Here I am;
Risen from the sea
In foam and pearls
Of splashing kisses
And rolling waves
With arms reaching.
Embrace me;
Swallow my words
Of sweet salted fog
And tender abalone,
Reflections of stars
Littering my tongue

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@strangerkingdom
Here I am;
Risen from the sea
In foam and pearls
Of splashing kisses
And rolling waves
With arms reaching.
Embrace me;
Swallow my words
Of sweet salted fog
And tender abalone,
Reflections of stars
Littering my tongue
It's pretty easy to get angry at a person when they don't have the same feelings for you as you do for them. In a moment it seems unfathomable how someone could reject the love that you're offering and you tell yourself that it's them being selfish or stupid when in reality it just isn't there for them. You can't make someone fall in love with you no matter how hard you try. No matter what you say or do sometimes it just isn't what is supposed to happen and that's a hard truth to realize. I'm not sure what's more difficult to cope with: them not wanting you or it just not being meant to be. I suppose what makes either difficult is the amount of time and feeling invested in that person.
You pour your soul out, open your chest and offer your heart and allow yourself to be completely vulnerable. After all, isn't that what being in love is about? Allowing another to see everything about you and therefore love everything about you?
The problem is, once you've gotten done gutting yourself, sometimes you're left to pick it all up off of the floor and shove it back inside of you... and that can take a while putting everything back where it came from.
I used to be a poet...
But this world has a way of stripping away your romanticism.
Too much of anything can lead to ruin. My focus is sharp and unwavering, but what am I leaving forgotten? Something has been forgotten in my quest for excellence.
This whole time I've always thought I was never a master of anything because I had too many interests but it has dawned on me, tonight, that I do, in fact, have a talent. A true blue talent that I'm best at more than any other thing I've ever studied or taken an interest in.
It's love.
My destiny is to love someone worthy so deeply and profoundly. Someone grateful for my heart.
I've been told before, by people that I have loved, that I love too much and that muted me for quite a while. It made me question my feelings. But now I know, my brand of love is special. It is pure. It is unconditional. It is a trophy because it is my talent.
It's a strange position to be in, indeed, when you realize that everyone left in your life has their own fall back and you're not one of them. You could literally disappear and it really wouldn't disrupt anyone's life at all.
The Great Brain Debate
If you are anything like me, the smallest decisions can quickly become material for the greatest debates of your life. You can turn the tiniest molehill of an issue into a huge mountain of a decision just by sitting down and analyzing too much. Sound familiar? Have you ever gotten weighed down in trying to make small decisions of little consequence and had trouble keeping perspective? I definitely have. It is so easy to take a minor decision like ‘what should I eat for breakfast?’ and turn it into a two-sided debate that can last long beyond normal breakfast hours. You begin to debate whether you should have a healthy, balanced breakfast of wholegrain toast and fruit or if you can indulge (just this once) in a less-healthy meal of packaged pastries and a latte. Did you eat healthy enough the day before to reward yourself with a sugar-filled breakfast? Are you planning to eat better food for the rest of the day? These questions and more can add unnecessary stress and debate to your choice. Those of us who are analytical by nature have an even tougher time not turning everything into a debate in our head. Take shopping for example. You find a great sweater on sale for ten dollars, but there is an even cuter sweater that you are sure you’d wear more. The cuter sweater, however, is forty dollars. What do you do? People like me start making mental lists of the pros and cons on each side of what has become a great debate during your day. Do you save the money but forfeit the better-looking sweater? Or do you splurge and take some dollars away from another item you really needed to buy? What a task it can be to make choices like these when we let ourselves make big issues out of small ones.
