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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Just Is

Lust for meat settles in like a lamentable obsession.

Time is Getting Right

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

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.

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.

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.

Mapping

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

Actually hiking the course is another matter.

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.

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.

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?

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

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?

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?

Still I eat more than my share

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

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.