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    Sustainability


    2012 - 03.18

    Posted in Badassery, Body, Boston, Growth, Low-fat Raw Veganism, Weight, Writing | No Comments »

    To keep in existence, supply with necessities or nourishment, provide for, support from below, keep from falling or sinking, encourage, withstand, affirm, confirm, maintain.

    What currently provides the foundation of my efforts?                                                              Will.

    I used to believe that I must not have a strong will because I continually gave up, failed, or never began the quests that would build the life I required to not drown in dissatisfaction. The extent and origins of this lie are heartbreaking, the repercussions tragic.

    Now, I realize that I actually have an incredible amount of will power. More than most- perhaps the amount needed to actualize. I brought my life back from the brink of destruction, regained so much of what I had lost and sacrificed, and have even begun to add some of my true path into my life. When I find myself off course, I always find my way back- faster each time. I trust myself to do this. I depend on my will to accomplish miracles, and somehow, it does.

    People are drawn to this fire in me. I inspire, I awe, I impress, I lead, I draw the eyes whether I want to or not. Looking back, I must have always known this about myself, because shining through all the insanity of my conditioning I have always used this same technique to recover myself and there have always been people who look at me with stars in their eyes in a way I could not return.

    The glimpses of my uninhibited fire imply a potential power over my destiny and other people that makes me profoundly uncomfortable.

    I am running away from this as much as I am running toward it.

    The closer I get, the more I want it, the longer the list of requirements for satisfaction gets; and the more terrified of actually having it all I become so I run for cover and hide until I can forget what it was like to witness the terrible beauty of the life I was meant to lead. If I am to move forward, I need to accept that the neglected areas of my life just become black holes to suck energy from the areas I am currently enamored with. I am using my fire for purposes it is not suitable for, and my energy is leaking everywhere. My daily framework must be designed to sustain as many of my quests as possible when my will power is focused on something else.

    Will power is not enough.

    Fire needs wood to burn, air to breathe, stones to absorb its heat, water to limit it when it flares.

    Elemental Balance

    Wood to Burn

    Food that frees my energy flow needs to constitute all but 2-3 of my meals every week:

    1. Fresh produce: Berries, apples, bananas, pineapples, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, etc.
    2. Steamed produce: Broccoli, spinach, bok choi, asparagus, corn, seaweed, watercress, etc.
    3. Boiled starches: Lentils, barely, beans, potatoes, noodles, rice.
    4. Juice, tea, miso and lots of water!

    Food that congests my energy should be reduced.

    In order from most to least problematic:

    1. Overt fats and heavy oils (skin infecting): Cheese, butter, fried foods, fatty meat, ice cream, mayo, visible oil, chocolate.
    2. Flour and grains (dehydrating): Pastries, cookies, crackers, bread.
    3. Creamy substances (tongue coating): Milk, yogurt, nut and grain milk.
    4. Covert oils: Lean meat, fish, light oils, coconut, avocado, nuts and seeds.

    The 2-3 ‘heavy’ meals can include items from #4, but try to limit #1-3 as much as possible, with only a bite of type 1!

    Air to Breathe

    Sing. Jump. Climb. Sprint. Lift. Punch. Meditate. Kick. Stretch. Dance. Move. Slice.

    Until you’ve been sweating for 15 minutes and your heart is pounding.

    Stones to Absorb

    Sleep for 7-9 hours every night, starting before 2am.

    Don’t procrastinate. Spend wisely. Be prepared.

    Water to Limit

    Spend time with friends. Build relationships. Keep an eye out for ドキドキの人.

    Write novel. Practice calligraphy. Paint. Compose. Design tattoos. Be sexy and pretty.

    167 lbs, size 12 and… boku wa kendoshi desu!


    2012 - 01.04

    Posted in Badassery, Body, Low-fat Raw Veganism, Weight | No Comments »

    When did this happen?! I’ve crossed the 170 barrier and dropped two clothes sizes since returning to the US. I can now shop in any clothing store I want. I no longer have to look for clothes with Xs on the label.

    I can’t help grinning like an idiot. I keep thinking I must be in one of those stretch mirrors. Where did it go? I have lost 50 pounds of the 70 I gained when I got married! Soon I will fully recognize myself again! Already my curves are returning to the arcs I remember. Thank the goddess for my amazing collagen!

    This is really going to happen! It’s not some miracle, I am doing it every day!

    I’m so happy that the ’secret’ to losing weight was simply finding the foods that my body desired and leaving behind the rest. It took years to learn how to listen since I had been so throughout numbed out, but now there’s no way I would ever shut myself down again! I feel alive!

    Also, I am now a kendoshi! My first kendo practice was this Thursday, wherein we did 2,012 overhead swings, or suburi. I made it all the way through! And I learned a ton. It hurts so much more if you do it wrong! Like any sport, I am realizing, it is designed to make use of the body’s natural way of doing things, thus why unlearning is probably the most difficult stage of learning. I can tell by the blisters and cramps that my posture will be fixed during my study of this art. So much better than pointless physical therapy exercises. This is going to be great. The footwork practice I did has left me with more aches than the arm work, which makes sense given that even my legendary shoulder-neck tension cannot match the ridiculous brute strength of my poor overworked calves. It’s relax or die. Perfect.

