Sunday Story...Stuff

Sunday Story…Stuff

I have a lot of stuff. Books, cds, knick knacks, bric-a-brac, tschotkes, junk, stuff. I have tried to eliminate a lot of my stuff but it just seems to continue to multiply. I fear it may take a concerted effort on my part to really get to the bottom of all my stuff and get rid of it. It will take a decision to jettison it, to release it back from where it came. And in that release I will let go of all the things that stuff carries along with it. The memories, the little tendrils of hope and pain and success and failure. Because tied up in all that stuff is a life that has been lived. Maybe that is why all that stuff is there…it represents the life that has already gone before.

There is other stuff I am carrying around in my life. It is the stuff I carry inside of me. The stuff I have picked up over the last few decades, especially when I was a little person. This stuff I picked up to keep me safe, to keep my hopes and dreams alive, to keep me functioning in a confusing and difficult world. This stuff is the decisions I made as 5 or 10 or 15 year old about the world and the way it works. And now at 50+ years old my life is still being ruled by the decision a 5 year old made based on some event (good or bad) that happened to him.

Huh? I mean seriously…a 5 year olds decision is running my life? Think about it…Maybe one of your parents left you at that age…your 5 year old made that mean something to him or her. That child made that event mean something…love isn’t real, people who love you leave, I am not worthy of love, I don’t count. And from that meaning that child begins to live a life. And he or she makes decisions based on those meanings. And for all the years forward the decision that get made are made with that meaning in mind.

This is an integral part of our human condition…we make meaning. We create a story about events so that we can make sense of the world and understand our place in it. These stories become our stuff. And our stuff becomes more ingrained into our lives and gets really difficult to change as time goes on. That is assuming we can even recognize it as stuff. Because we train ourselves to think that this stuff is real and real important to us. We even let this stuff become who we are…it defines us.

Does your furniture define you? Does the house you live in or the car you drive create the person you are? No they don’t. The person you are defines the house and the car not the other way around. But we let this other stuff, stuff we picked up 10 or 20 or 30 years ago drive our lives and set the parameters or who we are capable of being. What if you had other stuff? What if you decided today that the stuff you are carrying around isn’t really yours anymore? What if you just took all that stuff out to the curb on trash day and left it to be taken away? Now what?

Now you get to decide who and what you are to be. You see getting rid of that other stuff…the boxes in the garage, the bags hanging around in the closet, the piles of things gathering dust on the shelves are holding space for the things that might really please you, might really bring joy and harmony to your world. Getting rid of your psychic junk does the same thing…if you create a new meaning, new story about the events in your life you are changing your past. And when you change the past you change the future. By eliminating all that old stuff you get to make room for the stuff that is going to serve the you that is here now, not the you of 45 years ago. The question is…do you dare?

Do you have the courage to recreate your life? Do you have the courage to be the person you really and truly want to be? Most of us are so in love with our stuff, so enamored of the people that our stuff has had us become that chucking that stuff away is just too frightening. This is the creation of a new you, one that does and says things in an adult way in a way that serves the integrated whole.

Do you dare become who you really want to be? What will you do without all that stuff holding you down and molding you into some person a 5 year old thought it would be safe to be? Do you really want to go on being that person? It’s safe and comfortable, granted, but is it really serving you in a way that has you living a life of optimum health and fitness? You see health and fitness isn’t just about your physical body…it is the whole package...mind, body and soul. All healthy, all fit, all working at their very highest and best.

Why not take all that old stuff and put it on the curb? Start with the physical stuff…all the junk lying around your house and garage and get rid of it….make room for stuff that will be more fun and alive. Then go upstairs in your mind and start cleaning out those old stories and ancient movie reels and make room for some new ones. Then get started on your soul. What beliefs and suppositions are you walking around with that really aren’t yours anymore. You might as well find some new ones of those too.

Riddle me this Batman…Who are you going to be when you get to be who you really ought to be?

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Me and my shadow

Sunday Story…Me and my shadow

I have a shadow self, several of them to be perfectly honest with you. My shadow lies very near the surface these days; it is not buried at all. I like my shadow; it is not scary or frightening any longer. I enjoy knowing and understanding this part of me that does not always live in the full light of day.

This was not always so. There were many years of my life that I was not aware of my shadow. That the actions and activities I was engaged in were part of some dark and devious parts of my psyche that I was not completely cognizant of. And there were many times parts of my shadow were running my life and I didn’t even know it until I awoke one day and wondered whose life I was living.

