short and sweet jungle-boogie health update…

they say the autumnal equinox is a time to reap what you’ve sown, and for me, it was jumping on the scales and seeing 111 kg instead of 120! (244 instead of 265, if you’re doing that wacky imperial stuff).  down 21 pounds in 11 weeks!  at this rate, i should be down almost 45 pounds when i go home.  wooooo!  one step closer to healthy baby-havin’!

y’all who know me know i’ve tried everything barring weight loss surgery, so this is a pretty big deal.  i can’t say this is anybody else’s magic bullet, but here’s mine:

walking–around 20 km a week between trips back and forth from work and other incidental walking.  you should see my poor tivas.

gym–i’ve been REALLY bad about this, most times making it only once a week, with a few missed weeks thrown in.  when there, i do 45 min to an hour of cardio, plus 30 min of trainer-supervised weights.  i finish with a sauna or a steam.

water–2L a day, though much to my kidneys’ horror, my trainer says for my weight i should be drinking 4.  2 it is.

blue steel with 20 bananas!

food–breakfast is a huge plate of raw fruit, and maybe some nuts.  lunch is rice-based with vegetarian curry.  dinner is usually some combo of raw fruit and veg plus the occasional cooked veg.  all eaten in pretty massive quantities.  no meat, and very limited wheat and dairy.

treats–i have two cups of coffee a day (but here a “cup” is one of those tiny english tea-time dealies with a saucer–3 good sips).  we go out to eat 2-3 times a week, and we go for chocolate things and fancy-pants coffee about once a week.  i am NOT hurting for wonderful treats!

so that’s about it.  plant-based, huge portions, no self-denial, no guilt.  feeling great and hoping i can keep it up when i get back to maine, where, understandably, the mangoes are not so wonderful.

other interesting sequelae:  joint pain in my hands and wrists is gone, back pain is gone, gi issues are gone, mood swings are gone, perpetual stuffy nose is gone, and have managed to miss every cold that’s gone around the center!  wheeeeee!

on another health-related note, going to the dentist and the dermatologist soon.  wish me luck! (eeeek!)

to be continued…

ayurveda! da-NA da-na-NA-na-NA-na

iiiii know i’m way behind on blogs.  got one on the hindu wedding i went to and on onam coming up soon i promise!  for now, enjoy today’s fun:

since we actually had saturday off for a change, donna and i decided to go to an ayurveda center for some treatments.  we didn’t really have any clue what we were getting ourselves into (which is always good for a fun blog), but we jumped in head-first.  we started with some pretty innocuous stuff: a full body massage and an oil treatment called shirodhara.  and here’s whut ha’ happen:

shirodhara

so fresh from lunch, we got to the ayurveda place called birla.  we both asked for a weight loss treatment (some kind of vigorous herbal body scrub) and shirodhara (warm herbal oil poured on the forehead, chinese-water-torture style).  the guy at the desk said “ah! shirodhara and full body massage!”  ehhh, no.  that other one we asked for.  “ah! shirodhara and body massage!”  ermmm, ok.  you just can’t fight it sometimes–plenty of time for the weight loss treatment later.

“do we need an appointment?” we asked.  “oh, yes”  they say.  “umm, do you have an appointment for now?” we ask.  “yes, we’re all free!” they say.  glad we got that one cleared up.

donna and i sat on the old leather sofa in the waiting room as the staff scuttled around getting both treatment rooms ready.  i think we were thinking the same thing—pleeeeeease have lady practitioners so i don’t have to by in my undies in front of an indian man!  yep, they had two.  wwwhew!

so we each went into out little rooms, which were hot and stuffy and smelt divinely of avurvedic herbs and warm oil.

“change please” my practitioner said to me.  “into what?” i ask.  “underwear?” (HA!!)  “no” she says.  “this” and she holds up a tiny, t-shaped piece of paperish stuff, something akin to dryer-sheet material.  the skinny top of the t was a waistband, and the wide bottom was a, umm, crotch cover that you put between your legs and tucked into the waistband at the back.

oh christ.

i was wondering if donna was having a coming-apart down the hall when she saw her paper-panty.  i was also praying without ceasing it would fit so i wouldn’t go down in the birla annals as “that white girl who was too big for her paper panty.”

success! (i guess.) it “fit.”

ayurveda table

i was then sat (in my paper panty) on a seat for an oil head massage.  these are quite good here–i highly recommend.  warm oil is poured on the scalp and then you’re rubbed, banged, flicked, and poked all over.  drool-worthy.  after that, i got up on the treatment table (ayurvedic tables look sort of like torture devices but are actually comfortable) for my massage.  the whole thing was great, although i was keenly aware that my still-modest pre-midwifery school self would have been mortified not to have a boob-n-butt-cover towel.  it was very unlike deep tissue massages in the US that leave you feeling like your skin has been peeled off and your muscles parted.  this was loooong pressured strokes over the whole body with warm herbal oil.  TONS, like a metric shit-ton, of oil.  heaven.  the hard part was flipping over, covered in oil, on a wooden table, without slip-n-sliding to my death.

