Minimalism In Food

Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

For the past few days, I have noticed a lot of talk about minimalistic food. A lot of minimalism bloggers practice minimalism not only in the stuff they own, in the jobs they do, in the blogs they write, but also the food that they eat. They eat only as much as their bodies need to survive, they eat mindfully and they are fitter for it.

For me, food is one of pleasures of life. One of the most important pleasures in life. I have thought about the fact that even though I love food, at work, busy with the hundred tasks that are assigned to me in the day, I am unable to sit down and enjoy  my lunch with any thought of mindfulness.

I gulp it down to quell the hunger that I feel and I hope that my body will not need sustenance for a while, so I can finish all the work on my plate. I usually have one hand on the fork and one hand on my keyboard. It is actually quite sad the more I think about it. It would be better if I just fasted all day at work, then putting food down my throat in this unmindful manner.

I have been trying really hard in the past few weeks to take my lunch into a different room, sit down and have it at least for ten minutes without any email interruptions or phone calls. Even if I have to schedule it into my schedule at work, I do, and I try most days to take the time to eat. The funny thing is that the culture at most workplaces has now changed. It is actually frowned upon to sit down away from your desk for half an hour and eat your food.

Most people at my work look at me oddly. Why is she sitting there and eating her lunch? She must not have a lot to do. Or maybe it is just the guilt in my head talking. But no matter what it is, I am resolved to take the time to eat my lunch away from the keyboard. I find just that ten minute break resets me back to the calm that I felt after my meditation session in the morning. It helps me get through the rest of the day without tearing my hair off.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to BrownVagabonder and connect with me on Twitter.

My Ideal Life

Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

I have thought about this topic for a while now, ever since, I left Thailand after the Full Moon party over last New Years. I looked around at all the people, who had retired on the beautiful island of Koh-Phangan, or in Thailand in general. Or all of those people who had quit their jobs, or semi-retired from a profitable venture, strapped on a really expensive backpack and are now strutting around the Earth, collecting stamps on their passports. Or whatever the story might be of the loads of people I met on that island and during the quiet hours of the Full Moon madness.

I have been trying to imagine what my ideal life would look like. Would I work from home? Would I be a Professional Travel Blogger, travelling and writing, and making money at the same time to support a life-time of travel with T? Would I be a Professional Yogi, doing yoga at retreats all around the world, getting paid for helping people, and travelling at the same time, my two loves? Would I travel for six months of the year, and work at home for the other 6 months as a yoga teacher and server, saving up as much as I can from my work, fulfilling my nomadic nature?

The main themes in my dream life are travel, yoga, lots of amazing authentic international foods, and writing. These are the four things I need to have in my ideal life – in varying quantities. The big question now is – how to create a life from these four ingredients? What should the quantities be and how should they mixed together?

Some things I definitely do not want in my ideal life are a 9-5 job, restrictions to my time and freedom in anyway, restrictions to the place I live in, restrictions in finances due to debt or inability to earn, restrictions in my physical body in any shape or form.

I want to continue learning, and growing on this spiritual journey that I have chosen to be my path, with lots of travel, yoga, food and writing. How do I create from this? I am going to let this percolate a bit more in my head and then go from them. Let me know if you see anything striking that I have missed.

Carbs make me sleepy

Photo attributed to flickr user Konstantin Leonov

I have been noticing as I get older that it is crucial that I pay attention to what I eat, how I eat, how much I exercise, how much I sleep and how I spend my days, in order to ensure that my energy levels stay high. It is my responsibility as a fitness freak, that I ensure I am not using stimulants, like caffeine or drugs in order to keep myself going.

I would rather use the amazing power of healthy eating, regular exercise, and a proper night’s sleep in order to keep going at the pace that I wish to go at.

One thing I noticed that really changed the game, was that eating a lot of carbs for lunch at work, caused the slump at 3pm, which caused me to eat something sugary and crash. Before, I would eat a bowl of pasta or a pita bread with curry or a sandwich for lunch, which is a major infusion of starch into the bloodstream. I would always crash, feeling sleepy around 3pm, and wanting to not do any work anymore, really reducing my productivity in the workplace.