We all have a shadow. We all have bits of life that live under the rocks and detritus of our inner landscape. Some of them we buried ourselves. Some of them just got pushed away when they no longer served us and forgotten under some pile of trash in our mind. Often our forgotten hopes and dreams live in these shadows. Along with the parts of us that could make them happen. Sometimes they are the parts that we had to hide from the world to keep them safe. Sometimes they are the parts that we could not bring out due to fear.

I realize some of you may be saying, “Nope not me. No shadow over here. What you see is what you get.” Well…if that is so good for you. However you are a highly unusual individual, to be so completely aware and conscious and fully integrated…drop me a line because I want to spend a bunch of time with you. In my experience, however, (and that is all it is) people who claim not to have shadow are very scary indeed. Somehow they have managed to delude themselves, or hide those parts of their personalities from themselves so well that they can no longer see a shadow. The more light there is the more shadow there is. Congratulations you qualify as a very scary person in my world.

Often we do not realize what our shadow is or where it occurs. Maybe we don’t want to know, after all the shadows can be a bit scary. And turning on the light over there could reveal some things that are starkly unpleasant. Yet if we don’t do this work a couple things will be happening. As a matter of fact you might want to look this short list over and see if you recognize any of these things. If you do you are on the road to realizing just where and how your shadow is manifesting in your life.
• If you find yourself in addiction (drugs, alcohol, food, sex, love, etc) your shadow is in play
• If you are enabling someone else’s addictions, or you are being co-dependent your shadow is operating.
• If you find yourself having the same problem over and over again (jobs, people or more) it may be because your shadow is trying to get out and have you pay attention.
• If you have ever wondered how you ended up in the place where you are your shadow may have been driving the bus of your life before you woke up and took over the wheel.

Your shadow is not bad. Please do not think of your shadow as something you must get rid of or that you must cleanse or shake free of. Your shadow is there to serve you. Your shadow serves as very important foil for the parts of your personality that live more in the light. The light cannot exist without the dark and vice versa. The two of them are tied together like the sun and the moon and the sun loves the moon.

The idea is to understand your shadow and to befriend those places you are not aware of and to re-friend the ones you buried alive all those years ago. We turn the light on and start pulling the boxes out of the corners and opening them up to find out what we stored in them. And then we can start using them. Or at the very least to put them in their proper storage places and labeled to we can get at them when we want them.

You may be wondering how to find your shadow? It really isn’t very hard if you start looking. Every wonder why some people just irritate you? It is more than likely that person is carrying some part in the light that you keep in the shadow. Take a close look at those people and start exploring how you might be like them. Yes you might be like them in some little hidden outpost. Maybe someone you work with is especially challenging and it isn’t really about the work but it is about that person. That person may be dripping some of your shadow out that you really don’t like to face. Like they are arrogant and egotistical and well a royal pain but you are never like this, right? Here is s real zinger…our children often carry our shadows. They come into this world to teach us things about ourselves (and here you thought it was the other way around). The question is are you willing to pay attention and get the lesson or are you going to try to ignore it and hope it will all go away? Because it won’t go away.

The goal is to become ever more integrated; to enlist the shadow as an ally and put it to work for the greater good of your personality.

Of course you can ignore it and wonder why the universe keeps throwing the same drama and trauma in your path. Why your relationships keep showing up the same way with the same sort of problems. Maybe it really isn’t you at all. After all you aren’t the star of your own movie are you? You aren’t the common denominator in all your relationships. You aren’t the one with the drama…it always THEM, THEY are the problem.

Really? I mean really? Think about it. Maybe your shadow selves are having a bit of a joke in your life and you aren’t in on it! Or not. Maybe I am all wet here.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Food, Its not just for dinner anymore

Sunday Story…Food…it isn’t just for dinner anymore

Food is not just a matter of putting calories into your hopper. If it was we could just have some sort of gruel that would provide the necessary calories (energy) and nutrients and be good to go. Unfortunately it really isn’t that simple. And if it was maybe I could get away with eating ice cream and chocolate all day along with a multivitamin and that would be sufficient. Wouldn’t that be nice!

Food is tied up into our emotional being. If it wasn’t there would be no bulimics or anorexics. Weight would not be an issue because we would only eat to survive. Instead we have placed food in a position of soothing us, replacing love, and even meeting our need for companionship.

