raw food movement) plays on this computer, as I mentally try and prepare for a raw vegan cleanse. I will do this purge starting next week, on January 6th. I just need to do something to help myself... already I have begun to revisit the research material of the last two years. I will meticulously coordinate my eating for 21 days. Needless to say, already I feel my resistance building. Already I have had odd mood swings and obsessive oral fixations.

I have been struggling with food and exercise all my life, never quite getting it right. I have my eyes now on a retreat to Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, run by Gabriel & Shanti Cousens in Patagonia Arizona. Cousens is another celebrity in whole food circles. It will be helpful seeing his operation, spending time alone with my thoughts and feelings, and experiencing their eating rituals. I hope I can draw my resources together to allow this to happen in the coming months.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Quietly talking to oneself

There is the slight airy hum of a hard disk on my desk. The house is quiet with my two teen children relaxing during their winter-break holiday. Hieidaira, where we live, is usually always fairly quiet during the day and I have done what I can to insulate my bedroom studio from the harsher street sounds of roaring engines and barking dogs.

I love having this time to update my website sections, reflect, and refocus on the core issues in my fast paced life. Fast paced only from the perspective of a turtle slow consciousness, a mind that hardly learns and must spend time recycling lessons over and over again until they sink in.

Today, despite a rather usual meaty concoction for breakfast, I reevaluate the merits of a 'living food' holiday, away from the destructive eating patterns I normally consume. Doctors have doubled my blood pressure medicine with the all too often repeated caveat, all I really need to do is lose weight. Exercise and moderation will work wonders to restoring my health and prolonging my life.

So daily, I hear a voice inside asking, why I hesitate to rise up and move, why I hesitate to bring a higher level of awareness to my eating choices. This resistance is a childish residue hardened into habit, yet it is for me, a key psychological battle. Whatever forces spun me into 'living foods' last year to take a 'Living Food' retreat to Puerto Rico with my children and equally cynically drew me away this year, returning all my old nasty physical symptoms, again need confronting.

This suggests a couple very pleasant, though deeply challenging puritanical programs, of overt counter measures. One or two specific planned campaigns back to normalcy (healthy normalcy verses habitual self-abuse) could launch me into a better year, allowing a more positive self image and less fear of my early demise.

I rightly fear too early and too bitter a death, in the shadow of my mother's legacy. I need to be proactive in very pragmatic ways, to allow exercise and nutrition back into my life. To allow myself to again feel handsome and healthy, virile and fluid...{to be my best, so I may do my best, to those whom I love including myself}.

No martyrs permitted, shape up or painfully watch this ship of life sail without me.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Should I care?

Taking care, being one's own care giver, TLC (Tender Loving Care)... I am left with the dilemma of loving the man I am being placed in charge of, an adamant over-eater/under-exerciser. The cure of addiction is one firm 'cease and desist' order. The options are what?... some imprisonment scheme, some maintainable vigil, some powerful plan to override tendency (to eat everything, any chance I can, while hardly ever moving my butt) for solution (NOT to eat everything, any chance I can, while frequently moving my butt). How does this fox watch the hen house, when hens are what I live for?

Friday, October 5, 2007

Today a Crystal Clear Saturday

That feeling of over full. That distance, where my mind skips among tangents. Outside is so clear. A large box on the kitchen table sent from grandma in Saitama. Kai asleep in her friend's house, where math help was the pretext while solidarity and friendship more likely the inspiration. Zen is now hidden away in his bed has awakened and come up to use the upstairs toilet. The sweet silence of Hieidaira on a sunny Saturday late morning. I have been up for hours moving between podcasts, sorted microphones and cables, cleaning dishes, stuffing my face, napping, watering plants, folding laundry, all the gestures that slice my time into manageable distractions. All I have planned is to make some kind of movie to document our life here for my dad, and later meet a friend. Monday is sports day here in Japan. I am off. My life is a mystery, my obsessive behavior some textbook model for lessons being taught on another planet. A strange disturbing odor whiffs through my window. Is it vent gas, a dead cat, or a rancid planter.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Frankly, I haven't a clue

I take great joy and a considerable amount of pride in making appetizing and fairly nutritionally balanced meals for myself and my kids. I love an audience, so I welcome having a guest or my kids home to prepare a meal.

