Sunday, June 6, 2010

Sunday, June 6, 2010

The internet situation is beginning to really irritate me. I tried to write last night, and everything went down again. Such is life in the jungle. I'm glad I have it at all. Otherwise, I would feel completely cut off from everyone I care about.

Anyway, as I was trying to say last night, I may have rushed to judgment about Krishna. Not the part about him being a very nice person. The part about knowing EVERYthing. In addition to all the positives I listed about him before, he has many interests and is passionate about them. Last night we talked about investing for instance. He prowls the grounds looking for herbs in leaves, seeds, and seed coverings. He showed me the seed that is ground into our nutmeg last night. It's amazing how in the past every part of a plant is used for something. The nutmeg has a flower, an outer part, and the seed in the middle, which, in addition to nutmeg, can be planted to make a new tree.
BTW: Mohanon made some dish of banana STEM ala the same stem we had last year as juice. I have to say the dish tasted better than the juice.

More questions to answer.

How I am feeling now vs. a year ago. Mentally and emotionally I feel good. This place is so restful and peaceful. I used visualization last year in order to relax and could actually put myself to sleep with it. Now--here--I can fully relax without visualization. Body and mind. The yoga has contributed to that although I had already learned to keep those thoughts that keep bombarding my mind not to enter my consciousness. Now I am better at it.
Since starting this last year, I have a new mission. No, it is not to stand on a soapbox because most people just blow me off. Really and truly, I plan to live to be at least 100 years old. Sorry about that for those of you who might be waiting for an estate distribution. (Kidding.) Better than that, I am determined not to spend the last years of my life watching television from a chair or a bed.

What really pushed me over the edge with regard to changing what I eat is that first I read In Defense of Food, in which the author convinced me that our food supply is pretty much devoid of nutritional value except for fruits and vegetables. Two rules that have stuck with me of the 10 he lists are 'Never buy anything with more than 5 ingredients.' and 'Never buy anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.' In addition, iceberg lettuce, for instance, as been mutated to taste better--and it definitely does--but it has about as much nutrition in it as 1000 heads of lettuce when our older generation was growing up. (kudos to Jeff's mother and In Defense of Food). Better to eat Romaine or Spinach or collard greens or something dark in color.
I also watched that Supersize me (may be the wrong title). But it's where the guy eats nothing but McDonalds for 30 days. After two weeks, I think, his doctors told him to stop, but he persisted much to his detriment. Very damaging diet for the body.
The last thing that convinced me was reading The China Study. This is not to say that I never have meat, or dairy, or eggs. I do. But not nearly as much. I concentrate on the fruits (easy) and vegetables (not so easy).


With regard to confidence level, I now know that when everything goes wrong that can go wrong in a foreign country, I will survive. A few tears in front of a man never hurts. Also, I didn't try this, but getting angry doesn't work anywhere when you are trying to get help.

I don't think I was having any problem with my self-esteem. I am happy with my life. I have great sons and daughters-in-law who are exceptionally supportive --even when they think I'm crazy. Babu says my sons are like Indian sons except they were born, raised, and live in America. I also have God's fabulous blessing of four super-duper grandchildren. Who could ask for anything more? I have my health and I have all these blessings.

Physically, I have quit fighting yoga. After all, having a personal yoga instructor who is a happy person, has a sense of humor, teaches me Malayalum, and speaks better English than most is pretty darn cool. Of course, it also helped that he hasn't made me do some of the stuff David was doing last year. I can get up and down much easier. The heat doesn't bother me as much.
I am anxious to getting back to where I can intersperse walking with swimming again. I think the swimming was a very positive thing. Not to mention wearing a smaller size swimsuit. BTW: all my workout shirts are about to relegated to sleep jammies. They are starting to look sloppy.

Other than weight, I didn't think there was anything wrong with my health. Having tried many times to lose weight, I had gotten to the point where I just accepted it. In addition, the psychological reason for keeping the weight was that it kept men away from me. I wasn't interested and this solved the problem. Not to worry. I'm not interested in women either.
Whoa. I'm really letting it all hang out, aren't I?

Overall fitness: I can walk more than 3 miles in an hour and swim 7/8 mile in an hour. I feel positive that I could walk a 5K in under 1 hour and 40 minutes with or without hills. Actually, I notice here that I no longer have to pause walking up even long hills nor do I slow down nor am I completely out of breath when I get to the top. Hooray for me!

I will try to write more later. After afternoon treatment we are going to the Elephant Preserve and the Arabian Sea and maybe the big Hindu temple where the police were going to make absolutely sure that no white American was going to enter.

Take care.

Love,
Mom/Peggy/Granny/NiNi