Holy crap – Maybe the New Year weight-loss brief was a little too limiting…

The Dark Mistress is surfacing from a successful weight-loss routine of daily yoga, fasting, detox and health education at the Dharma Healing Centre on Ko Samui. Weight-loss fasting leaves you a lot of time on your hands – once the tyranny of shopping for, preparing and eating food vanishes, you, well… get time to think. And, workaholic screenager or not, there’s lots to think about if you are living as a nutrition-dependant human on the planet this summer…

1) The human body, for example – Ask any yoga instructor what they do an most will be busily correcting the damage done by their students during years of screen work. We sit all day – in cars, at the office, on the train, on the couch at home, at dinner when we go out. Yoga instructors are here to make us NORMAL. Not fit, not gorgeous, just functioning normally. By this I mean not needing a hip replacement at 60, not feeling knee pain, not suffering “bad back”…. Just normal.

2) Food addiction. For most of us (not just those of us trying to achieve a bit of weight-loss) appetite is the driver of choice. Appetite driven choices make us what we are – not the other way around. So – our choices are in the hands of a few thousand parasites and metabolic hormones.

3) Digestive Parasites! Yes – these pathogens live inside most human digestive tracts. So is it you that’s hungry or is it just your parasites? Do you crave food, and feel empty after you eat. Do you constantly undermine your own weight-loss initiatives? Hmmm… might be time for some fasting.

4) Alcohol. – A Universally accepted drug that the social lives of young and old revolve around. Just because everyone says its ok doesn’t mean your body can handle its effects without getting sluggish and chubby. And no – the weight-loss option of vodka and soda is a bit of “weight-loss wishful-thinking” too.

5) The types of foods that surround us – Chips and chocolates when you by petrol, coffee and snacks at cafes, doughnuts in the railway mall, gourmet burgers in the shopping centre — all acid producing. So if you don’t mind your body having to do heaps of work to make this stuff at a ph level that you can actually digest, and if you don’t mind that that means heaps of bad fats and oxidants roaming your system and ageing you then go for it!

6) Food Technology – The science of cheating your senses to believe you are getting something good.

7) Agribusiness – A scientific silo devoted to increasing yields, profits and farmer dependencies, with strict avoidance of the study of human digestive impacts.

As a human ingesting all of this stuff, and as a worker, I resent the extra effort this is putting me to. Actually I don’t resent it – because I’m kinda enjoying the exercise and eating better – but I am acknowledging the fact that thanks to the defensive action required, good health requires a commitment of time. Surely in the age of internet communication consumers could ask for better than this?

In fact, as consumers can’t we demand better than this? I want to go to any shopping mall anywhere and buy satisfying foods that aren’t going to kill me that’s all. I know the guy at the dim sim stand is not responsible for my health, I know it is my choice to eat daily at Burger Clown or not, but I also know, and they also know, that most humans are slaves to our appetites and are no more choice-making than an amoeba when it comes to food.

Spare a thought for the marketers of these products. Drugs are illegal, cigarettes are getting too hard, but marketing semi-addictive food products is a great way to profit. Why would you bother marketing something that is a conscious choice? Too hard – go for something salty, fatty, or sweet and get those unconscious appetites on your side.

Human longevity has increased with improvements in nutrition and lifestyle over the past 400 years, but we’ve reached the tipping point in the current generation – longevity is actually decreasing. Why? We’ve gone too far with comfort foods and comfort lifestyles, and we’ve been ingesting free-radical producing chemicals on a scale previously unknown. There is already good science on this – so why are we waiting? Because it’s a bit inconvenient? Because ‘Idol’ is on tonight? Because weight-loss habit change is a bit awkward? Because my IT buddies might make fun of me if I stop at 6 and go to the gym? Hmm…

Progress Update
Weight-loss Status Update: Continued to lose after the fast and got to 66.4kg, now back on raw food and gaining slightly …
Fitness Status Update: Yep – still doing nothing getting more and more scared of that first run…
Stress Relief Status Update: Is it possible to be stressed in January in Southern hemisphere summer? My inbox is empty, clients are at the beach, staff are on holidays, the only conversations I have with business people are open-minded and happy. Why can’t we do this all year?

Yours,

The Dark Mistress
The Balance Blog – A reflection on virtual life versus embodied life; ostensibly finding sunshine, holistic fitness, natural weight-loss and stress relief for an obsessed workaholic screen addict, with the occasional dig at the World Wide Web.