    ~

    These two developments combined to make some sleepless nights, just buzzing from the awesomeness that is coming into my life. At 214 pounds, married and miserable, in 2006… it was all I could do to dare to wish I might have my life back and set it on the path that was stolen from me when I made that series of stupid decisions when I was in college, even though I can’t imagine having been able to break free any earlier than I did given what I was up against. But now… now it is in sight. It is not just some theoretical dream. It is blossoming.

    and yes, I’ve decided i’m cool enough to use boku. we’ll see if I can pull it off with the native Japanese. ;P

    Revelations of love and loneliness during the last few months in Japan


    2011 - 11.06

    Posted in Body, Boston, Growth, Low-fat Raw Veganism, Music, Otaku, Philosophy, Relationships, Weight, Writing | No Comments »

    I totally fail at updating. This is partially because I’m back in Boston, which is relatively familiar to all of you (at least compared to Asia), living the day-to-day work life that I assume you wouldn’t find terribly interesting- but more honestly, it is probably because my ponderings have been intensely personal since March or so. I am fairly open about my process on my blog, but the kinds of realizations I’ve had recently are still too tender to put out in the universe yet in more than a general fashion. They are almost all connected with love, a topic which part of me tried to keep me from processing until I knew I was completely safe. Apparently it took about two and a half years for me to find that part of myself. (more…)

    Returning from silence


    2011 - 05.24

    Posted in Body, Japan, Low-fat Raw Veganism, Weight, Writing | 1 Comment »

    So only a few days after submitting my music school applications my netbook self-destructed. I kind of forgot about the internet cafe next door to me and so waited patiently for a friend to put ubuntu on a usb stick so i could retrieve my data and restore. but now that is done (though the original problem still exists so i can’t move the lid or it reboots and will corrupt the boot file again…) i got all my data safely off and have something larger than 3″ to type on again. But soon my sister will be sending me the new powerbook i’ve ordered through berklee so I will have a new toy to write music on! yay!

    It has been so long since I have posted I don’t know where to start. I have been writing in notebooks like crazy since my computer died and it’s been totally nostalgic of junior high when I filled 16 notebooks with Darkwing Duck fanfic. My novel is going really well and I am learning a ton about myself in the process; my fear of anger and violence that is making all my characters sound like goodie two shoes, the true extent of my obsession with hair, my love of explaining things well, and a ton about my experience of romance, sexuality and beauty. In order to get to know my main characters, I am writing almost a full prequel about how they met- 19 years before the main story starts, and it is fascinating. I seem to have unearthed my particular style of falling in love and I think it’s awesome, and in perfect time for dating when I get to Brighton. But realizing everyone would not relate to falling in love this way is making the romances I’m writing extra fun to play with. technique-wise, I am simultaneously challenged by being able to express myself with precision and in expanding beyond my own truths to build variety into my story. I love this work.

    And it is really the first thing in my life that I have truly practiced. I never used to write drafts or even revise, really. I was so sensitive to my own criticism that I would create something that given my innate talents was reasonably good compared to average, and then I would leave it alone and pretend I didn’t care if I could have made it better given more work (and self-honesty). If the thing I created didn’t even meet those standards, it got thrown away. But never have I just written to try and get whatever morsel I was aiming to express down on the page the best I could. Most of what I write reads like mediocre fanfic, and for the first time in my life I’m fine with that, because every now and then a phrase or image or line is so close to that spark of inspiration flitting behind my mind that I feel blessed with even the amount of talent I have- and for the first time I am not wishing I was a prodigy… I am looking forward to the crafting of this extension of myself. I think this shift is going to make all the difference in my creative endeavors, and whether I can make it as a professional musician. But even just in the moment, it gives me untold pleasure.

    On the food and weight front I’ve been having a similar journey. I gained back about 7 pounds since hitting 180. I was definitely shaken up by my success and, actually, how easy it was. All I had to do was do things that felt great and then I would feel even greater and then it snowballed into super great time. But when I hit 180 and my body really began to feel so much like how it used to when I was fit… I guess I wasn’t quite ready and I back pedaled. Completely stopped being active and started eating crap again… it was bizarre. Then I tried to bully myself into doing my program again, telling myself that if I didn’t do it now, I wouldn’t be where I wanted when school started. It was ingeniously framed as motivational and empowering, but really it was just fear and future-tripping… black and white. I had forgotten about the joy I was feeling every day, in the present, at living an active and healthy life and feeling pretty every day. Well, thank the goddess, I finally remembered and have found my style again, and again it is easy. I bet that the next time it gets hard again, it will be because my old conditioning has slowly morphed my pleasure-oriented motivations into fear-and-shame-oriented self-bullying again. I am going to keep a look out for that, because it just doesn’t work, and it’s stressful as all hell. So the weight I regained is mostly gone and I’m on my way back down again, but that was a rough six weeks. Actually, writing about my philosophy through designing a culture in my novel has really helped me. As if a fictional group of people I designed somehow externally validate how I want to live my own life. Go figure. Maybe that’s what makes me a sci-fi/fantasy type person. Fiction is like distilled reality for me. Those of you who understand this will understand. And with that tautology, I end for now.

