Appliances

I finally chose and ordered a blender from Vitamix.  I do not like how big it is, how loud it is, how expensive it is.  I like the look and price of the Kitchenaid if I could have confidence that it would last longer than less than one to three years. In contrast, the Vitamix is a durable product.

My hope is to get more veg and fruit into my tummy, and into the tummies of those I love.  My intention is to make regular nutriant-packed smoothies and other goodies with this appliance.

People say "Vitamix changed my life!"  I hope that I'll say it changed my life for the better, too.  I hope I'll be much slimmer when I start downing more veg and fruit in delicious smoothies.  I hope even my dog will enjoy them.  Fingers crossed.

In the past I've toyed with getting a high-end appliances but it never seemed worth it.  Looked at expensive juicers but got a low-end, easy to clean Oster instead, yet never used it myself except to lend it out to others a few times.  Looked at expensive food processors but got a low-price Black and Decker that is so well made I'm still using it, its small and easy to store and works wonderfully.  Looked at the expensive, big, heavy Kitchenaid mixer and just longed for the vintage small tabletop mixers instead, never wanted to deal with the size and weight of that appliance, ended up hand mixing most often but getting an electric hand held mixer for whipping up creams and frostings.

I have had several blenders so far, my favorite is an immersion blender for making cream soups.  Then I have a single serving blender at home and one that I keep at work for making protein smoothies for lunch.  The one at home is still going strong but the plastic pitcher has a constant smell that never goes away.  I'm on the third brand of blender at work, that one came with several pitchers so the smell issue is less.  Had a smoothie blender that died when lent to someone else.  Lots of blenders.

I hope that the Vitamix will give many years of great service and also not ruin our hearing at the same time; because good hearing is important to good health too.   In one youtube video I saw a girl put on noise-cancelling headphones before turning on her Vitamix, but that doesn't protect the ears of everyone else in the house.

Raw

In my quest to add more fruits and vegetables to my diet, I have been on the hunt for a good blender that will last longer than 1-3 years before breaking down, will chop ice to make delicious cold smoothies, as well as shred fibrous vegetables like celery and kale to make appetizing green smoothies that do not have the texture and look of swamp water.

I'm asking a lot from a blender nowdays.  My mom still has her working Osterizer from the 50s or 60s. She treated it so gently, never chopped ice with it. I would confiscate it except I worry I might blow out the motor with my use of a blender. 

I really like the Kitchenaid Diamond Vortex blender but  the motor coupling is plastic, and many reviews say something wears down, gets loose and the pitcher starts leaking all over the motor. The Breville Hemisphere Control is supposed to have more durability according to America's Test Kitchens, but I just don't want to waste my money on something that will have to be replaced in even 3 years.  I want a blender to last. So I'm resolved to get a new or gently used Vitamix variable speed blender for less than $400; been watching them on eBay.

Unexpectedly I discovered a little world of vibrant health-conscious slim people who rely on Vitamix as their favorite appliance.   The Raw Vegan 80:10:10 crowd.   They munch on huge quantities of raw fresh fruit and fruit juice from morning till 4pm.  Then they munch on raw fresh vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains for their evening meal. 

The diet is 80% fruit and veg, 10% protein, and 10% fat.  I don't know much more than that, but they eat huge number of calories of raw, fresh food too.  From 2000 for a sedentary girl, 4000 calories for a more active girl, and I have no idea how many 1000s of calories for active men.  They all look very slim and healthy to me -- although, of course, some people comment on their YouTube videos that they look too slim.  They don't, they look like normal humans in most parts of the world. Some of us Americans have such a bloated dysmorphic idea of what healthy looks like.  With more than half of us overweight or obese it may have distorted our ideas of what healthy looks like.

So this is a new and exciting  path to explore the 80:10:10 Raw Vegan world.   The YouTube posters seem obsessed with nutrition, which is great, and are careful to figure out how to fill nutritional gaps.

I might be exploring this diet further.  At the very least, its a great detox diet to lose weight.

Settling

My unsettled heart might finally be calming down a little from the upset of losing First Love many years ago, by going through it again these past 2 years. 

The first time, the way First Love breaks up with people is very unsettling, very abrupt and unexpected.  One minute we are friends, the next he has turned away silently.  Then on top of that injury he adds the insult of offering no explanation why.  Nothing.  Dead silence.  So one's imagination runs wild. 

He and I argued about this when we first rekindled our friendship.  He argued nothing could be said as an explanation for breaking up that would not be insulting.  I argued that people, especially women, want to hear something that sounds sincere and true.  To gain some understanding or being reassured that they aren't viewed as too crazy to calmly accept the disappointing news. 

When First Love offers no explanation, just pulls up stakes and walks away, there is no sense of conclusion, just a never ending horizon of "Why? What did I do to make him treat me this way?"

I argued that I don't care what the reasons for the break up are, I just want a reason.  Not a made up reason, a real reason, even if it isn't logical.  I mean logic isn't a part of essential honest attraction. 

One time a guy broke up with me saying "You have a weird baby powder smell."   That was a strange comment, but one I  would never argue with, pheromones; not that I would have argued anyway.   I was just grateful that he honored me enough to explain his position in person.  We are still friends, there is mutual respect between us.

So maybe by seeing this through a second time, now that I'm older and more experienced, now I can see it with more understanding and maybe it does help me find some peace.  Not entirely because its still hard to accept that someone might not love me as much as I love them, that kind of rejection, big or small, has always a bit of a rub.

