Five Spare Tires

(I apologize in advance for the crazy length of this post.  I've written and re-written it many times.  I've been struggling to write it and to express what I have to say.  Ultimately, I made the decision tonight to just put it up and be done with it.  I'm sorry it's so much, but it's my great hope that someone out there will find it motivational and that it will encourage them to find their way.  If you're that person, looking for a way, then read on!)

You ever try to visualize what weighs the amount of weight you have lost, or want to lose?  For most folks it would be a small hand weight.  Maybe a good sized bag of dog food.  Here's a short list of items that weigh the same as how much I have lost.  Try to visualize these things, and carrying them around with you, in your head.

~ ONE WHOLE FRIEND OF MINE!
~ THREE of my four year old daughter.
~ FIVE 20 pound bags of Dog Food.
~ FIVE SPARE CAR TIRES!!!
~ TWENTY average bags of potatoes!

 You get the idea.  It's a LOT!  I don't point this out to pat myself on the back, but to illustrate how CRAZY it is that I was walking around with all that extra weight!  It's easy to look in the mirror and just see your "self".  But I promise you that if you look in the mirror while standing next to a stack of five car tires, it really drives it home what you are doing to your body!!!

On July 3rd, 2010, I stepped on the scale as I left the house for a vacation.  I was dismayed by the digits it reported.  THREE HUNDRED FORTY NINE POUNDS!  You can read all about that day by clicking here.  I'm not sure exactly when during this day I vowed to do something about my weight, but I did.  I swore I would never hit 350 pounds.  That's when I discovered "Savor" by Dr. Lilian Cheung and Thich Nhat Hanh.

By the time I finished reading "Savor" I had stopped the train, and thrown it in to reverse.  That train had been gathering momentum for over four decades, so it didn't happen instantly.  It slowed.  It stopped.  It switched gears.  And then, with a shudder, it lurched ahead, back the way it came.  The weight started coming off that first day.
My initial goal, to lose 100 pounds, was randomly chosen just based on one simple thing.  I asked myself what it would take to make me feel like I had a fighting chance of living a healthy life.  At 349 pounds, 249 sounded like a dream, but it also sounded like the most I could weigh if I wanted to live long enough to enjoy my family, watch my daughter grow up, and all the other things I would like to do.  Anything more felt like failure to me, and felt like not being serious about it.  ALL I was really after was survival, which at the time I was seriously starting to question my chances of.

I've blogged before, often, about the various tools I have used to lose weight and assist me on this journey.  The primary app I have used is LoseIt!  When I started using it, it asks if you want to lose 1 pound a week, or 2.  I chose 2 and it calculated that I would hit my goal in one year. Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of what day that would be.  I've always assumed my "start" date as July 3rd, when I saw my 349 pound weight.  In reality it was around July 23 from what I can tell in LoseIt!'s web site.

At first, the weight was coming off incredibly fast at several pounds per week.  Then, once I lost about 60 pounds or so, it slowed to a few pounds, and then a couple of pounds per week.  Ultimately, toward the end, there were some weeks where I didn't lose any at all, and I started wondering if I would hit the goal on time.  What was happening is that my goal was nearing the end, so the calories were pretty
well balanced out with what I was burning.  Ultimately, it took me about 11 months - almost precisely - to lose 100 pounds!  I can't even pretend not to be pleased with myself here, so forgive me that little self indulgent pat on the back now.

So here I am, at about 248 as I write this, and I am definitely still very much over weight for my size.  Don't get me wrong, I look and feel GREAT compared to where I started but I still need to shed a little more.  When considering future goals, I decided not to have any.  What I have found is that throughout this process, I have lost weight without much effort (more on that later).  Since I'm not on a diet, and I'm not doing anything specifically special to lose weight, I decided that I might as well just keep going with what I am doing.  The weight has already leveled off considerably, and I figure if I just keep up the efforts I am making, the weight will come off - or it won't.  Either way, I win.  At some point my body will be at a naturally comfortable weight, and meanwhile I can focus on starting to exercise a little more than my current walking and Tai Chi Routine.

People seem divided in to two camps immediately upon hearing that I have lost so much weight. One faction immediately assumes I'm on some crazy diet.  They can't believe when I tell them I eat whatever I feel like eating, that I finish every night off with a big bowl of frozen yogurt and that I'm NOT on any sort of diet, per se.  The other faction is of the mind that I have super-human strength and will-power, neither of which could be further from the truth.  When they say "yeah, but you're the most strong-willed person I know" or "you have such tremendous dedication" I always have weird reactions emotionally.  I get simultaneously insulted and proud.  Proud, because it feels good to hear this and I like to think it's a little true, although it's really not very true.  Insulted because it's so NOT true that I get a little offended I guess because I'm not getting credit for the proper thing.  They are crediting me with having the will-power to resist eating poorly, but they should be giving the credit to Mindfulness.

When I tell them "Mindfulness", in answer to their inevitable "How are you doing it?" question, they always look at me a little funny and immediately dismiss me as a crackpot, or so it seems to me.  They almost look like they think I'm about to sell them something.  In fact, that's EXACTLY what they think.  Bottom line though, I lost this weight by doing many things, but especially by being mindful as taught to me by Dr. Lilian Cheung and Thich Nhat Hanh in "Savor".