Food is just food. It is on one hand just some version of macro nutrients (protein, carbohydrate, and fat) and on the other hand it is the responsible for how I feel, day to day and hour to hour. Some of this is chemical…sugar does certain things to my body chemistry, proteins break down in certain ways, carbohydrates create an insulin reaction in my body, fat gets processed through my gall bladder and liver. All of these amazing things are done automatically and without thought.

The thought comes in as we are deciding what and when and how to eat. And that is based on our social conditioning, the way we were raised, and the associations we bring from childhood about food in general and certain foods in particular.

Think for a moment about Thanksgiving (since we are coming upon that time again). There are things about your Thanksgiving experience that are uniquely yours. They are all tied up in the memories you have of Thanksgivings past...the smells, the sights, the fights, and the fetes. And for you, the meal will not be complete unless there is some particular thing on the table, prepared in a particular fashion. It really has very little to do with the food itself, with the calories present, the protein or fat or carbohydrates. And it has everything to do with your emotional body and the relationship you have with food.

How do you feel about the food you are about to eat right now? Is it just sustenance? Is it going to soothe some raging beast inside your soul? Is that piece of chocolate going to validate your existence? How about that fried chicken leg, doughnut, or box of crunch a munch? Why do we tie so much up in our food and then refuse to sit down and eat with gratitude and intention? Does it really make sense?

What I am saying, what I am proposing is to change, shift, transform your relationship with the food you eat. If the relationship you have is at all times healthy and fulfilling then don't change it. But if you find yourself craving certain foods...be it chocolate, peanut butter, candy, cookies, fried okra (?), or what have you, then it may be time to take a good look at what is standing behind those overwhelming desires. What did you miss out on? What did those foods supplant?Why those foods and not others?

One of the simplest ways to look at the issue deeply is to clean up your diet. Eliminate the anti-nutrients, the toxic foods, the empty calories and the industrialized edible food products from your diet. Notice I said simple...not easy. In an earlier iteration I wrote of deciding to eliminate these foods...sugar, dairy, processed food, industrialized food, grains, and even more radically...potatoes, legumes and beans. All of these things carry toxins and anti-nutrients into your body. Eliminate them for 30 days. Then re-introduce them one by one and see how your body feels and reacts when you do.

How does this shift your relationship with food? It will force to to become intentional about your food choices. It will force you to think about what you are going to eat and why. No longer will food be something to be forced down over the kitchen sink. And while you may choose to eat it in front of the television you will make the choice. Food will require planning and shopping and yes, some work. But it is the work of your soul...the work of nourishing your body and nurturing your spirit.

You will eat green stuff. Some meat, hopefully sourced from natural sources, nuts, seeds, fruits and healthy fats. Today I walked around a number of food vendors and decided to eat this exact way...the only thing I could not control was the sourcing of the material, for that I had to depend on the word of the vendor. I did not feel deprived that I wasn't eating pizza, or calzone, or dimsum, or some other food that may be tasty and unhealthy. Deprivation is in your mind. As I write this I can feel the food surging through my system, fueling my organs, energizing my cells and allowing my mind to race from idea to idea.

I am grateful for food that fuels my body. Grateful to the animals that died so I may eat, grateful to the humans that worked to bring it to me, grateful to live in a place where such abundance is readily available to me. This is what I mean when I talk about a healthy and healthful relationship with the food I eat. Bon appetit!

Namaste

John

“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”

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Sunday Story...More Food

Sunday Story…More Food

I love food. I love to eat. I love to prepare good food well. I love to eat it with people I like. The food and the company nourish me. This is the important part of the food equation. If I am going to eat whatever I eat I better enjoy it.

You may have read the last 2 postings about food and trembled in your boots. Whatever am I going to eat!? No Grain! No Dairy! No Cheese! No Sugar! No No No! I have been eating this way for over a year now, almost 2. I am not 100% compliant. 90 or 95 % compliant yes but not 100%. You can do this, anyone can do this. The rest of this post will help you with the yes part of shifting your diet.