after the massage came the shirodhara.  you’re on your back on the table and the practitioner positions this hanging bowl over your head.  at the bottom of the bowl, there’s a hole with a little wick poking through.  the bowl is filled with warm herbal oil, and it runs, in a smooth steady stream, out the bottom from the wick.  the practitioner directs the flow, sometimes to the middle of your forehead, sometimes back and forth or in figure 8s.  the whole thing makes you just want to melt.  i think they go through about 3l of oil in the process.

after my massage and my shirodhara, and feeling like a happy greased pig, i had to navigate my way across a marble floor with oily feet to the steam room.  i steamed for 15 minutes and was then shown to the shower (a bucket and cup by a drain).  they gave me a bar of soap (but no wash cloth) and a trial package (maybe 2 teaspoons) of shampoo to use.  heh.

the oil was thick like castor oil, so not a lot of it came off, even with the soap.  no matter though–a quick towel off and i’d be left with silky smooth skin.  the hair was a whole ‘notha story.  i couldn’t get hot water to come from the tap, only cold, which meant that a pre-rinse of my uber-oiled tresses was a fruitless endeavor.  i then opened the shampoo, squeezed its meager contents into my massive head of hair, and did my best.  which was not much.  so i sit here typing now, all greased up, knowing that when i do get all this outta my hair, it will by shiny and stylin’.

all in all, a great experience, paper-panty aside.  honestly, i think i would have felt less naked just being naked.  oh well.  thinking of going back tomorrow and asking for the treatment that i tried to get today.  i’ll update with any fun ayurveda antics that ensue.

to be continued.

a mouthful

food choices are interesting things.  what we eat is shaped by our families, our cultures and cultural histories, our personal ideologies, our tastes, our socioeconomic statuses, our geographic locations and climates, and so many other factors.  some people never  question what they eat (often to the detriment of their health), and at the other end of the spectrum, there are people who question it so much or so pathologically that they actually render the act of eating less joyful for themselves.

needless to say, modern humanity has a complex and complicated relationship with food–mostly because we, unlike our ancestors, have seemingly limitless choices.  and also because westernized cultures, the u.s. in particular, tend not to eat as a homogeneous block–we all eat differently but in close proximity to one another.

naturally, as with religion and politics, this variety causes strife.

the “your way versus my way” mentality is one huge way that over-thinking can render eating joyless (facebook is the perfect venue for this mess, as i’ve seen with friends’ posts in the past).  this post is a preemptive strike against any such nonsense, because i already enter into more virtual debates than i’d like.

for all of my friends who are vegetarian, lacto-ovo vegetarian, pescetarian, vegan, paleo, gluten-free, flexitarian, omnivorous, carnivorous, low-carb, fat-free, fruitarian (but not breatharian because that’s just fucked up), or any other of the kind of -arian, please take note:  while my facebook page is indeed a place for me to celebrate my own choices, it is not a place for you to judge my choices or the choices of other people who comment on my posts.  and it is certainly not the place for you to become defensive of your differing choices simply because i am making reference to my own. on this same point, my friends who “agree” with my eating choices should refrain from attacking other different-minded commenters on my posts.

hopefully this point is moot, but i’ve seen way too much nastiness go on on the pages of friends and friends of friends, and while i’ve yet to really experience it myself (on this issue, anyway) i want to remind everyone to approach the differing choices of others with a spirit of grace and dignity rather than with defensiveness or combativeness.  if i post a recipe or a food-related thought, this is me expressing my own choice–no matter how much you may see it that way, it is not me judging your different choice.

now *if* you are interested at all in the my reasoning behind stopping eating meat and strictly limiting dairy and other animal products, i will share that here.  and if you aren’t (because when you think of it, this is not exactly riveting news lol) close this and go on about your day.  what i am disallowing though are challenges to my personal choice.  don’t agree with me?  great!  i don’t agree with people who think orange and yellow are the.best.colors.evaaaah!  but i don’t waste both of our time telling them this, because, in the end, it’s all a matter of taste.

so no meat…

i guess this is something i’ve been ruminating on (harhar!) for a while–probably ever since i read michael pollan’s _the omnivore’s dilemma_ way back in the day.  since then, i’ve read everything i can get my hands on about the american way of eating and the wheres and hows of food production, and i’ve enjoyed watching movies like _food, inc._ which are a dime a dozen on netflix.  i’ve even designed and taught univeristy-level english 102 argument and rhetoric classes with food production themes.  in short, this isn’t a rash decision made in a moment of passion–rather, it’s a decision a long time in the making that i finally feel ready to move forward with.

so why?  and let me preface this again by saying that these are my *own personal thoughts leading to my own personal choices* so please don’t take offence when/if what i’m saying doesn’t ring true for you.