The secondary thing I credit my success to is watching my calories closely which can be done in any number of ways.  The way that worked best for me (and I tried MANY) was the LoseIt! app.  It's worth noting that the app improved massively over time, and especially improved it's web site over time.  The web site can be used FULLY without a phone, so it's really great now for anyone (not just us iOS users). I fully believe that if you use mindfulness, the rest will fall in to place naturally and organically with little to no effort.  The effort will come from trying to implement mindfulness which, to the degree that I have so far been mindful, was fairly easy for me.  When asked, I tell people (to their absolute and utter disbelief) that it was no effort at all.  My standard answer to "How did you do it?" is always the same - "Mindfulness".

While I am not a doctor, and have no authority with which to offer anyone advice on weight loss, I CAN speak to how it worked for me, and that is it.  One of the things I love about Buddhism is that it discourages you from believing what someone else tells you is true, and encourages you to experience it for yourself and then decide if it is true.  "Be a lamp unto yourselves", the Buddha allegedly said in his final moments, directing us to seek the knowledge from within, rather than from external sources.  Or, for you Christian readers, perhaps another way to say it is "The Kingdom of God is within".  Either way...try mindfulness out, and see if it works for you.

It's obvious (and if not I've written numerous blog posts about it that will explain) why I decided to lose this weight.  But what I would rather talk about is the not so obvious reasons why.  I'm grateful that I have lost this weight because:

~ I might live longer
~ I have already become a significantly better father.
~ I like to think I am a better husband.
~ I have confronted the one thing in life I've always felt powerless to defeat.
~ I have gained control over my eating habits.
~ Countless other reasons I can't begin to list.
~ I am more aware of life, and each moment it offers.
~ Perhaps most of all, I'm extremely grateful to have discovered Buddhism through this most unexpected of paths.

So, in summary, Please - If you want or need to lose weight, but think you can't do it - go get a copy of "Savor" and, well, SAVOR IT!  Read it, absorb the information, read it again.  Then just DO IT!  Start with the Apple Meditation and then repeat that type of mindful eating each time you sit down to eat.  You will not succeed every single time at being completely in the moment, but when you are not, just re-focus the next time.  And repeat.  And repeat.  And repeat!  Before you know it, you will be well on your way.

Savor every moment of life that you are fortunate enough to have.  If you do this, I am walking evidence that you WILL lose the weight, and it's NOT some impossible goal that only that other guy over there has figured out how to do because he's some super strong willed guy.  And it's not something that only that other girl over there can do because she's on some crazy fad diet.

But don't take my word for it.  YOU already know exactly what to do, you just have to be mindful so that you know when to get out of your own way, and let your brain and body take care of themselves properly!  You'll likely find that they will.

Best wishes and warm regards to you in your efforts!  And special thanks to all the folks who rooted for me!  It was a big help, and you know who you are!

MS

Lose 100 Pounds In One Year - CHECK!

I'll write at length about this, very shortly, but wanted to announce it right away.  About a week ago I saw the numbers "249" on my scale for the first time in many years.  This is different from 349 when I started!  Anyhow, I gave it a week to make sure and I'm happy to say I haven't gone up and I'm not dreaming.  I really have lost ONE HUNDRED POUNDS!

Again, I'll write about my thoughts and experiences with this, but just wanted to say it here!

Have a GREAT day!

MS

E=mc2

I don't have a lot to write about this, but I wanted to take a moment to recognize a milestone.  This blog is about learning from one another, and about my self-work, and to that end I wanted to let everyone know where this path I started down seven months ago this week has led.

Seven months ago, I stepped on a scale and saw - to my utter astonishment - the numbers that FINALLY snapped me awake and made me take action.  Those numbers were 3-4-9.  I've written about this before, so I won't repeat the story, but the short version is I weighed myself before a vacation and was positively stunned to see that I essentially weighed 350 pounds!

That moment came after a number of other factors which, I guess, started with a visit to an old friend's place during which the torture he had put himself through in life culminated, during my visit, with him being rushed to the hospital in congestive heart failure.  That same weekend, one of my other dear friends showed up after no contact for 15 years and was significantly heavier than when I last saw him.  He was always rail thin, so this new obese version of him, was unsettling.  Anyhow, point is, that I decided that weekend that I needed to do something drastic about my weight, but it wasn't until a couple of months later when I stepped on that scale that things clicked in to place and I knew I needed to act fast.

On the second day of that vacation I discovered "Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Living" by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lilian Cheung.  This book, as I have written here many times and in many ways, illuminated the path that I had started walking down.  It didn't actually make the decision for me, but it showed me the way, once I had decided, to where I wanted to be.

Today, seven months later, I have lost three fourths of the weight I set out to lose in one year.  With five months still to go on my goal time frame, I have already lost SEVENTY FIVE POUNDS!  I won't go on about that much here as, around the 70 pound mark just recently, I was humbly honored to be featured on the Savor The Book Blog if you want to read about that.

I feel better, I live better, I eat better, I'm happier, my life is changed in countless ways.  My goal is 100 pounds, and then re-evaluation, and I WILL get there.  The truly interesting thing is, however, that I no longer care about that goal.  Sure, I want to achieve it.  Sure I want to be as healthy as possible, but I have already achieved the thing that matters.  I have truly, meaningfully, changed my life!  I make great choices now with regard to food, relationships, health and just my very moment to moment existence!