If you’d like to learn how to make money online there is an easy and affordable solution. John Crestani’s Affiliate System Marketing Training https://www.digistore24.com/redir/300124/strangerkingdom/ Is there anything we can do to stop making ourselves debate each decision we make each day? I for one am tired of living this way. It is one thing to be intentional about the choices you make, but it is another thing entirely to overwork your brain with debates over breakfasts or new sweaters. I guess I only have one piece of tested and tried advice to give people whose biggest opponent in any debate is themself: stop it. When you feel a silly debate about to be had in your head, just stop it. Take a moment to settle down your thoughts and to really consider how important this decision is. The chances are that it is not anywhere worth near the time and energy you will spend analyzing the choice. You will find, as I am beginning to, that ninety percent of the things I let become a great debate in my head are really not worth having a debate about at all. Have the unhealthy breakfast, buy the expensive sweater. Do what you want. Just stop being so indecisive about what that means.
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Creativity And Rebellion: Why They Go Hand In Hand
Studies on creative people have consistently demonstrated that creativity is associated with openness to new ideas, risk-taking, and being inner-directed. Do these traits put creative people at odds with the culture and people around them? The answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no.
Say for example that Jeremy is a creative child that performs below average in school. He may be seen as a poor student by teachers and parents for “daydreaming” and doing poorly on objective tests. His latent skills as a right- brain thinker might be underappreciated and underdeveloped. Or consider the case of Alycia, a high school teacher who works in a constrictive environment. She is eager to try new teaching techniques but finds that her colleagues are traditional in their approach and even hostile to her ideas. What can she do? There is little doubt that creative people will struggle in environments that are overly structured and they will feel frustrated with tasks that are not challenging. This helps explain why creative children often have trouble in school, their right-brain minds wandering while their left-brain teachers are trying to force them to memorize information that these creative children instinctively see as irrelevant or trivial to understanding the “big picture” in life. Things often get worse for creative people when they enter the workforce. If they haven’t chosen their occupation carefully they may wind up in a job that is not well suited for their particular talents and gifts. Unfortunately, they may find this out the hard way by being bored and frustrated at work. But the job itself may not be the problem. It may also be the social milieu of the workplace. Every workplace has its own personality which organically evolves and changes over time. Some workplaces value new ideas and risk- taking, an environment that will be very stimulating for a creative, risk-taker. Other environments are rigid and traditional, which will be frustrating and could lead to conflict and dissatisfaction. Social psychologists have noted that some work groups suffer from groupthink, which is the tendency for some groups to feel superior to others and to downplay any evidence to the contrary. These groups value conformity and resist new ideas. An innovator will feel isolated and rejected by co- workers who support this type of environment. These co-workers often adopt an unspoken code regarding people who are different or stand out from the crowd. They send overt and covert messages of rejection to a creative co-worker who proposes new ideas. These signals include ignoring a person’s comments or providing perfunctory, hollow praise or worse punishments such as threats and ridicule for proposing ideas that threaten the perceived integrity of the group. Many people at work become comfortable with their daily routines and over time they defend these routines as something akin to being sacred. These kinds of people often bow to the timeworn expression: “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it,” but they over apply this attitude and to them nothing is ever really “broken” and to suggest otherwise is to threaten the comfort of their work routines. These people might respond in a venomous manner to creative and risk-taking co-workers who threaten their “comfort zone” by proposing new ways of doing things. All of this suggests that creative people will often be at odds with people around them and frustrated by work environments and organizational structures that are rigid and unbending. This is partially due to the fact that creative people are attracted to novelty and new ideas and ways of doing things, and their creative minds are often generating alternatives to accepted practices. The accumulated effects of these frustrations at school, work, or whatever the setting, may lead some creative people to adopt a rebellious attitude regarding rules and authority. When this happens the result may be frustration and conflict on all sides where a downward spiral results from interpersonal conflict and disagreement. This frustration may lead to a career change or disciplinary action in the workplace, an unfortunate byproduct of creative people not being successfully integrated into the workplace community. These negative manifestations of rebellion can be avoided only when organizations and individuals are made aware of the interpersonal dynamics that distinguish different personality types from each other. One way to do so that is popular today is for co-workers to take the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory and to discuss the results with each other. While this test is not necessarily rigorous in terms of accepted statistical measures of reliability or validity, it serves the greater purpose of opening the door to discussing interpersonal response styles and to respect each other for these differences. Workplace diversity is typically defined in sociological terms by placing people in black-and-white categories, for example gender, race, and age. Meanwhile, other important personality and interpersonal differences, such as creativity, rarely get the same amount of attention. And yet the creativity dimension is one of the most important because creativity and risk-taking are crucial traits for organizational health and survival.