My one year exploration into alternative food patterns, from Atkins to raw veganism, has unfortunately produced no lasting radical alternative. Instead I have reverted back to childhood standards and patterns, though with a bit more insight into nutrition.

My flirtation with exercising side shows has been even less transformational. My only lasting, so far, physical activity outside the home has been gardening... though, even here, less than physically demanding. Right now I have some over-elaborate idea of having a bike mounted to my car, which I would use to commute to work after driving down the mountain and parking.

A more practical solution might be to take a bus to a bike. Unfortunately, because I work in a completely different location every day of the week (and sometimes at great distances) this idea will most likely never come to fruition. Using mass transportation alone would be a major improvement, though considering the life style change necessary, I can't see this happening any time soon.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Surreal Progression; Spinning Wheels

Briefly I maintained a goal, yet so short lived. The matrix of self-management is beyond me. Yet I am playing with alternatives in a desperate dance of confused values. There is a bizarre blend of being aware of the religiosity of diet yet having no solid alternatives. There is no secular vision, dominated as I am in my aesthetic bound lust of preference... taste over truth. Creamy meaty fantasies makes food a daily play land of inconsistencies and frustration.

There is no trust in the captain of my being i.e. me, wishing I had the naive faith of a twelve-step advocate. A God I could lean on, to win the mind game.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Master Cleanse

"Lose Weight, Have More Energy & Be Happier in 10 Days" by Peter Glickman, sounds ridiculous, yet a friend recommends this 'Lemonade Diet' and I am so in need of a fast... and I have the perfect window for a cleansing. Two weeks before my next physical check for my hemorrhoids. This is an excellent opportunity and will allow me a chance to prepare for school as I reflect at home. Let’s see where this leads me.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Old Age ain't for Sissies

The title is a quote from my Dad. I just took gout medicine. Decided to take it out of storage as meat eating resumed that tingling feeling in my toes. I also took my blood pressure medicine, medical reports made that eminent. I am in pain from broken hemorrhoids. Humidity fills my room despite my air conditioning as a typhoon circles through Japan. Is it wasted time this perpetual maintenance of car, home, body and job? Surely there is a more efficient way... or is it a matter of slow walking acceptance?

Saturday, July 28, 2007

I'm Confused... even with the obvious.

Words are flowing over the bridge of my nose in a cacophonous deluge. Having just finished the latest and last Harry Potter novel I am sufficiently satiated, balancing that against my ferocious appetite for heady podcasts and stacks of non-fiction. My only distraction is the kitchen below my academic retreat. The heat makes as useful a rational for nonphysical exertion as the cold, yet my waste now makes my newer fat man pants pinch.

My occasional life necessitated exertions, like a walk to a bus stop or moving a bit of furniture, has me each time in a near cardiac emergency, making me feel it is 'just a matter of time'. Just a matter of time, until I must choose between life in pain or a life in healthy living. Both are not appetizing, and my appetite is what all this is about.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Time is Getting Right

I have no excuse, no reason except I have to, and all of it just leaves me where I am.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Holistic without Fanaticism

I would love a holistic view of nutrition and meal planning that would allow a fluid life style. I am certain there are many people who can see into the food they are eating, make constructive choices, and feel the benefit through continuing health. For me though, the task of both monitoring as well as enjoying my meals feels daunting. An unruly child within wants the autonomy to eat on impulse. Yet a super critical voice echoing also from within, particularly as my body registers a myriad of painful symptoms, endlessly slaughters my selections.