I do this, every moment of NOW, through MINDFULNESS.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm perfect or my life is perfect, but I've definitely discovered that mindfulness is the key to being truly happy.  I've written many times that if you insert mindfulness in to your life, you will do the single most important thing you can to achieve your goals, because this one act will help all the other things you want to fall in to place.  It's as though your body already knows what to do, and right from wrong, you just have to make your brain get out of the way and mindfulness will do that for you!

At any rate, I am very pleased and proud to be where I am with my journey of weight loss and life improvement and I just wanted to share these thoughts with you.  Please, PLEASE, if you are reading this and have any thoughts, doubts or fears, that you can't lose weight, know that you CAN!  My best recommendation is to start with "Savor", and implement mindfulness. The rest will take care of itself in time.  It reminds me of the ant in that classic Johnny Hart "B.C." Comic Strip, when he kicks a snowflake off a hilltop and it rolls down, picking up mass, and obliterates all the caves and he just says "E=mc2".  Your good choices are the snowflake, and mindfulness is the hill.  You are the ant making the decision to kick the snowflake.

E=mc2!

MondoSamu

Fast Food Mystery Meat...DUH!

I really don't know what to write here...just watch this video from CNN today about mystery meat in fast food.  Nothing new here, but it's a great reminder that regardless of where you are with your health journey - the beginning, the middle or not even started - avoiding fast food is just about the smartest thing anyone could do for their health!

Fast Food Mystery Meat CNN Story

If you are as disgusted by this story as I was, check out my review of "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer.  It's a great place to start for a "conversation" on going vegetarian.  Doesn't try to tell you you SHOULD do it, just tries to get a conversation started.  You may not go vegetarian, but you'll most likely want to stop eating fast food, I'll tell you that!

Sheesh!

MondoSamu

MondoSamu Featured On "Savor The Book Blog"!

I am so very proud to say that Dr. Lilian Cheung, Co-Author of the book "Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Living", and her team recently gave me the wonderful opportunity to write a post as a "Guest Blogger" on their SavorTheBook.Com Blog!

It was posted a couple of days ago, and is live on their blog right now.  It's about how I discovered Savor, applied mindfulness and have lost over 70 pounds now.  It also talks about some of the things I have done to get here. My hope is that something there will help you in your own weight loss journey!

If you have a moment, please visit the Savor The Book Blog and give it a read.  I hope you enjoy it, and thank you all for reading here!

My greatest pleasure is to hear from some of you that this site has helped you in your own journey some how.  I had one person tell me that it was "what she needed to hear right now", which meant a lot to me, because it was what I needed to hear when I heard it.

My warmest regards,
Geo

Unexpected Joy!

I feel GREAT!

Lately I've been struggling to get my normal exercise in. For the last two weeks I have had a lot of travel for work and the weather has been horrible. It's rained most days and has been cold as well. Between a crazy schedule and the weather, my normal 3 mile a day walking habit has been sporadic to say the least. I've been getting my Tai Chi in every day, and some days twice to make up a little for not walking regularly, but the rain has made walking a challenge.

So after being out of town last week, and returning to a jam-packed-bad-weather-weekend-o-shopping, I decided that I would return to my routine today NO MATTER WHAT! My morning Tai Chi and meditation went great and it was wonderful to be back in my comfortable home for my morning routine. I'm very grateful that I am able to do my Tai Chi from my hotel rooms, but I'm most comfortable in my home. Then after work, I came home and got dressed for a walk, only to find that by the time I picked my wife up from work the weather had turned extremely windy and cold!

I was pretty darned down about the prospect of not walking tonight, and kept changing my mind as to whether I was going to do it or not. Finally, upon arriving at home, I decided that I simply HAD to do it. I MUST walk. Interestingly it's not even about the calories I burn, but rather it was a burning desire to just walk, and to do some walking meditation.

I went in the house, added some layers to my walking clothes, a hat, mits, and scarf and headed out. The wind was raging at about 20mph, and blowing little mini-tornadoes of leaves all around. The trees were literally roaring! The cold was bitterly below freezing, and the wind made it painful. Luckily, as I was fully bundled up, the weather didn't bother me at all! In fact, quite the contrary! I had a GREAT walk!

I was warm, I felt energized by my decision to walk in spite of the conditions, I felt great to be exercising again the way I like to, I felt proud of myself for overcoming the weather and the desire to stay indoors. But most of all, walking amongst the howling wind, bitter cold, dark night and leaves swirling all around...I felt wonderful! I felt very much alive, centered, grounded - whatever you want to call it. I felt, you could say, MINDFUL!

The point, you ask? The point is that sometimes when everything about a situation is telling you NOT to do a thing, it's just your ego. The ego does everything in it's power to get what it wants. It tells you "the weather is too bad", "the cold is too cold", "the house is so warm, you will be fine with one more day of no walking, what's one more day??"

Next thing you know you are sitting in a comfy chair in a warm house watching TV. What's wrong with that? Nothing except you didn't do what you know you needed to, and you made it that much easier to cave in the next time. It's a common refrain you'll see amongst people trying to lose weight...they make one mistake and then another, and pretty soon they've fallen off the wagon. It's insidious the way it happens!

So don't fall for it. There are legitimately times when you CAN'T go for a walk or eat healthy. When you can, though...don't let a little discomfort like cold weather or more meal prep time keep you from making the better decision. At the end of that day, if you're being mindful, it's those decisions - one by one, each in it's moment - that determine your happiness.