In order to avoid the traps of blind rebellion and open conflict, organizations must do a better job of identifying creative employees and in fact nurturing creativity and respect for creativity in all their employees. This is not to suggest that common group practices such as “brainstorming” are necessarily a good way to nurture creativity. Creative people are often different from other co-workers in several ways that include interpersonal differences, inner- directedness, and work habits. These differences in style as well as substance need to be addressed in an open and comfortable manner. Creative people must also be taught to understand themselves and to appreciate that they have needs that can only be met in certain ways. They may prosper as artists, entrepreneurs, or in other professions that encourage openness, risk-taking, and eccentricity. This means that our educational system must be more responsive to the needs of creative children and must offer ways for creative children to learn that fits their learning styles. When schools and workplaces are better educated about creativity and are in a better position to integrate creative people into the community, then individuals and society will benefit. And youngsters like Jeremy will be more likely to reach their full potential and adults like Alycia will be able to enhance their work environment by contributing unique and challenging ideas. Hyperbolic Stretching for Men
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Creative Imagination
Creative imagination is more than just active imagination. To be able to actively imagine things, to see and hear things in one’s mind, is an important ability. It doesn’t have to involve much creativity, though, does it? Daydreaming, for example, is a process of imagination. It can consist of an elaborate fantasy world, but one full of all the things that many people think about. Creative imagination, then, has to include the ability not just to imagine things, but to imagine original things. It is seeing things that others don’t see and coming up with new ideas. So how do you cultivate this? Creative Imagination 101 First, exercise your basic imagination. It can be as simple as thinking in pictures more or listening to music in your mind. Play little “movies” in your mind, until you can watch them on command. This is a simple process, but for those of us that can’t easily do it naturally, it can take a lot of practice. Fortunately, it is not an unpleasant activity. The second part of developing your creative imagination is to get more creative in your thinking and imagining. Start by paying attention to your creativity. Our subconscious minds give us more of what we pay attention to. Ignore creative aspects of your life, and you’re telling your subconscious they are unimportant. On the other hand, if you note when you’re creative, your subconscious mind will start feeding you more creative ideas. Different surroundings can also encourage your creativity. Want more creativity in your love life? Hike up a mountain with your partner. Do you write? Try sitting on a roof to write. Want new ideas for your business? Take a notebook to the park and sit by the duck pond. A change of environment can get your thinking out of its ruts. You can play games that exercise your creative imagination. One such game uses a technique called “concept combination.” Alone or with other players, you combine random concepts or things in new ways, to see who has the best idea. A thermometer and a billboard, for example, could generate an idea for a sign that checks the weather and adjusts the message accordingly (“Come in out of the heat for a cold beverage,” or “Come in out of the rain and warm up with our gourmet coffee.”). Don’t Wait For Creative Imagination Creative inspiration certainly can strike at any time, but it strikes more often when there is work instead of waiting. So, if you want to come up with creative inventions, start mentally redesigning everything you see. Imagine a better bicycle, a faster mail service, or a better chair. Continue this for three weeks, and it will become a habit.
Of course, creative imagination goes beyond solving specific problems or inventing things. Truly creative minds are always coming up with the questions too, not just the solutions. If you want to be more creative all the time, focus on three things: 1. Changing your perspective. A child might think that working just to not work (to retire) is silly. Thinking from that perspective might give you ideas for how to make money doing things you enjoy. Seeing the world as a bear sees it might give a painter imaginative new ideas. Looking at things from a customer’s perspective is a sure way to find creative improvements for a business. See everything from several perspectives. 2. Challenging your assumptions. What if restaurants didn’t have employees? Visitors pay a machine as they enter, feed themselves at a buffet, and everything is as automated as possible, so one owner-operator could run a large restaurant alone. Challenge all your assumptions for practice. Do you really have to pay rent? Do swimming pools need water? Can exercise be a bad thing? 3. Let your ideas run wild. Does a flying bed seem silly? It could lead to the concept of a helium mattress. When you get off it in the morning, it floats out of the way, up to the ceiling. Perfect for small apartments. Don’t stifle your creativity. Relax, and let ideas come. You can always discard them later. For these techniques to be a habitual part of your thinking, use them regularly. Since it takes several weeks to develop a habit, remind yourself to use them each day. Jot a few of your favorite techniques on a card and carry it with you. Look it over throughout the day and apply the techniques to anything. Soon, you’ll have a more creative imagination.