    Clear on Food!


    2011 - 01.17

    Posted in Body, Low-fat Raw Veganism, Weight | No Comments »

    Stepping most of the way to raw veganism, because it’s completely obvious that’s what needs to change to repair my health. After years of being inspired but intimidated by the raw food lifestyle, I finally have enough practice listening to my body to give it what it’s been asking for! Turns out it’s common sense, and all those experts can keep their sprouted avocado dehydrated flax carob cake gourmet raw recipes. I love produce I can recognize! Found a great book called 80/10/10 that validates what I’ve experienced around my various sensitivities and is helping me learn more about how to support myself in eating the way I need to! Finally! :D

    Added after reading the book today:

    Besides being overweight, the other main food-oriented discomfort is that my skin has always been incredibly sensitive to oils, no matter what their form. Almost immediately after eating something with oils (even if it is not ‘oily’, like fried food) my face begins to itch, I become flushed and oil starts to be excreted from my pores. It is so uncomfortable I usually have to wash my face a few times during the next hour or so until it is not distracting. I like to think I my skin is particularly efficient at filtering, but more likely the toxins from years of eating crap has screwed up my homeostasis so that this is a symptom of a more system-wide issue. Over the years I have eliminated overt oils and fats to various degrees (meat, dairy, frying) but although I felt best as a full vegan in 2007 (and lost 30 pounds) eating cooked foods makes oil very difficult to avoid. Also, I have heard so many times that fats/oil is necessary that I have been worried about reducing it too far, similar to my battle with protein. For years I have secretly wished that I could ‘get away’ with a diet of mainly fresh produce- I never understood the need to replicate the standard american diet-style foods with different ingredients- because only after eating a meal of only produce did I ever feel “clean” afterwards. I reliably have indigestion of various sorts after eating grains… even brown rice leaves me uncomfortable, as does soy and anything ‘creamy’ textured, regardless of ingredients. So I thought that if I could just stop eating things made with any kind of grains, meats, overt fats and anything creamy then my system would finally relax enough to let my body’s healing do its job. This would be a really low-fat raw vegan style design, and I had never seen something like that. But that really only leaves me with produce, and many people already reacted strongly when I went vegan because I would become malnourished. So I overwrote my body’s messages and kept some semblance of the standard  diet, while my skin and weight and digestive issues remained the same.

    I am totally over that now. I’m not sure why, but something about reverting back to a less healthy way of eating while my sister was in Japan this month finally sent a foundation-shaking message of “I’M DONE WITH EATING THIS CRAP AND FEELING HORRID” though my system, followed by, “I DON’T CARE IF PEOPLE FREAK OUT, I AM ONLY GOING TO EAT THE THINGS THAT WORK FOR MY BODY.” With this new conviction, I went online to look for resources to give me some guidance on how to pull this off smartly, as it would suck to aim for greater health only to make my system more toxified. And, thanks to a random reviewer on Amazon, I found the 80/10/10 book, with I ordered with free overnight delivery and read today. I almost couldn’t believe how much the author had asked the same questions about food that I had, and that his answers were a more detailed version of what I had decided to do! I am so grateful. AND this is the first time I have read a book on nutrition where I felt I was in the seat of power, that I was looking for tools for me to use on my quest, instead of being told what to do for fear of some dreaded result. I mean, malnutrition really only happens if you are starving, not just if you haven’t eaten enough bites of meat– duh. All this excitement over something so common sense is ridiculous. I am taking the fear-mongering out of feeding myself. I am pumped! I can’t imagine what I would rather do than eat produce all day! I don’t even like salads because I would rather make a ‘cold-plate’ of all the veggies and fruits as finger food! So eating fruits and veggies as nature intended them just makes perfect sense to me. I am so relieved to know that my body’s messages really were right and that by just eating a few nuts a day I can meet my need for fat and oils, and that plant protein is sufficient. And finally, in a good enough way, I have a plan to meet my needs that I only need to allow myself to do naturally! This has been a long, long time in coming. I know, that by listening to my body and trusting myself that my body will stabilize at my proper weight and my skin will be glowing and I will feel light and energized– more than I even remember from my teens! Oh, and even before switching to raw, I have lost 16 pounds since October! Regular exercise is an absolute must for my body… and since I won’t be eating lethargic-making foods, my activity will increase, too! I almost can’t believe that I’ve given myself permission to… live fully!