Yes…you can eat meat. This includes fish, chicken, turkey, eggs, beef, bison, pork (but this may be the last choice), ostrich, game like deer, elk, antelope, duck, goose, and pheasant, shellfish, and more. When you buy meat you want to get the absolute best you can buy. Plan on eating a smaller portion (4 oz.) but get the grass fed, grass finished local (if possible) product. Buy your eggs from the farm down the street. Get to know the person raising the eggs. Help them with table scraps if they want, make sure you return your egg crates and start a relationship with that person. These eggs will be so much better on so many levels you will not believe it.
Buy local, buy from people you know when possible and be aware of where your food comes from and how it has been handled. It is your body and you should only put into it food that is good for it.
In terms of preparation…poached, baked, broiled, sautéed, or raw. Never fried, never coated in batter and cooked, never burnt to a crisp. Keep in mind that lean meat does not have the fat in it that the food you are used to has so it will need to cook less and slower and at lower heat. I suggest wrapping the protein in leaves to help keep the moisture in during the cooking process.

Yes you can eat vegetables. Lots of them, as a matter of fact. Your plate should be full of green stuff and the more different kinds the better. Try to be aware of what is in season and eat those things. It will help keep you in the cycle of life. So, now in the fall, squash is prevalent, late leaves like spinach and chard, some melons, beets, and other root vegetables. Buying blueberries from Chile is not good food management even if they are organic. These berries were not made to travel thousands of mile so you can eat them out of season. And the footprint to get them to your table is horrendous.
I often play a game to see how many different kinds of greens I can get on one plate in one meal. I think my personal best is 17! Now it is easier in the height of the growing season when you have a garden in your back yard but it is still doable for many of us. Don’t be afraid to branch out into greens you have never used before. What’s the worst thing that can happen? You hate it and put it in the compost pile right? Oh well, then move on!
In terms of preparation…steamed, roasted, grilled, and sautéed. Try not to boil and again never fried and batter coated or breaded…defeats the whole purpose of what we are doing. I love roasted and grilled veggies and will grill broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots or just about anything. I have a special pan, round and flat with ridges that I rub with olive oil and grill the veggies in…very simple and fast. And you can use whatever spices you enjoy.

Yes, you can eat fruit. You should limit your fruit intake to one or two servings per day though. Fruit can be more calorie dense that we want and may trigger (for some of us) a craving for sugar. Dried fruit is even more dangerous so go very easy here. It is very easy to over eat dried fruit and the sugar content is very high. Again try to source from local and organic sources for your fruit.

Yes you can eat nuts and seeds. This is a great time of year for them as a matter of fact. Cracking your own nuts is a great activity and it slows down how many nuts you can actually eat. Again nuts in particular are very calorie dense so it is easy to over eat these. If you find yourself eating handful after handful you will need to institute some portion control (on the other hand it is still waaay better than a bag of Doritos!). Seeds are less calorie dense but still a little self control will go a long way. Hazel nuts, Brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds are all good choices. Do I need to say to eat them raw, not roasted with salt and oil?

Fat is not the enemy, Fat is your friend. Fat will help with your feeling full, fat will help you with energy and fat will help your immune system. Avocados, nuts, seeds, olives, and coconut are all great choices. Coconut is one of the most prevalent natural fat sources on the planet. You can find it in so many different forms it is ridiculous. Just make sure you are getting the real deal and not with sugar added or other adulterants. You can cook with it, eat it raw or drink the milk and it is all good. Avocados are in season now and are a really great source of fat. Try eating on a day for a snack and see what happens to your energy and mental clarity.

So there you have it. Lots of good food available to you. We live in an abundant society. There are so many great choices for us there are no reasons to eat processed edible non-food products. Eat close to the ground; enjoy your food with people you love. Learn to love to cook and experiment in the kitchen…I do!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Food cont'd.

Sunday Story…Food, continued

Over the centuries we have changed our dietary eating habits to accommodate many things. And many of these habits do not serve to take us into “optimum” health. What they do is allow us to survive. A diet of Calorie Rich But Pathetic (CRAP) food will keep you alive but it will not allow you to thrive. It will not allow your physical body to be all it was designed to be. We drop bags of wheat off to starving people around the world and it keeps them alive. The same with powdered milk. So there is always a question of scale.

The most common comment I hear clients say in my dietary practice is “I eat pretty good.” This is always a comment that requires more explanation. And it begs the next question: Compared to what? What I am about to propose to you will seem more than a little radical. But the fact is certain food groups are having a negative effect on your health without you even knowing it. Foods like grains, dairy, and legumes are pervasive in our diets. These foods came about thousands of years ago and our digestive systems have never evolved to properly digest these foods. These foods do things inside our bodies that our bodies react negatively to.