And you never know when the decision might turn out to be a shining bright spot of happiness in your day that you never expected, or would have had if you let the ego have it's way.

Have a great day!

MondoSamu

APP REVIEW: Haiku Wind Pro HD

I recently found an app for the iPhone and iPad that is a true joy!  I don't even know how I happened upon it, but I discovered Haiku Wind for the iPhone and Haiku Wind Pro HD for the iPad, and I have been using it frequently since.

Billed as "A poetry game for the Twitter generation", it's a really well done app.

Now I do NOT fancy myself a poet, but this app lends itself to use by anyone, of any poetic skill level and any level of interest.  With it, you can view the Public Timeline, see the Top 100, check out the Hall of Fame, review your own Haiku or just look over some of your favorites.  It's a brand new app, and the community is small for it right now (looks like about 300 users from their statistics page...and I became one of the first ten Haiku Gods!), but it's taking off fast.  There's a lot of great enjoyment to be had just by reading the Haiku on their web site, which is considered to be an important aspect of the app.

The app allows you to earn your way, via public voting on your anonymous Haiku, to a "Haiku God".  The final of many levels based on the number of votes you get.  The higher level you are, the more votes you can cast for a single Haiku.  I'm not certain, but it sounds like once you make the "Haiku God" level, you can't lose that status, although you definitely can on the way up!  I lost my status at one point after taking a severe hit on one of my Haiku that must have not been popular.  It had a mis-spelled word (darn iPhone correction!!) and I think I got voted off the island because of that.

Anyhow, why am I writing about this Haiku app on my Weight Loss and Self-Improvement blog?  Well, because I found that it has some real serious benefit in terms of mindfulness efforts!

As we all shoot for Mindful Eating, Mindful Living (as we learned from "Savor"), and general Mindful Practice it can sometimes be difficult to focus.  It's easier during meditation, but with all the distractions of a day pressing on us, it's not always easy to be mindful.

That's where Haiku Wind Pro HD (or the iPhone version) seems to aid us.  I have found that if you pick a topic you want to be mindful of, and compose a Haiku about it, you are rather forced to think only about that thing and how to best describe it in ample detail, with few words.  This is exceedingly more difficult to do than you might think and - at least for me - helps you clarify your own feelings on the thing in question.  Not to mention it is relaxing and beautiful at times.

A variety of beautiful backgrounds are available in-app.  A look to please most anyone!

For you Buddhists out there (I did haiku on the Four Noble Truths!), this app does not require an account, and while you do retain a list of your own Haiku, the app is anonymous.  You get no recognition for them, so no one knows which ones belong to whom.  This means you aren't attached to them, and therefor they offer a nice lesson in impermanence as well.  If you're not Buddhist, this could be a put-off for you, but I think it's a lesson well needed for most folks in this day and age.

So check out Haiku Wind Pro HD for your iPad or Haiku Wind for iPhone.  It's a really nicely designed app, with a tiny bit of room for enhancement, but it's nearly perfect!  As with all my favorite apps, it is a single function app that does one thing very well and looks great doing it.  It's a pleasure to view as well!

Here's a few anonymous ones that, as you can tell by their excellent quality, were clearly done by a handsome fellow with a knack for this sort of thing ;-)

My beautiful child,

I want to give you the world!

For you gave me mine.

~

Full moon in the sky,

as daylight fades to darkness.

Mindful Walking now!

~

Strangers until now,

A common thread discovered.

Serendipitous!

Go forth and write! ;-)
MondoSamu

BOOK REVIEW: Unbearable Lightness by Portia DeRossi

I recently heard about the new book by Portia DeRossi "Unbearable Lightness".  I used to watch Ally McBeal with my sister long ago.  It was the only thing she and I really did together, and I loved Portia DeRossi!  I'm also a big fan of Ellen Degeneres.  Not so much her comedy, though she's certainly funny, but mostly I find Ellen to be a very sincere and wonderful person, from what I have seen of her.  There's a sincerity that can't be faked, and she's got it.

Anyhow, with all of that in mind, I was astonished to hear that Portia DeRossi had once been anorexic, and suffered from eating disorders.  I don't recall her being so small as the pictures in the book show, I just remember her from the show.  I never followed the tabloids and such, so never was aware of the rest.

So when I heard of this, and of her book "Unbearable Lightness" I snagged it on my iPad and read it almost straight through!  First off, I love the title.  It says a lot of different things to me, and is a clever one.

One reason I was interested in reading it is because I already knew it had a happy ending as anyone who has ever watched the Ellen show is aware that they are happily married.  And again, you can't hide or fake that kind of happiness I don't think.  Also, I felt that a lot of the things she went through were just the opposite side of the same weight loss coin we "fat" folks are on.

Whether you are too skinny, unhappy with yourself and trying to diet to get smaller or too heavy, unhappy with yourself and trying to get smaller, I think a lot of the feelings and challenges are the same.  Ultimately it's the exact same thing, and has little to do with the body, and lots to do with the brain.

I don't know squat about anorexia, nor do I know anything about depression as I was very fortunate to be blessed with a strong self esteem all my life.  I do know countless others who have struggled with depression that led to their eating issues.  I do know countless others, including myself, who got on the yo-yo diet train and descended further and further down it's track without success, which leads to more and more troubles with your health.