Connect With Your Body
When we’re in the creative flow, we can sometimes forget we even have a body, because our minds are exploding with color, sounds, words and images. But when unhealthy habits sap your body of its vitality and strength, your creativity and productivity will be sapped as well. What could be more frustrating than the interruption of your creative flow by an uninvited headache, back spasm, dullness of mind or the “shakes”? I once heard the expression that as a guitar player, I’m a “small muscle athlete” – meaning I need to warm up those muscles and treat them well. Perhaps as artists we’re ALL small muscle athletes. After all, we do need a good measure of physical endurance to get through our creative tasks. Whether it’s sitting hunched over an easel, the repetitive movements of playing a musical instrument, the stamina to stand and walk on stage throughout an entire show or sitting at a computer keyboard for most of the day, our creative tools all require the use of the body. To keep that body strong and resilient takes daily attention. Day-to-day self-care practices such as getting enough sleep, eating three healthy and balanced meals that are evenly timed throughout the day (plus healthy snacks if you need them), moving your body actively and drinking enough water are all essential for taking care of your body. Taking care of the body also affects the mind. Fatigue, malnutrition, inactivity and dehydration will all have adverse effects on the mind and the ability to problem solve, concentrate and connect ideas. The Creative Cycle and Self-Care Touring with a band, rehearsing for a show or burning the midnight oil to finish a painting before a gallery opening, are all examples of extraordinary circumstances where we might relax our self-care discipline and adopt a whole new set of rules. Then, when the show or tour is over or the piece is finished, we sometimes sink into an anti-climactic “low” or a period of transition before we get back into the creative flow again. The daily practices you keep when things are “normal” will build resilience for the times when these extraordinary circumstances come up. They also build habits and healthy living skills that you can draw on when life gets more challenging. Put it into play One of the best practices for a healthy body, mind and spirit is to get enough sleep and rest. Tonight, end your evening activities a half hour early and spend that time winding down. Release the worries of the day by writing or speaking about them. Calm yourself with a bath, tea, massage, music or a good read that doesn’t remind you of your work. We can all come up with reasons why we can’t exercise, we can’t make different food choices and we can’t focus more on our health. You have a unique creative gift to share with the world, but your creativity relies on a sound mind and body. So, which of your reasons for not taking care of yourself are more important than that?
Are You Invisible?
