too much

The other day, I was invited to join my coworkers in going out for lunch.

Sure, I had packed a lunch and am working on spending as little as possible on eating out.  I also wasn't particularly hungry, and had even been debating skipping lunch entirely.  Listening to one's body is a good idea.

But hey, they were going to a new restaurant that I hadn't been to before.  That justifies an entirely unnecessary expense, right?

Predictably enough, I wound up sitting with seven of my officemates at a large table at a local posh burger restaurant (yes, those terms seem kind of contradictory.  Apparently this exists).  I could have gotten a small salad to quench my insignificant hunger level, but I wanted to try the thing that sounded the best.  This was my first time here!  I must splurge!

Shortly I found myself staring at a portobello 'burger' with carmelized onions and bleu cheese, and the dang thing seemed bigger than my  head.  Certainly it was taller than my stretched jaw could accommodate.  Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, it was also delicious.

As I attacked my superfluous lunch with vigor, mushroom juice dripping all over my plate, I realized about halfway through that I was not only full, but uncomfortably so.  My body was quite clearly telling me to stop.

Did I listen?

Of course not.  Logistical concerns filled my mind.  If I had a half-sandwich left over, then my plans for the week's lunches would be thrown off.  Not to mention that the bun would get all soggy.  So I finished the thing, and accepted my coworkers' congratulations on my victory over the doom-sandwich.  

After waddling back to work, I found myself drowsy and groggy for the rest of the day, and my body physically hurt from too much food.   I had virtually no energy, and felt almost sick.  This was the result of my fun, impromptu lunch out with my friends?  Was this really what I wanted?  To be uncomfortable, too unfocused to work, and in pain?

Why did I do that to myself?


This country doesn't really have what I would call a 'food culture.'  Food culture is a sense of historical identity expressed through food.  It's grandmothers who learned to cook from their grandmothers in the way of their people.  It's the culmination of centuries of local incremental co-evolution to develop an optimal way of getting the most health from the local food supply in the most pleasurable way possible.

What we have is large corporations telling us to eat what they produce.  We have happy meals and factory farms.  We have no idea where our food comes from.  Guidance concerning diet comes not from generations of wisdom but from so-called 'nutritionists' whose educations were sponsored by those same corporations and based on severely faulty science (no offense meant to any good nutritionists out there who actually make an effort to be informed and genuinely care about health.  I'm just speaking from my own observations here).  These are the people who told us that margarine was healthy, and that no-salt diets were a good idea (conveniently forgetting that sodium is critical for neuron function, something that's covered in bio 111).  These are the people who somehow manage to justify ketchup as a vegetable.  Our sources of food information are mostly full of crap.


Above all, we have huge quantities of cheap food.  The 'average American' (yes, I know averages don't mean everything.  But some sort of measure must be picked) consumed 2,674 kilocalories a day in 2008, up from 2,167 in 1970.  At the same time we spend half as much on food as our grandparents did (as a proportion of income). 

Without going into a rant about excessive and ill-applied subsidization of specific crops as inputs for the agricultural-industrial complex, which I'll save for another time, suffice it to say that food is too cheap in terms of money and too expensive in terms of health.  The next time you go out to eat, look at the amount of food you're given.  Really look at that portion size.  Notice that you probably aren't a marathon runner or a professional bodybuilder.  Now look at it again.  Is it realistic?

I fully acknowledge that this all comes from a perspective of privilege.  An astonishing number of people don't have enough to eat or access to actually healthy food, and that's beyond depressing.  But couple that with the rampant overeating and food waste that's found in the privileged classes of the world, and it gets even more ridiculous.  

It's amazing how often we're encouraged to eat until saturation, until we're bursting at the seams.  But this leads directly to 'food coma', low energy, and feeling generally crappy.  Even on the morning after the ill-fated portobello burger lunch, I still felt mildly woozy and uncomfortable.  I'm tired of this.  What if I could simply eat less and feel great?  Eating is pleasurable, but so is actually feeling good. 

From now on, I'm going to make an effort to only eat as much as my body is actually requesting.  I'm going to work on paying attention to how I feel, and noticing when the crumminess sets in after eating.  Fundamentally, like most of my self-work, this is about being mindful.  Maybe I'll even learn something about myself.

Ultimately, everything I could possibly say on the subject has already been said more elegantly and succinctly in this post at zenhabits.  I highly recommend it.

What are your experiences with mindful or mindless eating?

have a plan

Living unconsciously (that is, without an explicit plan or road map) can be an okay thing.  Throughout my undergraduate career I drifted a lot, studying what was interesting and picking up a few accidental degrees.  I did what I felt like doing, and didn't think overly much about where I was going or what came next.

By and large, this worked out just fine; I've got a fantastic husband, several bachelor's degrees, a heck of a lot of experience performing on stage, and a wonderful circle of friends.