I am bored with the cyclical fanaticism of food fad eating, variations of dieting, and the counter-balance of my spontaneous but dubious binge choices. There is no pervasive wisdom with the credentials to veto my desires, most authoritative sources are too easily undermined by antithetical opinion. Invariably expedience and pleasure win out.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Dieting in the Future

This is the time of year when people begin to plan some summer dieting plan... at least that is what my daughter and I are doing. My plan is long daily hikes and shakes made on my new Vita-mix blender. Though I lack any deep faith in my ability to lose much and/or maintain any loss of my weight, I still feel I have a health obligation to try. Perhaps in the process I will learn some miraculous psychological device for this tedious process or at least have a nice summer trying.

Meanwhile my newest interest in secular humanism has provided hope in a more scientific perspective on healing... Finding a balance between reason and solution outside of fad and quackery.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

There is Little to Term Decisive

There is great joy in feeding my children, my guests, and at times myself... The art of cuisine a luxury of excess and access to such abundance. Yet too, there is so much despair, as I am so acutely aware of my lack of physical exertion, to counterbalance my gluttonous reticence.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Mapping

Making a map is a habit of mine, when it comes to dieting.

Actually hiking the course is another matter.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Eating Simple Yet Eating Less

Eating simple yet eating less, trying to make less complex meals that satisfy... yet also learning to moderate. Eating alone is tough because proportions are off. Mastering the shift, one day feeding a family the next for just one, moderating proportions effectively while extinguishing hunger... not easy but feasible... in fact essential to master.

Getting it right, so damn important.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

At times

Maybe, at times, it may be best just to watch which foods make me feel happy. To try and befriend my obsessive desires, judgement-less, and carry them through in a gentle yet persistent awareness.

There are reasons for the duplicitous confusion I have for what I eat. Issues of history, biological needs and addictions, emotional strings laced through every scent, taste and texture.

So at times it is best to just wait and watch.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Meat rekindled

Red meat has inched its way back into my life. How much of this is good and how much bad? Too many variables now. My foray into raw veganism and the very believable radical fringe... what did I learn? What could be/should be integrated in... How much can I do, in the real food-emotional world I live?

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Fear of Impermanence

When I wake, I can some days be drenched in fear, aware of the temporal nature of my health, tortured by my sky rocketing blood pressure, my inching up of weight, and a myriad of daily aches and pains... like yesterday mostly wasted by headaches and lethargy. Weight 125

Friday, May 4, 2007

Inside the Head of deadly dangerous

My blood pressure reads "Danger Danger". My actions reflect no concern.

Only today, when I am free to be happy but instead have a headache and emotional lethargy do I reflect on the data. Time to play through some serious maintenance for car and body. Cleanliness both out and in, with appropriate lubricants...

Is my only moderating mechanism pain and fear of death?

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Happy or Sad, hungry...

Today is one of perfection. A holiday, perfect spring weather, all my needs, physical and emotional, met fully.

I wonder why I still feel hungry?

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Still I eat more than my share

Glorious green, early morning sun highlights my bliss filled neighborhood.
Bacon and eggs on rice.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Perhaps It Works

I see, by watching, it is a diet I am on. Just... there is sadness in knowing the truth. Well maybe just depressing... but you get over it, and try to do better.

Eating is good, but surviving is better, and, for the chronic obese, anything and everything that prevents chronic over-eating is helpful.

Exercise is my next hurdle. A life style change is called for, but I am uncertain still how that will happen. I just never seem to have the energy.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Sweet Mornings

There is a gray blanket of a sky, here at 6 am, adding drama and depth to my flower pot rows. I feel today an affirmation to what it will take for this diet to reemerge out of winter. Moderation, calorie control by eating less in mathematically substantiated numbers... no more smoke and mirrors. Watch much more carefully what I weigh and how much I eat.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

In The Morning

In the morning I made a stew, a curried mix with fresh snow peas, broccoli, carrot, scallion, left over noodles, some egg... placed over white rice. It did not go over very well with my children. Curry is not my thing. There was the remainder of my home-made whole wheat - white flour blended bread. Lunch was more of the same curry, while dinner was a fresh salad of scallion, lettuce, cherry tomato, shredded salmon, avocado, and white dressing. This, too, did not go over well for my son, though I loved it. He supplemented with natto and rice. We had my coffee and chai blend when my friend Kei visited, as well.