1.  health–when i come right down to it, meat and dairy make me sick–like gross sick.  in the past i’ve kept eating both, though, because they just tasted so damned good.  meat gives me this horrendous explosive burping thing (ask stephen–it’s scary) or makes me sick the day after if its red meat.  dairy, umm, hits me at the other end.  lets just say that a bowl of ice-cream (married to a schwans man—yay!) means that i need a toilet in close proximity.  both keep me bloated, tired, and feeling bad.  also, the stats about heart disease and inflammatory conditions, which i won’t belabor here because you can look it up, speak volumes in favor of the avoidance (or at least limitation) of meat and other animal products.  also, in my own struggle with infertility, let’s just say i don’t need any exogenous hormones.

2.  ethics–and just to remind, i mean my *own personal* ethics of eating.  if you’re a meat eater, this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me, my feelings, and my choices.  movies like _food, inc._ started this line of thinking, and an earlier movie, _earthlings_ sealed the deal:  i can no longer accept that killing animals for food is an ethical eating choice.

this is especially true of mainstream processed (factory farmed) meats, but for me this is also true of the lovey-dovey free-range, grass-fed, hugged-daily variety of meat–and i’ll tell you why.  first, an investigation into these operations reveals that conditions, although better, are still quite bad, despite the sunshine and occasional access to patches of earth. and second, i can’t believe that it’s ok to kill animals just because you were nice to them first. (imagine if this were true with people.)  i applaud any meat-eater who supports these “ethical-er” operations, but for me, if the end result is the same, the end result is the same.  i don’t need to take lives to live, so i won’t.

*note–i understand that vegetarianism/veganism can also have a huge impact of the animal community because of modern destructive farming methods, and this is why i think it’s important to support your small, local farms and farmer’s markets (and the stores who buy from them) as much as possible.

3.  little piles of other stuff–there’s the fact that our tooth shape and bowel length correspond with other species of plant eaters (meat eaters have feline/canine type teeth and very short digestive tracts).  these two signs point to the fact that although humans, like apes, have the capacity to eat and enjoy meat occasionally or as other food supplies become thin, they weren’t designed (if you will) to thrive this way.   also, being in rural maine afforded me the opportunity to meet actual real live pigs–something i’d never done before–and their intelligence and emotional capacity is *huge*—just enormous.  they’re smarter than dogs (and we’d never eat our pets, yes?), and you can only look at their furiously wagging pigtails and into their big lashey eyes so many times before the thought of pork becomes painful.

so that’s it for me.  half health, half ethics, and a sprinkling of other things here and there.  i won’t throw research stats at you on your page.  i won’t argue with you about whether deer-antler extract is a crucial superfood that you need to add to your raw vegan diet.  i won’t debate whether my version of humanity’s prehistory lifestyle is “righter” than yours.  i just won’t.  it’s an unnecessary waste of both our time.

what i will do is post recipes, talk about my struggles and triumphs, and share knowledge places like my blog and facebook, and i’ll do it because that’s the *sole* purpose of these media platforms–to express ourselves and our beliefs.  nothing that i post is an attack on you or an invitation to argue about who’s “got it right.”  my health, my ethics, my choice.

i don’t think anyone *needs* to make the choice that i am making, but i do think that everyone has the responsibility to know and accept where their food comes from. if you do accept it, carry on.  if you don’t accept what you see, change it.  there are literally hundreds of places to turn to become educated about the american way of eating, its strengths, its weaknesses, and the alternatives (kind of like an informed choice document, eh midwife friends??)

so that’s all about that.  be kind—both in real life and virtually.  everyone has their own journey and their own choices.  many of our paths will diverge on many issues (religion, healthcare, politics anyone?) and all we can do is accept this fact.  if i have something to say to you about your choices, i’ll let you know.  until then, my facebook page is simply a place where i can let my little light shine, and if you don’t like it, you can take your bushel elsewhere.

like i said, not an issue for me yet, and hopefully this all goes without saying, but i’ve seen too many shitstorms erupt on friends’ pages–raw verus cooked, lacto-vegetarian versus vegan, paleo versus vegetarian, etc.  just wanted to nip it in the bud and keep us all nice to one another.

happy eating!

to be continued…

love it/miss it

i love that without a car, i’m getting in 20+km a week in walking.

i love that donna mitchell is helping me learn to eat raw vegan (and that it’s paid off in 17 pounds down and a huge drop in BP).