There isn't much I can tell you, after having read the book, that you either haven't heard already elsewhere or that will be any more insightful than any other review has been.  What I feel I can tell you is how this book might be useful to you if you are overweight or obese as opposed to anorexic or bulimic.

The first, and most striking, thing about the book to me was the overwhelming sadness and isolation that Portia DeRossi must have felt and gone through.  She strikes me as a very loving person from what little I know of her, and the sense of her self-imposed loneliness in this book was palpable.  When one binges and purges as she was, there is an automatic requirement for a lot of privacy.  And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  The more you do it, the more you recede from life.  The more you withdraw, the more you feel bad about yourself.  The worse you feel about yourself, the more you you binge and purge.  And the wheel keeps on turning.

Overweight people have the same cycle sometimes, just without the purging.  I know a lot of overweight people who hide in their cars or elsewhere to eat large quantities of food like she says she did in the book.  I know many who keep food stashed in hiding places so that others don't know they are eating so much.  They lie about the amount they eat, and feel compelled to tell you how little they are eating even though it's not true.  And it goes on and on.

The point being that I feel this book is a valuable look in to the life of someone who had as much problem keeping themselves tiny as many of us do in getting ourselves slimmed down from obesity.  If I were to boil the books message down to one short simple sentence, it would simply be to live mindfully and connected to the world and the rest will be ok.  At least that's what I took away from "Unbearable Lightness".

The book is sad, wry, scary and eye-opening.  I get the sense that Portia DeRossi has gained a lot of knowledge in her quest for health that would be useful and enjoyable to hear, but the book focuses primarily on the things she went through and only briefly talks, toward the end, about the positive things she did and does to stay in power over it.

Toward the end she discusses, a bit, the influence of Dr. Wayne Dyer (Whose movie, "The Shift", Portia starred in)  in her life, she gives a good bit about the influence of her horses, nature, Ellen and about Love and "Connectedness" more than anything.  This part of the book will ring a bell for any Buddhists out there, as what she is discussing is essentially mindful living and interbeing.

I particularly enjoyed this part most of all.  I feel that if she and Ellen ever released a book about their lives - such as their food, spirituality, beliefs, etc - it would be a great read.  I know them both to be animal lovers, non-meat eaters, spiritual and caring people who have access to people like Deepak Chopra and Dr. Wayne Dyer just to name a couple.  Anyone who has Wayne Dyer officiate their wedding has something going right in their life!

When you see Ellen's sparkling eyes and Portia's heart warming smile, there's no doubt these two have certainly found happiness despite anything else.

I'd like to share a quote Portia says in the book, toward the beginning.  She talks about some words her mother gave her as a girl.  Some of this may have not been good, but a line that she shared stuck out to me as being very true and spot on.

"After all, it's in the way an insult is received that makes it an insult.  You can't really give offense unless someone takes it."

I like that.  It's really a statement of mindfulness.  If you are mindful, and in the moment, then no off-hand comment can really hurt you because you are not a part of the reality that person is trying to place you in, you are firmly rooted in your own present moment where nothing anyone else says about you has any actual bearing on you yourself.  The insult is aimed for your ego, but living mindfully eliminates the ego.

Later in the book, toward the end, she shares this:

"Being sick allows you to check out of life.  Getting well again means you have to check back in.  It is absolutely crucial that you are ready to check back into life because you feel as though something has changed from the time before you were sick.  Whatever it was that made you feel insecure, less than, or pressured to live in a way that was uncomfortable to you has to change before you want to go back there and start life over."

That's very powerful, especially that last bit.

Lastly, I liked this part as well:

"It's important to find something other than your body image to be passionate about."

I firmly agree with this statement regardless of WHAT your predicament is.  I've mentioned that I never have really struggled with depression about my weight, and that I have always been lucky to have good self esteem.  I don't know if this is because of my parents, or myself, or because I'm lucky.  All I know is that I've always been able to recognize when I am starting to feel bad or depressed and I've been able to manually alter my mood direction.  So for me, depression has never hit full force, especially due to size.  I was always comfortable with my size, but it was when I recognized that I was getting TOO unhealthy and that the depression and problems were heading my way in a much more severe way, that I was able to do something about it, and do it quickly.  "Savor", for me, was the solution.  It allowed me to apply mindfulness to my life immediately and move on in the correct path.  For someone reading this, perhaps "Unbearable Lightness" will offer you the strength to do the same.

Whatever the case, I strongly recommend "Unbearable Lightness" by Portia DeRossi if you have ANY sort of weight or esteem issues.

Is there a book or person who has helped you solve the health issues you face?

MondoSamu

Don't leave home without it!

If you travel, particularly by airplane, then you know that it can be a very stressful event.  Getting ready, packing, planning and all the other things that go in to just getting out the door offer a variety of stressful scenarios.  Then there's the drive to the airport.  Depending on where you live, and what airport you use, the trip TO the airport can be very grueling.

And then there's the airport itself.   That bastion of befuddlement.  The continent of confusion.  The sea of stress. The isle of irritation.  The....well...you get the idea.   And that's to say nothing of the compounding of these issues if you are also overweight!

Thich Nhat Hanh touches on dealing with this kind of stress in "Savor" very briefly when he talks about "Standing-In-Line Meditation".  He offers a nice meditation for the security check line or baggage check line.

"Breathing in, I use this time just for myself,

To unite my body and mind. 

Breathing out, I feel refreshed."