Ellen was brought up to be invisible. She was taught to be very tuned into others’ feelings and needs, but to never have any of her own. Her family made it clear to her that her job was to give to them but to never expect anything in return. As a result, Ellen learned to be totally tuned out to her own feelings and needs. It was as if she, as a person, didn’t really exist, other than to be there for others. When Ellen’s feelings and needs did surface, she would tell herself that they weren’t important, that she was strong and could handle not having her feelings cared for and or her needs recognized. She convinced herself that if she just cared enough about others, others would eventually care about her. It never happened. The inner stress of never attending to her own feelings and needs and always feeling so invisible to others as a result finally took a toll on Ellen’s health. Ellen is now dealing with depression and finally has to attend to herself. Many of us have learned to be invisible – to ourselves and to others. What are some of the ways you create invisibility? * Do you remain silent, not speaking up for yourself, when feeling discounted or unseen by others? * Do you ignore your own feelings and needs in deference to others? * Do you go along with what others want, even if you really want something else? * Do you accept blame for things that you know are not really your responsibility? * Do you put aside your own opinions and accept the opinions of others to be accepted? * Do you accept disrespectful behavior from others, finding ways to excuse the behavior? * Do you pretend everything is okay when you are really feeling lonely or sad? * Are you conflict avoidant, preferring peace at any cost rather than rock the boat? * Are you carrying too much of the load at home or at work, without complaint? * Do you pretend to like a food, a movie, a topic of conversation, or sex, rather than run the risk of disapproval or rejection? * Do you allow yourself to be violated in any way – physically, emotionally, verbally, sexually – to avoid rejection? * Do you allow others’ anger or bullying to control you into doing what they want? * Do you do everything yourself, never asking others for help? How often do you end up feeling unappreciated, unseen, not valued? How much of this is a reflection of how you treat yourself? If your own feelings and needs are invisible to yourself, they will end up being invisible to others. It is not realistic to constantly put yourself aside and then expect others to value and respect you. Anytime you tolerate uncaring or disrespectful behavior in others to avoid conflict, you are training others to see you as invisible, to not care about your feelings and needs. If you have been allowing yourself to be invisible for a long time, it is a real challenge to start to care about yourself. You need to be willing to go through a difficult period of feeling others’ anger and resentment. After all, you trained them for years to not have to care about you or see you, and now you are changing the rules. They won’t like it, but they will eventually respect you for it. You will also discover in the process of caring about yourself who really cares about you and who has just been using you. Those people who really care about you will eventually applaud your self-care, while those who were just using you will go away or be constantly angry with you for changing.
It takes great courage to shift from invisibility to being seen and valued. It takes great courage to be willing to lose others rather than continue to lose yourself. Yet, like with Ellen, your very life may depend upon it. Hopefully, you will not wait until you are ill or feel alone and cast aside by others to start to become visible to yourself. It must start with yourself – with learning to tune into, acknowledge, value, and take loving action for yourself regarding your own feelings and needs. It means moving into personal responsibility for your own feelings and needs rather than taking care of everyone else in the hopes they will eventually take care of you. If you are ever going to feel cared for and loved, it has to start with you caring about and being loving to yourself!
The Key To Self Discipline
Self-discipline starts with the ability to control your behavior. That means motivating yourself to do what you need to do and stopping yourself from doing things that are bad for you. The “ability to control” is just the start, though, and real discipline is when you have trained your mind in such way that you consistently get the behavior you want. Discipline may appear to be a problem of willpower. However, this implies just pushing ourselves harder to do things, even when we feel miserable, or fighting temptations. It’s a good recipe for stress and disappointment, but there are better ways to a disciplined life. Self-Discipline Tips Have you ever stayed up all night talking about something interesting? Then you know what power the mind has over the body. Sleep can be put off when we are motivated by a passionate discussion, and it doesn’t take much willpower to keep doing something when you are enjoying it. That gives us a key to self-discipline. Try to enjoy what you are doing and be energized. Your willpower goes up and down with your energy levels, so play energetic music, move around, laugh, and look for the interesting parts of whatever project you are working on. Once you identify your best energy boosters and motivators, make a list, and train your brain to use them whenever you need discipline. Make things easier on yourself. If you feel stressed when you think about doing your tax return, for example, don’t think about it! Just lay out the forms where you can work on them later. Later do just one form, and then another. Whatever the task at hand, you can find enough motivation for some small step. Start training your mind to take that step as soon as you think of it, and the next steps become easier. Self-Discipline And Self Awareness What if that cake calls to you? Sometimes it’s hard to resist temptation, right? Willpower is a nice idea, but here is a simpler solution: stop standing in front of the cake! It is an easy lesson to understand, so train yourself to apply it habitually. Don’t keep beer in the house if you don’t want to drink it. Don’t go alone to the bar if you want to maintain a faithful marriage. Just stay away from people that lead you to trouble. Discipline doesn’t mean being immune to temptation. Go ahead and develop the willpower to say no, if you can, but why not also have the wisdom to avoid temptation? Know where your resistance is low, and don’t put yourself in those situations. Does this make more sense than fighting useless battles with yourself? Fighting feelings is a losing battle. It’s far more effective to learn about yourself. How are you energized and motivated? Where are your strengths and weaknesses? Learn about yourself and start using what you learn to make the behaviors you want easy. That’s the key to self-discipline.