Ask yourself these questions:
Are you energy levels inconsistent or non-existent?
Do you have aches and pains that exist without injury or overuse?
Are you still carrying a few extra pounds that you just can’t get rid of no matter how hard you exercise?
Do you have skin allergies or other skin related issues?
Do you have digestive problems?
Do you have seasonal allergies?
Do you have chronic conditions? (Asthma, Lupus, CFS, etc)
Many of these symptoms are related to your diet. Even if your diet is organic and “clean”. So even healthy stuff may not be good for you!! These food groups (grains, dairy, legumes, even potatoes) are inflammatory, insulin spiking, calorie dense, and nutritionally sparse. You need to eliminate them from your diet completely.

Yes you read that correctly…FOR 30 DAYS…no grain (bread, pasta, rice, tortillas, corn, quinoa, noodles, etc, etc,), no dairy (yogurt, milk, cheese, butter, cow, goat, etc.) no legumes (beans, peas, peanuts, peanut butter), no potatoes (russets, yukons, new), no sugar or sweeteners (white sugar, stevia, sucralose, agave, maple syrup), no processed foods (if it comes in a box don’t eat it including protein bars), no alcohol.

Eating like this will change your life. This is a fact borne out by testimonies and more by hundreds of people who have already done it. It will change your emotional relationship with food and that would be reason enough for most of us. We are attached to food through our emotions, often our self esteem and self control are all tied up and messed up around food. Eating like this has the potential to change the way you eat for the rest of your life.
Whatever will you eat?
Real food…food that is identifiable by origin…food that does not require a label or a box to come home in…Meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, some fruit, nuts, seeds, coconut, olives, olive oil, and avocado. In other words food that are the ingredient list. Food that is fresh and natural. Eat it raw, steamed, broiled, sautéed, baked but never fried.

Some notes…
• Processed meat is ok if you can find it without nitrates, glutens, dairy, and casein.
• Sun butter can be used as long as it has no sugar added.
• Be very careful with dried fruit…they are the candy bars of the natural food world. And the last thing you want is that insulin spike that sends you the candy dish.
• Green beans, sugar snap and snow peas are ok since they are more pod than bean.
• Coffee and black tea in moderation or go hard core and test your caffeine addiction/sensitivity and let those go too. Drink them black or if you must, a little coconut milk.
• Vinegar is ok in small quantities for salad dressings and the like.
• Go easy adding salt to your food.
Simple right? So how are you going to do this? Here is the step by step approach:
1. Decide to start now. Right now. Today. Figure out the 30 days and go to the health food store, whole foods, farmer’s market, grocery and buy the food you will be eating.
2. Just do it. Cold Turkey. No excuses, no reasons why not. You job over the next 30 days is to only worry about food choices. Not your weight, not how much you are eating, not your measurements. Just your food choices.
3. Figure out how to do this in a restaurant or at a friend’s house.
4. Give it the full 30 days. The first few days will be the most trying…your body will be healing and changing, your brain will need to get used to doing without all those sugars and sweets.
Keep in mind the healing process will take at least 14 days and the drive to create new habits take at least 21 days. And the mental addictions and emotional connections to sugary foods, large amounts of carbohydrates (also sugars), and the chemically created and altered flavors will take even longer.
Be prepared to change the way you eat forever. If you only do this as a challenge you are shorting yourself. Start thinking about what you are eating, why you are eating and how you feel, before, during, and after you eat it. There is a magic in eating this way. But the magic requires a serious buy in and effort on your part. You will need to make sure you are eating enough. You will need to plan meals, decide what you can eat when you eat out. And develop the will power to say no. You do not HAVE to eat anything. You get to choose and decide what goes in your mouth.

Getting in shape is not easy. Eating this way is not easy. But neither is it “hard”. Let’s be honest…quitting heroin is hard, walking 5 miles each way for dirty water every day is hard, fighting cancer is hard. Eating vegetables and drinking black coffee is not hard so give that up.