The food is not bad, just not successful. So much more needs to be done. Am I looking for a process, some kind of perfection, which just doesn't exist?

Less Shopping Not Better

I had wanted to shield myself to excess by minimizing my shopping, but this is only partially working. There is this strange dilemma of trying to plan unpleasant meals. How I can ever reconciliate myself to dieting as a life style still feels way out of my grasp. I just do not find low calorie, low volume, non-toxic (i.e. vegan organic living food) groceries, raw or other wise, as appetizing.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Orgiastic Moments

Reading Living Nutrition Magazine and VegNews, wondering about carrots in the fridge getting old, I discover I had bought eggs yesterday, had bacon, potato and onion... an orgiastic feast followed... topped off with strawberries and banana with a side of Coffee with Chai mix.

Though I read Cousins it is in my heritage of pleasure I take solace. Now I am over-full on my way to work. The complex psychology of fatties like me. My entire day mapped out in meals, taking time only for house work and rearranging my flowers... and my video-audio podcasting distractions.

How does all this draw into survival...?

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Lack of Vision

I have no clear vision of what exactly I am attempting to do with this diet process. With out an ethical stance, such as Veganism, or a rigorous process, as my experiments in Atkins and Raw Foods, I am a ship without a rudder.

Why I need dietary theatrics, to overcome the stubborn hungry child that dominates my choices, I just don't understand. Exercise, too, still lays just outside my daily pattern. Planning a meal with a friend remains a joyful daily inspiration, while most other healthier options drags far behind. I like eating with good company... no other activity compares in attractiveness for me, certainly no sport measures close.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Sunday

I made mushrooms sliced thin and sautéed in olive oil and soy sauce placed over fresh salad greens, with small seasoned cheese samplings for the kids and I for breakfast. Lunch was two hamburgers with bacon for Zen and I, and one for Kai. Salad greens, seasoned with mayo, catsup, and a salt/pepper mix inside the burger buns. There was a late afternoon snack, chocolate almond candy for the kids, for me two chocolate eclair and Starbucks style coffee. Dinner I made a white source stew with broccoli, carrots, and bacon over white rice and a Coco soy milk.

There was no exercise, just a hang over from Karaoke singing and drinking chuhai on Saturday night. Learning my daughter had such a beautiful voice was well worth the following day's symptoms. We live well, just do not get the job of losing weight done, in such a luscious life style.

Darkness of Early Morning Home

Symptoms chase me, throat glands, sore throat, tense painful jaw... and so when I wake without pain I feel festive. I had a night where waking up had not spoiled the rhythm. Of course it is 5 am now, perhaps too early for the pattern of my immediate universe, but soon I will need to wake the kids for school. Time for me now to collect my thoughts, calm away the static anxieties that soak my nights. Time to shower, replenish, check laundry, make breakfast... All the details that make being a single father an art form.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Blossom filled Kyoto School Yard

I have decided to add an additional Blog.
A Flower Blog... highlighting the flowers
I stumble upon here in Kyoto.

There are so many, and so little time.
But perhaps this process will draw in my focus,
and bring me into a deeper commune with
the beauty that perpetually blooms
around me.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Wow, What I Can Eat!

My breakfast was two eggs with two natto portions on white rice. Lunch was a large portion of yellow rice, shrimp, clam, seafood mix plus soft cream for dessert, with coffee for both breakfast and lunch. Dinner was a large share of sushi and chocolate pastry.

Besides a very long drive, I managed two walks, flower gazing, plus the usual grocery lugging up and down stairs.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

One Step

A salad and a plate of baked beans from a can isn't actually gourmet but it was more conscious. I have even prepared a salad for lunch to bring to work with some bottled water. Such a beautiful day, need to get out and take a walk.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Another Today

I had an amusing dance this morning as I contemplated my options for breakfast. I ended up making a macaroni and cheese, baked beans and tuna combo. For lunch a diet coke and pastry, for dinner a beef Mexican tortilla with cafe-con-leche. Now I down waters as I fight not to go to bed too soon, tired from my second day back at work.