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindfulness will serve you very well in the entire adventure though.  You can practice mindful mediations like the one above in any of the stressful portions of your travel I mentioned.

Another thing that I like to do, and which helps me immensely, is making sure I get to the airport extremely early.  I always allow myself three hours at the airport before my flight.  This allows me to walk calmly amid the sea of people running wildly to catch their flight.  I can't "stress" (sorry for the pun) enough what a difference this will make in your entire trip.  You'll not only find you are much calmer, and more able to deal with unexpected challenges that inevitably arise, but I believe that you will actually derive great pleasure from the fact that you are so calm when everyone else is stressed.

You'll find that when you are so calm, you'll be ready with a friendly smile for the stressed airport workers who are berated all day, and they will be very grateful for your kindness.  You'll spread your calm and joy to the people you encounter, thereby spreading your mindfulness to others who sorely need it.

In "Peace Is Every Step" Thich Nhat Hanh also talks about this.  He says he does the same thing with arriving at the airport early.  He also suggests using walking meditation to help with airport stress as well.  Most airports are large, offering ample opportunity for walking.  In the Atlanta airport, which is gigantic, I no longer ride the tram to my terminal.  I started taking Thays' advice and walking to my gate.  In ATL this can easily add up to a few miles!

As I write this, I am sitting in the airport waiting for an international flight. I did a little quick research and found an interesting item that I wasn't aware of.  Apparently a lot of airports now offer meditation rooms, or they may refer to them as quiet rooms, which people can use for meditation or prayer.  It seems they are offered to people of any, or no, religion for their spiritual or relaxing needs. VERY cool.  Check out the story on meditationgeek.org.  I was not familiar with this blog, but it looks like the author is also a "Savor" fan himself.  Skimming through while looking for this link, it looked like there were a lot of useful articles on meditation during stressful times there.

Another item I discovered while I was writing this post is minutesuites.com.  They apparently operate rooms by the hour, and not the bad kind that springs to mind when you hear that!  Meditation Geek mentioned it in the same article I believe.  Check this out, it might be a very big benefit for your state of mind during travel!

If you're traveling today, give some of these things a try.  I think you'll find it's worth it.  Just be sure that when you leave home, you bring mindfulness with you!

Travel safe!

MondoSamu

BOOK REVIEW: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

I LOVE steak.

And Chicken.

And Pork.

But I married a vegetarian which, for the first several years of marriage, made me a sort of Megetarian.  A vegetarian by proxy who ate meat when I could, but rarely.  I still ate meat, but not nearly as much because it simply wasn't made for me at home.  I only had it when eating out.

Then, around the time our daughter was born, my wife fell off the veggie wagon, and we started eating chicken.  Still to this day, that is the main - almost the only - meat eaten in our house.  I got my steak fix any time I travel for work.  While traveling for work, my company provides me with the ability to eat pretty much whatever I would like and I like STEAK!  So, while traveling, I usually would have a nice filet mignon steak every day.

Please understand that going in to this book, I was a meat eater and quite happy with it.  I had heard stories of chicken farming that was insane, but I honestly just didn't ever think much about it.  Sort of put on the ol' blinders and trudged ahead.  The same way I never liked cooking meat…because it made me think too much about the animal.  (Interesting to note that the more you practice mindfulness, the more you discover that this is how we live our lives in many areas)

Well, almost a year ago, I started reading "Eating Animals".  Honestly I did this because I was desperate for a good book, and I saw this one by the guy who wrote the book "Everything Is Illuminated".  I loved the movie of that book, and was intrigued that the same guy had written this non-fiction book about vegetarianism.  That and I had seen the author, Jonathan Safran Foer on a talk show and he seemed VERY reasonable.  He didn't seem like he was trying to shove his agenda down anyones throat, but rather was saying that he just wanted people to TALK about the issue.  No matter what the reader decided, he just wanted to get a conversation happening openly.  I thought this was VERY savvy, so I got the book.  Having watched my wife struggle through her efforts to eat a plant based diet every time we had a get together at a friends house and constantly be harassed, cajoled, questioned or just plain ignored with regard to her choice (never meant to be those things, but always how it felt) I wasn't in any hurry to join the veggie team, but I think the time has come for me.

I got about halfway through the book, and was getting rather tired of the negativity and depressing nature of the book.  Don't get me wrong, I was very impressed with it, and had already heard enough that I asked my wife what she would think about getting back to a vegetarian lifestyle again.  She was very willing, and we decided we would.  But - I still stopped reading the book.

At the half-way point in the book, and having decided to go vegetarian already, I wasn't sure I wanted to finish the depressing book.  Well, during this time I read "Savor" and had become very devoted to losing weight and eating mindfully.  Mindful eating makes it very hard to put out of your mind the fact that you are eating what was once a living creature.  Furthermore, if you have any knowledge of factory farming, it makes it near impossible not to envision the horrible treatment that the animals, the land and even the workers in the industry receive.  As "Savor" says, when you eat mindfully, you may find yourself becoming an inadvertent vegetarian.  Sure enough, I did.

I started going out of my way to try and eat vegetarian at every opportunity including when traveling for work.  I also stopped eating all red meat.  I didn't (and still haven't completely) give up chicken, but I'm working on it.

Anyhow, I decided to finish reading "Eating Animals", and I'm very glad I did.  Once past all the statistical and descriptive bad stuff - a necessary evil to hear, I think - the book gets down to some of the good things happening, and also how to move ahead in the world and LOTS of talk of reason.  Reasoning on how to make a choice, why you should, etc.