The downside is that the hakuna matata approach was applied to my finances as well.  I got a credit card, and then signed up for another one when I was at a conference and they were offering a spiffy-looking duffel bag if you filled out an application.  My parents continued to support me for a few years into college, and I generally spent everything I had.  Oh, my upbringing led me to be generally frugal and I didn't spend lavishly or anything, but I didn't really think about saving and didn't worry too much about carrying credit balances.  I lived beyond my poor-college-student means.  But I'd pay it later.  No worries!

Fortunately I went to an exceptionally inexpensive university, so my debt is a microdrop in the bucket compared to those who had to finance, say, law school.   However, debt is still debt, and it's still an albatross around one's neck.  Making a good salary but seeing such a large portion of it going to fund my past self is rather dissatisfying.  Think about what I could be doing with that money now!  I could be making our emergency fund so comfy that we really don't have to worry about it.  I could be saving up for trips overseas.  I could be throwing awesome parties for my friends.

Now I have a plan. 

My plan, as I've written about before, has several steps.  Fundamentally, it's the snowball method.

1. Stop putting anything on credit cards.  No really.  Even if you're going to pay it off right away.  You got yourself in this situation, so you obviously cannot be trusted.  Put down the plastic.  Credit balance only gets to shrink from here on out.  
2. Prioritize debts to pay off.  I chose the smallest-balance-first method because it provides small victories sooner in the process, though as it turned out in my case highest-interest-first would have resulted in the same prioritization.  
3. Budget a total amount of monthly cash for debt repayment.  For me, this is around 40% of my income, and that seems to be sustainable in my current life situation. 
4. Make minimum payments on all but the highest priority debt.  Throw the remainder at that high-priority albatross.  
5. When one debt gets paid off, throw a party!  Your snowball is now bigger.  All the money that was going to the debt you're now free of can now be assigned to the second-highest-priority debt. 
6. Throw snowflakes at the process when you can, but don't go overboard.  Even if it's for a good cause (getting out of debt), violating the master equation isn't very nice.
7. Rinse, repeat.

If you're a total nerd like me, a complicated spreadsheet can help, because it forces you to put all your numbers in one place (no hiding!).  It's also fun because you can adjust your monthly debt budget and it'll show you both how much sooner you'll achieve debt freedom and how much less interest you'll wind up paying.  Admitting you have a problem really is the first step.  Look at that total number.  Now look at how much interest you'll pay just for the privilege of owing money.  Notice that it sucks.  Now make a plan!

Bonus points if you can stay out of debt after achieving freedom.  But that's a future mission, and is beyond the scope of my project right now.  


At this rate, I'll be completely debt-free in December of 2013.  Sooner, if I can scrape together more snowflakes.  Here's to freedom!

revelations and revolutions

A few months ago, I found myself frustrated and angry without really knowing why.  I felt stifled, over-structured, and like I couldn't do anything.  Being human, this led to immediate lashing out about something apparently trivial.  I snippishly and passive-aggressively complained to Mr. Geek that I'd been wanting to play DDR (dance dance revolution, a video game that involves a lot of jumping around) for months and never got to.

He just looked at me and asked, quite simply, 'what's stopping you?'

I then proceeded to sit there and do what was probably an extremely good guppie impersonation.  I opened and closed my mouth repeatedly as my brain took a leave of absence for what must have been several whole minutes (while being laughed at, of course.  In retrospect, it was quite funny).

What was stopping me? 

My brain had shut down because there was no reason.  No good one, anyway, and his question had cut right to the heart of that.  I knew what I wanted to do, I had the means to do it, and yet I was standing in my own way while inventing worthless excuses that allowed me to be frustrated and unhappy.

How messed up is that?  Who in their right mind would want to be unhappy?

This is a fairly trivial example about a video game, but the general point illuminated by the silly situation is relevant to pretty much everything.

I suspect that if we would only get out of our own way, we'd be able to accomplish so much more than we think we're capable of.

when RSS attacks

As you may know, I'm sort of on a mission to be more active in general.  Leading a sedentary lifestyle is suboptimal, and I need to be creative to thwart that outcome of having a desk job.  When I was still in school I would bike everywhere, be in dance classes/rehearsals all the time, take martial arts, and walk a lot.  In short, I was a pretty active chica despite pursuing rather cerebral disciplines full-time and working part-time. 

Side note: when you're in college, you wistfully long for the day when you'll get to come home from work and not have homework hanging over you, so your free time will be genuinely free.  Think of all the things you can accomplish!  Write the next Great American Novel!  Become a trapeze artist!  Teach yourself to speak Russian!

It's a filthy lie.  As it turns out, there is a huge difference between spending your day darting between classes, taking breaks, going for walks, catching up with people between classes, and poking at your homework, and spending all day at work.  All day.  No random 1-hour breaks because that's how you schedule works out.  Nope.  It's more of a time suck than one would think.  Add on top of that a ridiculous commute time by living in the wrong city... it's suboptimal. 