Holiday Over Adjustments

How the bed rocks in nightmarish twists and turns as the mind set adjusts to returning to work. But how small still my vocabulary of fast foods for the pace of employment. Yesterday had me in the morning for sweet pastry plus Starbuck-style beverage at the local convenience store.

OK, so I am side stepping my responsibility by blaming being busy... I am not so busy that I can't make a boxed lunch, a healthy breakfast alternative, or find a better alternative at the convenience store. Get real, dear self, think nutritious alternatives, eat well at home, while exploring alternatives while at work.

Bad health is hardly a choice, yet the one I am taking when I slip to default.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

How can diets do what they do?

While walking through the hills, my chest felt extreme pressure on the incline up. My stamina has dissipated. Breakfast was a slice of buttered toast, and coffee. Lunch a large size bowl of ramen. Dinner was a salad with dressing and macaroni and cheese. There was also a glass of beer after lunch and a soy milk drink or two.

The thoughts in work is a blog for my teaching and a video blog marathon to compliment this process. Images merge to manifest affirmation.

Saturday, April 7, 2007

This could be the One

There is no secret about video podcasting. This is a way for distribution centers, i.e. You Tubes, to consolidate page viewing which, in turn, establishes their site as a major player. Content has been the problem for distribution companies for some time now, there just isn't enough 'value content' for a world with so many cable stations and internet sources. So why not seduce the creative juices of the masses to produce content for free, occasionally throwing these dedicated creators a bone, like syndication, prizes, and/or their 15 minutes of fame.

But for me, there might be one more incentive. I could use it to see myself and perhaps resolve my issues concerning weight loss, by consistently going public.

Friday, April 6, 2007

Fun Forty Day Project

I had great pleasure in the investigative web page creation of my 40 day diet blogs and now feel creating a video blog of my dieting would be challenging fun. I will want to get a running start before I brought it completely public, yet I feel I am getting close to initiating the process.

This thought makes the notion of a smaller 'guerrilla-style' camera more practical to the more elaborate cameras I was considering. Initiating video-blogging as a personalized diet makes sense. Later I can move into more content oriented programing once I have learned about uploading, editing, and the myriad of other skills necessary for minimal quality.

Knowing specifically the target audience and production variables helps initially to get me going. Setting my target low, within pragmatic reach, helps as well.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Sunny Walk Day

Springing forward, I look forward to my first long walk in quite sometime. Food dances in and out of my day in great abundance, as well as the symptoms of a lingering sore throat. One can argue the relationship of diet and exercise to health, but why argue? Just meet my friend and walk the streets of Kyoto.

Friday, March 30, 2007

My Weight tied to Gas Prices

Getting angry? Going mad, to facilitate a diet... does it take drama to diet?

I invested an entire year in learning about nutrition, exploring both a vegan and a raw 'living-food' lifestyle. What did I learn? For one, eating is an integral part of who I am. Only when I live in an extremely supportive community could I make such a radical shift. Even though I know 'intellectually' what is more healthy, the pleasure and social expedience of local foods out weighs my 'knowledge' of health.

I love eating with friends or alone. When alone I want to bath myself in pleasure (feel full) and when with friends I want a joyous voluptuous eating experience for everyone. Unless I were to move into a raw vegan, vegan, or vegetarian home, with a willful and skillful cook, could I sustain such a diet... And, even then, I suspect this would only be maintained while under the umbrella of that closed environment. As soon as I ventured out I would again relish the local sinful fare.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Spring offers promise... or "Who am I kidding?"

I am learning by leaps and bounds about blogging software yet I am by no means any closer to my objectives. This seems to be a pattern... research something to death. Yet in each attempt there must be a collective expansion of consciousness or at least brownie points for trying.