Now my more experienced self can explain to my young, tender heart that he had to leave because he didn't love me enough to stay.  And that is the truth, and it is a resolution to the question.  "Why?"  "Because he doesn't love you enough to stay.  I'm sorry."

Track

How to get back into a mindset of eating more healthfully to lose weight?

Well I finally acknowledged that I need to reduce calories to around 1000 per day.  Facing that fact is daunting but oh well, that's the way it is.

How can I stay full on fewer calories?  

  1. For more fiber, fill up on vegetables and fruits.  

  2. For staying full longer, choose protein over carbohydrates.  

  3. For less bloat, choice more vegan and organic, avoid dairy and GMOs.  

  4. For more nutrition, take supplements and have more raw food.
  5. In the beginning, use homeopathic appetite suppressants to help reduce hunger.

To help with the filling up on more vegetables and fruit part of the equation, I decided I need to buy a good variable speed blender. 

So that, sorted.  Now I just have to start tracking what I eat to be more conscious of keeping the calorie counts low.

p.s. America's Test Kitchens likes Vitamix best, but for half the price advises the Breville Hemisphere Control is good too, and much quieter to protect hearing.

Ghost

I woke up hearing in mind, Joan Baez mourning her song of love lost for Bob Dylan "Diamonds and Rust."

First semester at college we had to read Bertrand Russell's "Why I'm Not a Christian" -- “I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.”

The philosophy professor stated with a demeaning finger-waving 'shame on you' tone of voice  "Believing in god is like believing in Santa Claus" as if you had any sense,  you'd have to agree with him.

That lead to many self-doubting years of agnosticism,  even though before that I had organic beliefs of the spirit inhabiting the material.  So many years of intellectual pacing, restless, unable able to sit down.

From age 5 or younger I remembered seeing out of my mom's eyes while I was in her womb.  My organic understanding of reality, ideas I felt I'd learned from experience since before I was born, were that I was reincarnated, chose my parents and my life before I was born; that life (spirit) moves in and out of, or throughout, material dimensions.

Then Ex, thank you Ex,  finally offered me a place to relax into by talking of pagan ideas of reincarnation, and revering life.  But then Ex wandering away by having affairs with other women and I sought solace and healing by seeking pagan ideas about metaphysics. That is when I opened myself up to everything,  and experienced things I interpreted as supernatural.

It still feels like an injury, as if I was tricked by that philosophy professor who took god away from me for too many years.  And yet . . .  now, that doubt has become my center of balance when measuring science with metaphysics.

I was walking in the park in autumn and seeing oak leaves on the ground I wondered how in spring those leaves budded from the tree and how life was given to them from the sap within the tree and I wondered if the sap giving life to the leaves allowed the leaves to share the knowledge of the tree.  And I wondered where the tree got life and I realized it was from the soil and the rain and the air.  And I wondered if the soil and rain and air shared their knowledge with the tree.  And I wondered how like we are to the leaves that had fallen to the ground, back to the soil and the rain and the air.

I finally have my god back, and it is very reassuring to rest in god's hands.  Not because I think god will save me anymore than god saves the deer from the hunter, but because now I feel a kinship with the deer and the tree and soil and rain and the air.

Heal

People like to soothe those with broken hearts by repeating that "Time heals". 

Well in the first place, I doubt anyone who has ever said that to me has ever felt the true agony of a broken heart because if they have, and they have lived with it for even half as many years as I have, then they should know better then to say such hollow words.  Maybe they have suffered a bruised or even wounded heart, but a broken heart is a different matter.

In the second place, if they really have suffered the agony of a broken heart, and if they are still living with the pain of that, then maybe they should acknowledge that the amount of time it takes to heal a broken heart might be centuries.

On the other hand, perhaps in reality, not our human perception of reality, but in reality perhaps there is no such thing as time at all.  In which case "time heals a broken heart" would mean what?  That the heart is always broken and always healed?   Reality outside of time is too hard for me right now.

The only words of encouragment that have ever helped me, were offered at a Zen sangha.  When asked how to deal with a broken heart someone compassionately urged:  "Keep your heart open."

 

Tacks

A man who had gastric bypass surgery spoke to me about weight loss today.  He spoke about the way he exercises everyday.  He has a FitBit gadget to count his steps and exercise each day, and tracks it electronically.

When I asked him how he keeps track of what he eats, he replied flippently that he doesn't have to keep track because he knows he always eats less than 3000 calories per day.

My reaction was shock!!! and then angry resentment.  "Yeah?  Well 3000 is easy, how do you keep track of less than 1000 calories a day?"

I have spoken to Weight Watchers women who have kept their weight off for many years too and they have all confirmed to me that they have to stay below 1000 calories a day.   It's the simple truth.

3000 calories a day I am the weight I am now.   3000 calories a day I contintue to gain quickly. 

To lose weight I have to eat around 600-1100 calories a day. Maybe 600-1100 calories is a lot to people living in desolation, who go to sleep hungry every night, but its not a lot ot the majority of Americans.

I'm not sure what I need to do to maintain a slim figure but I'm sure it is to stick around 1000-1200 calories a day.  That's not much food.  

Stop lieing to me world!  Stop saying its so easy.  It is constant vigilance, rigorous tracking to make sure I'm eating around 1000 calories/day.  Ok, I'm done with my rant now.

 Yes I'm a lovely highly fuel-efficient machine.  That's why if I feed myself the glut of most American diets I become obese very quickly.  I'm elegant, fuel-efficient, and green.  That makes me lucky in terms of biologic evolution.