Assist The Universe In Manifesting Your Desires
So, you think understand the principles of manifesting but you cannot explain why these things are not coming to you. You believe that we create our reality. You understand the laws of attraction, and believe that what we think about we attract into our experience. You have even been practicing these principles, that is, when you remember to. When you think about it, you are repeating affirmations such as: My perfect relationship is available and I deserve to have it. My income level is constantly increasing. Okay, then, why is that perfect relationship or more income not what you’re experiencing?
You may be trying to blame your parents for instilling some limiting belief that money is bad or that there is something spiritual about suffering. It really doesn’t matter where some of your beliefs come from or how many of them you have. There is a way around this. You need to focus on the beliefs that do serve you better such as: The Universe is full of abundance. The Universe wants to bring my desires to me. Even the Bible says, Ask and it shall be given.
You may be feeling unworthy. If you don’t think that you deserve to be happy and successful, how can you possibly create that in your life? Remember again, that the Bible tells us that all things are possible.
You keep waiting. Okay, so you are
1) believing that it IS possible to have all you desire.
2) you are now feeling worthy. You feel like you have done your part and now you are just waiting for the Universe (or God, if you prefer) to fulfill those desires. There is another little piece here that could perhaps be the missing link. Take action. But wait a minute here you say. I thought that I just have to ask and know that the Universe will supply, and presto! it appears. Let’s see how taking action can assist in this process.
When you take action, any action in the direction of your desire, you are showing the Universe that you are serious. It also facilitates the process because you have focused your attention on your action instead of your waiting. This action need not be huge earth-shattering stuff. This action can come from feeling of inspiration, intuition, or even coincidental events. One very important thing to keep in mind when you do take action: be sure to feel good about it, about yourself and what you want beforehand. Now you know how to assist the Universe in fulfilling your dreams.
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I tend to be disastrously vicarious. That's why I end up loving unlovable things.
The Whole Wheat Lie
Lately, I have been having a hard time sleeping. Actually, let me correct that statement. I have been having a hard time staying asleep at night and staying awake during the day, especially when I am at home. Before or after work I usually have plans to get something done, clean something up, read something, write something, make something beautiful, etc., but as soon as I wake up, I know I need more sleep. As soon as I sit down on the couch, I pretty much pass right out. This isn’t normal behavior for me. I’m usually a on-the-go-sort-of-person. I can’t sit still for too long and my version of sitting down to watch a movie or binge on a tv show involves me constantly getting out of my seat to do something else and use the TV as background noise. I would even comfortably get an average of 5-6 hours of sleep a night and wake up refreshed the next morning. Yeah... one of those A type personalities, I guess.
Lately, though; I would say the last week; I haven’t been my usual self. My brain is foggy, I have headaches, no willpower, bloated, sluggish, exhausted, depressed, bored with no real motivation to do something to entertain myself.
My job isn’t that demanding so it couldn’t be that. I’m not in a relationship to keep me on my toes. Everything is pretty squared away with the people I know... for the most part. So what is the culprit?
Well, I’ve been doing some reading. Not in particular to my own situation. It was for my general amusement. I found and checked out two books from the library I work in called “Grain Brain” by David Perlmutter, MD and “Wheat Belly” by William Davis, MD. Both books discuss the food industry lies concerning the healthful claims when it comes to consuming wheat, whole wheat, whole grain, etc. and it allegedly being a necessary staple to every diet... that is unless you have celiac disease.
Of course, I wont be the one to say that no one should eat wheat products... ok... I will be that one, with the help of these two authors. But before I go on to defame wheat, I’m going to talk about my own personal experiences when it comes to food.
I’m not typically one that eats a lot of bread. The closest thing to bread that I probably consume the most of is pasta, which, let’s face it, is just wet bread. I don’t usually consume sugar too often and typically stay away from carbs with the exception of potatoes and the aforementioned pasta. It’s not so much a rule I have for myself, it’s mostly a preference. I have also gone keto a few times in the past with great success and one of the highlights of being on a low carb diet is that my brain felt clear. I had energy, I slept well and I could focus. The added bonus was that I actually felt happy. Happy in a content sort of way, but that’s a hell of a lot better than feeling like a piece of stomped on shit every day, which is what I kind of feel like right now.