Here’s the reward for your buy-in:
You will feel better
Your performance will improve
Your recovery will be quicker
Your body composition will change (think less fat and more muscle)
You will be amazed at the wonderful fresh, natural and delicious foods out there that you can prepare with joy and love.
Go ahead and give it a try…you really have nothing to lose (except your aches, pains, unwanted and unsightly fat, chronic disease conditions and more!).
If you need coaching on doing this… call me. I am here for you!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Food as We know it

Sunday Story…Food as We know It

Food is one of the most important things in your life. Right after air and water, without food life becomes very difficult very quickly. Yet we treat food like it doesn’t count. We worry about air pollution and second hand smoke. We worry about the quality of our water…so much so that we spend about $10.00 a gallon for bottled water. Yet we go to the store and buy the cheapest, worst quality food we can get, without much consideration to the stuff that may be on or in that food.

This does not make much sense. As a matter of fact it is a bit of a paradox. The food I eat is directly related to my health and yet I begrudgingly spend every dollar I have to on the food I put in my body. At no time in history and nowhere else on the planet has a country ever spent less on their food than we do here in America when computed as a percentage of income.

We live in a society of abundance. The grocery store has thousands of products for us to choose from and in most areas there is more than one store to go to. Yet with all those choices we are swiftly becoming the most malnourished people on the planet. We eat but we don’t get nourished. It’s kind of like hearing but not listening or looking without seeing. Eating and dying of starvation.

One of the major problems in our abundance is the huge amount of misinformation there is available to us. Food labels are purposefully deceptive. What we are sold as healthy may not be healthy, except to the food manufacturers’ bottom line. And their job is to sell more food, sell it at the highest profit possible, and get it to the consumer as cheap as they can make it. It is kind of like accepting the lowest bid for your brain surgery. Do you really want the cheapest doctor and hospital performing your brain surgery? Or do you want the best?

Food is the same. Do you really want the cheapest food you can put in your body…the foods that were produced with cheapest ingredients, without an eye toward quality control? Or do you want to put the best most nourishing food into the temple that is your body?

If you answered yes to that last question….keep reading. If you answered no, well, you can keep reading but I don’t know why you would. The manufactured food industry has only the best interest of their shareholders at heart. Their job is to addict you to the food you are eating, so you buy more and more food and consume more and more food. 20 years ago there was no 64oz big gulp. Coffee wasn’t served in 24 oz cups. Folks a cup of coffee is supposed to be 6-8 oz. If you are consuming a 24 oz coffee you are getting about 4 servings of coffee! Small wonder why your adrenal glands are over worked…caffeine is a stress producing agent in your body.
We are addicted to the worst parts of the processed food on our plates. Sugar, fat and salt are all served in abundance in processed food. And the processed food companies have figured out how to produce food with those ingredients in just the right proportions to do three things…#1 create an environment in your body that will have you demand more of those products, #2 have you feel poorly when you don’t get them, #3 make them just cheap enough that feel like you are getting a great deal. And they are making a killing on killing you. Killing you slowly yes but killing you nonetheless.

Granted you have free will to choose whether or not to eat them. But the marketing arms of these companies are very very good at their jobs. Why else would they use cartoon characters to addict your children? Why else would they appeal to your health sensitivities by making claims like…”all natural” or “like nature intended” or “low fat” (but high sugar) or “low in carbs” (but high fat)? The marketing of food is a billion dollar industry. And it has one job…to convince you to eat more of their product. King size candy bars? Liters of soda or Gatorade or juice all designed and packaged to get you to drink or eat even more. Folks you are going to have to take charge of your health and that means taking charge of the food you eat.

And you are what you eat. And you are what your food ate or what was put on it. So if your beef ate steroids, antibiotics, chicken litter (that’s right the beef industry fed over 1 million tons of chicken waste to their beef in feed lots last year!), growth hormones and who know what else you are eating that stuff. And if the chicken you are eating was washed in bleach to kill the nasty little bugs left on it (from fecal material no less) guess what you are getting some too. Cows are supposed to eat grass not other cows, chicken poop, or corn. Chickens are supposed to eat bugs and seeds, and green things not other animals.

So where do you start? How do you get off this roller coaster? Start by reading every label on every product you are buying. If you don’t want to read then don’t buy food that has labels! No label on carrots, broccoli or apples. Buy meat from non-factory farms. Yes it will cost more so eat less. A portion of protein should be about 4 oz. or about the size of your palm. The rest of your plate should be green! If you think this is expensive you should look at your whole food budget and then look at how much you can get from the produce aisle. By cutting out manufactured foods you will be surprised how much you can save to buy the good foods. And if we factor in the loss of production because you are sick more often than you should be, the rising cost of sick care, and the lost years of your life due to poor diet choices well the cost of eating good food that is good for you goes way down.