Anyway, I went from being really quite active to getting some serious secretary spread.  I sit on my butt for my drive, then all day at work, and then in the evenings we'll eat dinner and watch an episode of something on Netflix or play a video game.  The other day my bottom was actually sore from all the sitting.  How can you have a more ridiculous first-world-problem than that?

I know that I have less energy now because I don't use it.  I know that I don't sleep well when I'm sedentary.  I know I'm not nearly as healthy as I should be.

However, change is hard.  And the perfect is the enemy of the good.  Oh sure, I'll get more active.  I just need to adjust my schedule, and wait for the weather to clear up, and wait until I actually feel like it, and organize the fridge first.  Nope, I'm not avoiding it or anything. 

Fortunately, Mr. Geek reads this, and for some reason he took me seriously.  He's been hauling out the DDR pads and we've been jumping around on 'em nearly every evening that's not already taken up by dance lessons.  Yay for kicking my butt and being more active!  But it still doesn't help my personal activation energy problem. 

I have a number of assorted blogs that show up on my RSS reader, most of them related to life improvement (plus a few sartorial-minded ones.  What?  I'm a girl).  When I get a chance and need a brief break from whatever I'm doing, I'll poke through some of the new entries. 

Yesterday, this showed up. 

Ouch.  Boy, does that one hit a nerve.  To my credit, I did have the thought that I should really act on that, and go do something right now. 

But I didn't.  I challenged myself, and the challenge fell flat. 

Fail. 

I'm tired of that blog.  It's a little too poignant.  Let's see what someone else has to say. 

Gah!  The universe is conspiring against my laziness inertia!

So I did it.  I got up from my computer, walked outside, and went for a walk.  I stretched my legs and rested my eyeballs by looking at plants and sky instead of a glowing screen for a bit.  There's a little dirt path that runs parallel to and a bit back from the road to my workplace, so I meandered along that, though I was annoyed at all the random detritus that had been discarded into the brush along the path.  I checked my watch, and simply walked for 8 minutes or so, and then turned around.  On the way back, I picked up some of the litter that I came across, and was fortunate to find a full-size potato chip bag that I then used to stuff other garbage into.  I have a habit of picking up trash I walk across.  A few years ago, Mr. Geek and I went on an epic hike in the mountains (it wound up being more epic than originally intended, admittedly; maps are good) and by the time we emerged, his backpack was stuffed to the brim with beer cans we'd found along the side of the otherwise beautiful trail.  People are disgusting sometimes. 

To return to the topic at hand, it felt good!  15 minutes of walking, and I could feel my lungs working better, my eyes relaxing, and that curious popping sensation in my thigh muscles that says I've worked them.  I returned to my desk, and the rest of the day went much more quickly than usual.  That evening, I had much more energy than I would have expected, and stayed up a bit later due to simply not being exhausted. 

A tiny change, but a big result.  I think I like this. 

Have you had to overcome your own activation energy to reach a goal?  Did baby steps help on the way?  I'd love to hear about it.

time

Today Trent over at The Simple Dollar wrote an extremely thought-provoking piece about what it means to live a rich life. To quote, 'it's about the time, not the stuff.' Living a rich life (whatever that means for you) is related to how you spend your time, not the stuff you accumulate.

I love this attitude.

Do I really need four huge boxes of fabric, when I never 'get around to' sewing? Would we be more likely to play our card and board games if there was a less daunting selection, and the closet they're in wasn't blocked by a mountain of clutter? With our five bookshelves, how is it that I often 'can't find anything to read'?

As I continue on my anti-clutter campaign, it's important for me to consider not only how useful a given item is, but whether I even want to use it, and whether it would contribute better to my quality of life by its absence (and thus the ability to see, find, and use other things more readily). Hooray for anti-consumerism!

conscious direction

My life has been spent waiting for someone to tell me what to do.

How did this happen?

I’ve never lived alone. Living with parents has its inherent passive aspects, and then I went immediately from that situation to one in which I had roommates. Very confident roommates with no qualms about expressing opinions on how to best do everything. While they are wonderful people in some ways, they’re the sort who feel they know how to do everything. I became accustomed to this, and simply learned to avoid voicing thoughts of my own. I’d start projects or attempt to change things, but would buckle under the slightest criticism or doubt.

This is not to blame them, only to point out that I had an awful lot of growing up to do.

This is no way to live. I find myself desperately wanting something, but waiting passively for it to somehow happen. When everything doesn’t magically fall into place, I get depressed and just learn to live with it.

What needs to change?

• Figure out what I want; not just short-term, but what I actually, fundamentally want.
• Figure out what I need; I never had to do this while I had people around to order me about.
• Develop tenacity in achieving what I want. Be stubborn FOR myself, not against myself.
• Stop being so depressed, and stack the deck so I can actually enjoy my life!