In the end, while the "Eating Animals" book is not a lot of fun, it's DEFINITELY worth the read, and more than a little upsetting if you are an animal lover, but be forewarned that if you read this book you are very likely to decide that you no longer want to be a part of the way in which your meat is currently provided to you.  And make no mistake…if you eat meat, and you don't buy it from your friendly neighborhood farmer, you are very, very likely eating meat that was factory farmed.

At it's core this book is shining a light on a challenge that is facing all of mankind today, and it is asking us to simply consider it.  To be mindful of what we are doing, and then to make a knowledge-based choice using our own values.  Be mindful.  They didn't put it in those words, but that's what it is.  Know where it comes from, know how it gets to your plate, and know thy self.  If you do these things, then the decision you make will be the right one for you.

As this fit so well with the "Savor" ideal of mindfulness, I felt real need to share this review with you all.  Like the book, I do NOT judge you for your choice.  I've enjoyed an animal based diet for most of my life.  When I am mindful, however, I find I must now take a different path.

Enjoy the book, and whatever you choose, go out and have conversation about it.  In fact, let's have one here!  I'd love to hear your thoughts on factory farming, vegetarianism, your own decision to go one way or the other.  Whether here, or with your friends and family, let's remove the judgement and emotion from the issue, and just discuss it openly with care.

MondoSamu

Unbelievable. And unbelievably sad.

Just read this story on CNN.

As a father of a four year old girl who's sole motivation for ever asking for McDonald's is the toy she gets, this story is very, very sad to me.

This stuff keeps building up, and at some point somethings gotta give.  We can't, as a culture, continue to support fast food as it is today.  There are scores of fast food joints within a mile of me, but the nearest vegetarian restaurant is 15 miles away.

Like everything in free enterprise, it's all about supply and demand.  While the things these corporations do are not great, the bottom line is that as long as we line up and place our orders for crap food loaded with salt and sugar, and little to no nutritional value, they will keep right on selling it to us.

WE have to stop eating it, then the problem WILL go away.

Sorry...I tend to keep things positive around here, but this story really irked me, as I just finished reading a book related to this.  I'll post a review soon.

We now resume our regular positive programming!
MondoSamu

Strength? Will-power? Choice.

I want to talk about something that has come up a lot for me lately. In fact it's the number one topic that has come up for me in my weight loss efforts. It's people thinking that I am "super-strong", or possessed of "incredible will-power" or such.

I'm not.

At work there's a woman who constantly exclaims "Gosh, you are SO strong! I could never do that!" when I refuse one of the daily pastry treats people bring in to snack on. One of my friends always says "Yeah, but you have tremendous will-power." And another friend told me, very sweetly, that I "more than anyone" she's "ever known" am able to "commit" to things once I make up my mind.

Well, while it's true that I am the type of person who once I make up my mind, I can be like a dog with a bone. It's also true that I weighed 349 pounds until a few months ago and have been overweight my entire life! While I definitely do not suffer from low self-esteem, and will be the first to say I am a strong person (see?), I have to say that I'm not as strong as everyone seems to think. I'm not super-powered. If I was so strong, then the weight would never have been a lifelong issue for me. So, I ponder - a lot - the idea of WHY has this weight loss and mindfulness change been relatively easy for me (so far)? Why AM I able to do it so easily?

There are a few reasons that this concerns me so much.

1. I don't want others to think it will be a snap, if it's not and then feel bad that they aren't having the same results.
2. I don't want any blog readers to "change the channel" because they think this information doesn't apply to them. ("Oh, that's just him…I can't do that")
3. I just want to know why, after decades of not being able to resist food, I'm suddenly strong in this way. I assure you it's a mystery to me as well.

The one that really made me think I better address this whole issue was an email I was deeply honored to receive from one of the authors of "Savor", Dr. Lilian Cheung congratulating me on my success so far, and saying "The most exciting phenomena for us is to hear from you that it has not been a struggle." (an email I cherish and read now and then for a boost!). I had that on my mind when I started re-reading "Savor" for the third time. Even the book says that the change won't occur over-night.

But…for me…it did. There are changes I'm making nearly every day, but the important one - THE change - was simply a single decision. A choice I made. The choice to live mindfully. As "Savor" says:

"Attaining a healthy weight is your choice. And it is a practice, not an idea."

YOUR CHOICE! There is great power in that phrase…please read it again, and focus mindfully on that sentence before you go on.

"Attaining a healthy weight is your choice. And it is a practice, not an idea."

"Savor" starts out talking about the Four Noble Truths as they relate to weight loss. The first:

"The First Noble Truth: Being Overweight or Obese is Suffering"

Is all about identifying your suffering. Determining why you are overweight, how much, the patterns that got you here, the emotions that lead to your feelings about food, etc. It's about doing some serious soul searching. I think this part is very hard for anyone. For me, I had already been doing this for a very long time…about a year…before I finally found "Savor", so perhaps part of my seemingly overnight success is that I was very much aware of my suffering and ready to do something about it, I just didn't know what to do. So the decision I made happened instantly, but the thoughts and feelings that lead up to it had been going on for a much longer time.