i love that i’m slowly repopulating my wardrobe with kurtas, salwars, churidars, and stoles (the american clothes i bought are going on the burn pile when i leave).

i love that i work in a center that’s full of amazing women and run on passion and determination in the face of every kind of obstacle imaginable.  so inspiring!

i love that sweating buckets gives me an excuse to never wear make-up.  ever.

i love that i’m eating new and exciting foods, that i’m boosting my tolerance for spiciness, and that i now have an iron gut.  food poisoning, schmood poisoning.

i lovelovelove indian fruit.  i can’t begin to do justice to the tastes of papaya (floral, tangy, vanilla custardy magic?), mango (fucking sunshine in a little oval skin?), and bananas (small as your finger, packing a creamy wallop of sugar?).  i could live on this stuff.

i love eating with my hands.  using a fork now feels cave-manish—poking at food with sticks.  using your fingers really lets you get to know your food (and clean your plate without hours of green-pea-chasing).

i love that children here look at donna and i as if we were santa clause.  white folks are very few and far between in cochin, and kids light up, smile, wave, peek, and squeal when they see us.  (and old ladies look at us suspiciously)

i love having a butt sprayer instead of toilet paper (whooda thunk?).  whose idea was it anyway that smearing poo around with white paper made you clean?  wash that shit off (quite literally)!!

i love that i get a little chance to live the high life here.  $30 for a haircut from a world-famous stylist, $10 for an ayurvedic massage,  $2 for restaurant food, $1.50 a yard for gorgeous brocade fabric, $30 for a gold-embroidered sari, $15 for hand-tailored clothing. i can afford things!  back to the grind in december…

i love how incredibly polite and helpful most people are here in my city.  auto drivers will go out of their way to help you find hidden (and/or poorly pronounced by you) locales, and our pals at the birth center are endless sources of help (and phone-call-making when we need to speak malayalam!)  

i love the odd englishisms that i see around town.  never had my hair cut at a beauty saloon before!  sounds less like a barber shop and more like a place where beer-goggled cowboys think all the women are right purdy.  also, don’t assume hotels are for overnight stays–most are actually just restaurants.

i love that there’s never a dull moment here.  wonderful, horrible, lovely, or frustrating—it’s NEVER boring.

i love the multicultural spirit of religious tolerance in kerala.

i love how india, in all it’s difference, teaches me how very alike we humans all are.

********************

i miss my husband, and general partner in crime, stephen luca.  next time i go to india, i’m bringing him along both for the company and for some aversion therapy for his general dislike of “things don’t go smooth” -ness.  india will fix that right up.

i miss my family–no front porch rocking chairs here in india!

i miss my classmates.  i will be aching to come home this samhain when they’re all together for the homecoming workshop.  alas.

i miss digging my feet into cool earth at rippling waters farm, sitting by the shores of back cove, and wandering through the woods alone in pondicherry park.  

i miss swimming in maine lakes.  seriously.  glassy, cool glacier-carved bowls of clear-water goodness.

i miss drinking water.  outta the tap and into my yap–no boiling, zapping, or filtering needed.

i miss being able to fix my hair.  between the lack of styling implements (no room in the suitcase!) and amazing humidity, there’s really no point in trying.

i miss men.  interactions here are very few, and they’re so different than back home.  for the most part, intimacy (of the non-sexual variety) happens amongst members of one’s own gender here, and i’ve always needed and enjoyed male company.

i miss cold weather—somethin’ fierce.  i found my climatic homeostasis in the icy wilds of maine, and sweating day in and day out here in my tropical paradise makes me long for autumn.

i miss being able to drive places.  while the walking here is good for my health, it’s really truly wonderful just to be able to jump in your car, go where you want to go, get there quickly and without massive diesel fume inhalation, and come home whatever time of day suits you best.

i miss my church.  no uus here in cochin!  i’ve been listening to sermon podcasts from the uu church in san fran, but it’s just not the same.  spiiiiiiiirit of liiiiiiiiiiife, cooooooome unto meeeeeeeeeeeee! and mary oliver.

i miss the feeling that, no matter where i am or what time it is or what i’m wearing, i am safe.  i haven’t felt unsafe here, but i also don’t really go out alone, after dark, or questionably clothed–those issues would never cross my mind in maine.

i miss fresh air.  the smog and traffic fumes can be very overpowering here, and now that the monsoon is over, everyone is catching up on their trash burning. i’d just love a fresh, clean, cool breeze.

i miss quiet and solitude.  you’re rarely alone in indian cities, and silence is so infrequent that it’s unnerving when it happens.  i want to look for miles around and not see another person, another car, or another mosquito.  

i miss my bed.  i sleep on a hard-as-a-board dorm-sized twin bed, and my inner starfish really needs some cushy sprawling time.

so many more loves and misses!

to be continued…