If you have ever successfully switched to keto and gotten past the dreaded “keto flu” at the beginning, then you probably know what I’m talking about.
A little fun-fact about the keto diet is that, in it’s earlier stages of development, it was actually created for people that suffer from schizophrenia and epilepsy. Dieticians and scientists found that a low carb diet reduced the instances of seizures or schizophrenic episodes within sufferers of these ailments while a high carb diet increased the chance of these episodes.
Most people that keep out or a reduced amount of complex carbohydrates will most likely tell you that they feel awake, energized and are more often than not, in a good mood.
So, what does that mean, exactly? Why do people often suggest whole grains or wheat products as a large part of what our diets should look like if people who limit their complex carbohydrates are seemingly living their best lives, so-to-speak?
Well, that answer comes with a ton of different explanations that I could get into.... It’ll take a while. I’ll try my best not to get carried away and write a book of my own, but as I’m sure you’ve heard, the human body is meant to use the food we eat as energy. Our bodies especially love to use carbohydrates as fuel which is why you’ll often see runners “carbo-loading” before a marathon. But unless you are a runner or someone who uses up every last calorie as energy those carbohydrates tend to stick around in the places we don’t want them to stick around and we also seem to have a sort of “sugar crash” if we consume too many carbs and too little proteins. Not to mention that carbohydrate energy doesnt last for very long. This is what I am starting to realize about my current predicament. Too many carbs. I even bought some bread recently, which I have been snacking on. Low and behold, I feel like crap. The bread of course, isn’t the only culprit. No, im not blaming the innocent bread for existing. There are many other foods that contain a high carb content that I’ve been munching on. More so than I normally would. I’ll probably be switching back to keto in the very near future.
Now, as both books have suggested so far, first and foremost, this wheat-based diet that we Americans are so fond of is most likely a large factor in obesity and high mortality rates. We think of diseases such a Alzheimer's as a hereditary factor that most of us can’t avoid, but apparently wheat has been linked to the degeneration of not only or thickening bodies, but also the degeneration of our brains. The reason for this is not only due to the amount of wheat we tend to consume but also the modification of the crop over the years, in general.
We all know that our foods are constantly being experimented on to bring about a high yield crop rate for farmers and consumers alike. A lot of crops have also been genetically modified to be weather resistant, pest resistant and even modified in ways, allegedly for the consumer, such as having no seeds. The wheat crop is no exception and has been bred, and rebred over and over again until it’s basically unrecognizable to it’s origin crop. According to William Davis, MD, author of "Wheat Belly", who is done far more research on the topic while I just use myself as a human guinea pig and report my findings, he writes there is but one farm in the United States that still grows "ancient" crops in full integrity. He also happens to be an individual that suffers from a wheat intolerance and also made himself into a test subject by testing out bread made from the "ancient" wheat one day and then eating bread from the more modern wheat.
First, he reports that both bread loaves, side by side, are slightly different. When baking the breads he used freshly ground mixture of both wheat, water and yeast. The "ancient" wheat bread didn't rise as much as the modern wheat bread. In texture, he claims that the difference between the "ancient" flour is a bit coarser. But how does it taste? This is what really peaked my interest. The modern flour bread in comparison tasted more like cardboard and was a bit flavorless as opposed to the nutty, rich flavor of the "ancient" flour. He described it as tasting almost like peanut butter.
Now, while taste, texture and esthetic is all well and good, the most important part of the experiment is what the breads did to the wheat intolerant author. He wrote that he baked and tried the "ancient" wheat bread first and while he would normally be feeling the pains and anguish of consuming wheat shortly after, he was perfectly fine. Jump to the day he baked and consumed the modern wheat bread and he was welcomed with an all too familiar visitation of discomfort and awfulness.