The events I discussed previously that lead up to me reading "Savor", and subsequently all the weight loss, were a series of events and situations that kept adding up. Piling up is more accurate. They piled up, and piled up like the pounds did, until I knew that if I didn't make a change very soon, and VERY big, I would be in serious danger in several areas of my life.

I was very worried about my health, and my longevity. I was really afraid I might not be around for my daughter. Having lost my own father (who was obese, blind, diabetic and had cancer) when I was 18, I was keenly aware of my own chances of suffering a similar fate.

So, my friend was right about one thing…I am the type of person who sets my mind on something and doesn't give up. But weight control was the one area of my life I have never been able to manage correctly. That's why when I read "Savor" so much of it spoke deeply and directly to me with the message I needed to hear, when I needed to hear it. It's not that it told me anything new - we all know these common sense things (eat less, exercise more), I think - it's something about how the authors expressed it and combined it with the idea…the imperative…to live in the present moment! Something about my state of mind when I read it. Whatever it was, the words made more sense, and hit closer to home, than any I have read before.

So, I guess what I want to make sure people take away from this blog first and formost, is that you CAN do this. You CAN make the choice. A choice is just a choice…simple as that. I can't promise it will be easy, and I hope it won't be hard.  I deeply hope for you that it is as natural as it has been for me, but what once you decide that you want to lose weight, I would suggest reading "Savor" and pay particular attention to the breathing work, to learn how to "come back to yourself".

If you can do this, then this ONE decision will make it infinitely easier to tackle all the other challenges that you will face.

"Attaining a healthy weight is your choice."

It's not strength.

It's not Will-Power.

It's CHOICE!

YOUR CHOICE!

Best,

MondoSamu

MondoSamu - Now With 15% less fat!

So, it is with a tremendously lightened heart (figuratively AND literally) and a gladdened mind, that I am writing this article.

Yesterday, after 3.5 months of mindfulness every day, I reached a MAJOR milestone in my weight loss / lifestyle change journey.

I woke up in the morning, stepped up to the scale and weighed in.

I'm officially FIFTY POUNDS lighter than I was on July 3rd, 2010!  I've lost half the weight I have set out to lose!

I can't even begin to truly express how happy this makes me feel.  Sure all the things you would expect have happened.  My size 52 pants are all literally dropping to the ground if I undo my belt.  That belt, which I bought just before my trip to Canada in July and which I started out on the LAST possible notch, is now on the smallest possible notch and loose at that.  My 4XL t-shirts are noticeably too large for me…I haven't tried, but I suspect I could wear 2XL again, certainly 3XL.  My shoes even fit better.   When I sit down in those crappy little plastic arm chairs that are the bane of existence for fat people in every restaurant and public establishment in America, I slide right in without any struggle, and they don't tremble under my weight.  Airplanes are only annoying now, not physically painful and embarrassing.  Life under 300 pounds is a WHOLE lot better, to be sure.

But here's what I DIDN'T expect.  I no longer despise heat and sweat.  I no longer HATE being outside, I crave it.  I no longer complain and gripe ever moment I'm having to walk around.  I look forward to exercise.  I'm SO happy.

But here's the biggest surprise of all.  I haven't had to struggle very hard with this whole weight loss deal.  Not at all actually.  For the first time in my life, I have lost weight, stopped eating sweets, stopped guzzling sugary drinks, stopped eating plateload after plateload of food, stopped all of that over-indulgence…and best of all…haven't craved or missed it AT ALL.  Not at ALL!

If you are a normal, healthy person then none of that may have much of an impact on you.  If you are overweight, or a food addict, or have a killer sweet tooth, or any of the stuff that probably makes you read this blog in the first place then you are probably keenly aware of how amazing that truly is.

I have given this a LOT of thought.  I don't know if Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Living is a miracle book that finally showed me the light, or if I just got the right message at the right moment, or if it's all me just finally putting all the pieces together and finding the power I had all along inside myself (This last one is probably what Thich Nhat Hanh would tell me is the case!).  All I do know is that it's WORKING.  I'm WAY more happy about the lack of cravings, and the will power aspect of all this than I am about the weight loss.  And I am DARN happy about the weight loss!

What I THINK is that we all know that we should watch our calories, we all know a food journal is supposed to help, we all know that we shouldn't drink the sodas, we all know we aren't supposed to eat all kinds of crap, plate after plate.  What we don't do, or speaking for myself - what I didn't do, is live mindfully.  We just DON'T.

Before I read Savor, I ate breakfast watching the tv, I ate lunch talking or reading, I ate dinner in the living room watching tv while surfing the web on my iPhone.  I NEVER exercised AT ALL.

With the simple suggestion by Thich Nhat Hanh to breath three times, in and out while focusing on what you are about to do, before eating or any time needed, my life was changed.  Sound ridiculous?  Yeah, it does a little to me too.  BUT, it worked.  Sure, there's more to it, but that core thing has made me come "back to myself" long enough to recognize all the terrible decision making I was doing…or more accurately, all the LACK of decision making I was doing (and as Rush taught me - "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"), and I was able to instantly, and easily, cut out those problems and cravings.

The result?  I'm halfway to my 100 pound initial goal.  I'm shooting for 249 pounds by July 3rd, 2011.

I'm a long way from where I want to be, and I'm not CERTAIN that I have this whole thing licked for good.  I DO know that I am confident that I'm on the right path, and I am going to follow that path all the way home to myself!

Thank you for all the support!

Enjoy your weekend!
Geo