I will go on about this again next week. It is so important to your health that you eat in a way that serves your optimum health and fitness. And that serves your psychological relationship with food. Don’t try to change it all at once though…going cold turkey on sugar and glucose after a lifetime of addiction will not only be hard on your psyche but your body will go through withdrawal and then you really won’t want to do it. Be gentle on yourself and understand that the journey to eating for health and fitness begins with a decision to begin.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Free at Last

Sunday Story...Free at Last

A lot has been made recently of living in a “free society”. We Americans make a lot of living free. We have the freedom to do this or that. The freedom to choose our careers, how much money we make, the people we associate with, and the freedom to say what we want when we want about whatever we want.

Not so many years ago, it was unusual to have many of these freedoms. If you were born into a particular family you were expected to be a black smith, or a cook, or a politician. Your career was chosen by the family you were born into. It didn't matter that you were a great artist, or writer or shop clerk, you had to be a black smith, or garbage collector or farmer. It was the lot you drew.

Today, in this country, you can be anything you choose to be. You can be anything, or anybody you choose to be, do, or have. In many ways this is unprecedented in the history of the world. For centuries we never had this freedom. We were doomed to be pigeon-holed into a particular place due to the circumstances of our birth. To break free of that hold was treasonous, and blasphemous. It was considered reason to dis-own your children or to be placed in an institution, or even burned at the stake. Difference was to be feared and corrected, not celebrated and enjoyed.

Today is different. We encourage our children to dream the impossible dream. To reach for the stars and hit the moon. To be all they can be. To find their reason to be. To become what they can become.

And at the same time we stuff them into classrooms where obedience and conformity are rewarded. Where your test score is more important then your creativity. And yet how are we going to measure creativity, or even, does it need to be measured?

I teach martial arts. Conformity is important on a number of levels for a number of reasons. So is obedience. So is group-think. And at the same time independent thinking, reasoning and deciding is important. These two things get balanced over time for each individual.

I need each student to be the person they should be. Not the person I need them to be. What kind of world would it be if everyone was exactly how I needed them to be all the time. I mean really would that be any fun at all? Everyone I come into contact with reacts exactly the way I think they should. Says the things I want them to say, and does what I think they should do. Wow what a great place that is! And, unfortunately, it does not exist.

You are going to be you and I am going to be me. And the me is the me of all the combined experiences I have had over my lifetime. I am going to be me. I am going to be, do, say what I need to do based on my needs and wants, not yours. Just like you.

And you get the freedom to decide what to do about that.

This is the first, last, and, maybe, the only freedom you really have. The freedom to decide how you are going to react. The freedom to choose your attitude. The freedom to decide how you are going to react to any given situation.

You can take everything from me...my family, my livelihood, mu physical freedom, my mental freedom...but you can't take my freedom to choose my attitude. It is impossible for you to take. But I can give it up. I can choose to let it go and this choice is tantamount to choosing death. Because in the moment of allowing you to choose my reactions, my attitude, I have given up all my power to you. I am, in that moment, helpless and at your mercy. I give up my life, my power to you, and you get to put me where you want me.

Allowing this to happen is not good for me. I need to keep a hold of my ability to choose my attitude. This is my first and last freedom.

And then, shortly after keeping this power is the power to create meaning of what is happening to me. We all do this all day, every day...we create meaning abut what happened. So and so said this ...that means they don't like me, they really like, they are mad at me, they think I am ______(fill in the blank here with whatever you are thinking!). And make no mistake about it this is a choice...So why not choose something empowering, something that will cast that person and you in the best possible light? Wouldn't this be better than the worst light?

You are free to make this choice. Why not make the choice that will serve you best? Isn't that real freedom?

Here is a recipe for your end of the year tomatoes:
Chop tomatoes into chunks
place into a baking dish with about 10 or 12 diced cloves of garlic
sprinkle with 3 or 4 tbsp or fresh basil
drizzle with olive oil
Roast in the oven at 450 degrees for about 45 minutes.
Use like tomato sauce or in soups or just about anywhere.
You can freeze for later too!


Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com
 
Follow me at:
Twitter --- http://m.twitter.com/jmariotti
FaceBook --- John Mariotti
Blog Spots…John Mariotti 
 http://feel-good-friday.blogspot.com/
http://sunday-stories.blogspot.com/