You might say it's a coincidence or that maybe something else happened in the process of making the modern wheat bread but if a person with a known intolerance to wheat can consume wheat that has not been genetically modified with narry an issue, I feel that may be evidence enough. Seems suspicious to me.
Now, I know what you might be thinking, cause I pretty much think it too. "I don't want to be limited on what I eat." That's perfectly reasonable. After all, if you take a look down any aisle in your local grocery store they are chalk full of wheat filled items. You have the bread aisle that often has it's own row of bread, bagels, tortillas, English muffins, to name a few. Then you have the snack aisle that contains cookies and crackers, all containing wheat. Then the pasta aisle, frozen pizza aisle, frozen dinners, ready in second dinners, bakery, even the deli counter with it's fried chicken, pasta sides and sometimes dredged-in-flour-potato-wedges to make them crispier. All but the detergent aisle offers a plethora of ways to consume wheat. And who can blame us! How do you have mashed potatoes without gravy? How do you eat eggs without toast? An easy breakfast to serve to your kids is cereal or oatmeal. Wheat products has become such a necessity in our diets, not only because it tastes delicious and adds a little somethin-somethin to our meals, but also because, for many of us, the FDA food pyramid has always told us that grains were the most important part of our diet. That is, until, recently, where they changed the pyramid to a wheel. They still put the emphasis on the grains, though.
We can easily put the blame of the rising pandemic of obesity in America on things that we know aren't good for us such as alcohol, fried foods, fast food or even foods with a high caloric rating because of fat or sugar and who can blame us? We've been told all of our lives that whole grains were the way to go if we wanted to be healthy or lose weight. But as I have said before, I have had great success in switching from a "normal" American diet to a low-carb diet in the past. The past week or two I have been eating a lot of complex carbohydrates which really can be the biggest reason I'm feeling like shit run over. There's no good excuse for it other than indulgence. Especially with the rise of carb alternatives such as cauliflower substitution and so many different kinds of oils and butters being put on shelves. I really wish a lot of these items were around the first few times I went keto. Definitely makes it a lot easier.
So! If you're interested I would suggest going to your nearest library or bookstore and taking a gander at William Davis, MD books (he has a few) and David Perlmutter's, MD book, "Grain Brain". They back up a lot of their findings with research, stats, history and other little tidbits that make it hard to argue with.
On Books & Texas
I work in a library. I’m not sure if I mentioned that before here, but I’m always very interested with checking in and checking out books. It’s like taking a glimpse at a person’s personality. What they like. What interests them and even a little bit about what they are up to in their lives at the moment of them reading those books. Today I put away a book that was called something like, “The Water Bottle Workout”. I skimmed through it and had a chuckle to myself because I have checked out books similar to this one and there is no faster way to feel like an idiot than getting a book like this, at least, in my opinion. For instance, the mind set of considering a book like this comes with a curiosity for discovering something new. Something you probably never would have thought of on your own, but as you start to flip through the pages with the demonstrational photos of an already fit person curling milk jugs or doing weighted squats with water bottles, you start to feel silly and uninterested. Maybe it’s just me. I’m not judging anyone for purchasing or checking out these kinds of books, it’s more of just an observation on my own behalf.
In other news, I may be taking my leave to Corpus Christi sooner than expected. I’ve been planning... well... planning isn’t the right word because I am horrible unprepared; I’ve been wanting to move to Corpus Christi for a while. I currently live in Southern California and it has become next to impossible to live here. That is, unless you’re a politician, doctor, lawyer or some kind of big wig that makes six figures or more in a year. I hate that I can’t comfortable live in the state that I grew up in but I’m excited about the prospect of a new environment. I chose Corpus Christi so I could be near ocean. I love the ocean. I’m also intrigued by the concept of hurricane parties. Apparently, people along the south eastern area of the U.S. take part in making a celebration out of natural disasters. Sounds fun to me. The thought of doing this on my own his pretty horrifying, though. Heading into the unknown without someone to share it with or confide in about my fears. That could just be me thinking of all the worst scenarios that could happen in the process, of course.
Watch "How much of what you see is a hallucination? - Elizabeth Cox" on YouTube