Nowadays, my diet has changed completely. I drink a green smoothie as soon as I get up, around 7am. It gives me a burst of good powerful energy, in the form of spinach, and berries, whey protein and chia seeds. I eat a small meal every two hours. I only eat couscous or quinoa for carbs during the day. Whatever I might eat it with, veggies or meat, I always only eat carbs with a low glycemic index. I have only found quinoa and couscous to be tasty enough to ensure that I keep on going with them. They are both easy to cook and easy to digest. They don’t cause me to be sleepy after the meal, they give me the energy to keep on going.

Dinner is usually at 7pm, unless I have yoga, or a dinner with a friend.

I keep this schedule for food during the week, resulting in amazing results for energy, and even body shape. My belly and thighs have reduced slightly and more to come, I am sure.

How do you ensure your energy levels stay high?

Slow-food movement

Photo attributed to flickr user ticktockdoc

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I love food, and when I say, I love food, I mean, I love food. I live to eat, Not eat to live. I spend most of my time either dreaming about food, eating food, or planning what I am going to eat next. It is a great life indeed. I really enjoy the slow-food movement that has been moving to North America, originating in Italy. It is all about food and eating slowly. Savoring each bite as if it were your last. It is the epitomy of a foodie’s desire. To spend hours sitting down with friends and eating a well-cooked meal.

A few of us went to a restaurant on St. Clair and Eglinton called Cava, which really amplified the slow-food movement for me. It is the tapas-style of eating, originally from Spain, which is for me the best way to eat a meal. It doesn’t exemplify large portions, and stuffing yourself with empty calories, like so many seem to do. But, sitting down with friends and sharing small portions of amazing dishes. You sit down at a table, and the waiter brings little portions of shareables for the table, cold cuts on a plate; warm, marinated olives; warm beet salad with kale, and several others gorgeous options.

I was like a kid in a candy store. I was able to try out almost the whole menu, without feeling stuffed beyond measure. I felt comfortably, happily, filled at the end of it, and we had been eating for 2 straight hours! It was glorious.

I totally recommend the tapas-style of eating to anyone who loves food, and I especially recommend the Cava restaurant to anyone who likes good food.

Feeling the blues

I am feeling blue. Extremely sad. The weather outside is thunder and lightning. And it is the same inside of me. I am feeling hopeless today, hopeless about the future, and I am never like that. I am the most optimistic person on the planet. But I feel sad today. Sad with the way things are going. I am not happy at the moment. I am not controlling the sadness, I am letting the tears flow. I do not want to pretend to be happy. I want to feel what I am feeling.

I have noticed that I am so much more sensitive to my body and its moods, the more yoga I do. I don’t know what it is about yoga. But I feel every emotion so much more sharply than I did before. I am more in tune with myself, my hormones, my moods. And of course, feeling all the emotions works well when I am up, but when I am down, it just means I am really down. I am blue in the bluest sense of the word. I can’t help it. I cannot get myself going when I am in one of those sad moods. I don’t feel like going to yoga, or eating or reading, three of my favorite things in the world. IF I saw stop doing any of these three, you know I am dead. Dead inside or going to that state very soon. It is something at the core of me. I need to do the three, eat, read, and yoga.

Of course, being rejected by every man alive after they get to know me after three dates doesn’t help the situation. I feel blue because I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to be with me. I am a cool person. I am intelligent, beautiful and in great yoga shape. I can hold a conversation, I am independent, I do not need to be taken care of and I am classy. Why doesn’t anyone want to be with me? I drive men away. I do not know what I do but I drive them away somehow. And that makes me sad.

And of course being at home is great, but the travel bug is inside of me, it doesn’t refuse to let go. I want to go traveling as soon as possible. I am working hard at saving, but still the time when I can go is still so far.

Writing it down in this journal style format helps a lot. I feel a thousand times better after I tell the universe, I am blue. Its therapeutic, and I feel like I am being heard. Thank you for listening to me be blue. Hope you are feeling better on this rainy night.

 

Stressed out about eating

For the longest time, I have been a really great eater. I eat well, and I mean, well. Better than most people I know. I eat healthy, without being crazy about cutting out meat from my diet. I find that eating Indian food in general, prepared at home by my mother is the healthiest way to go. Our family eats out rarely, maybe once a week, and usually we order some Caribbean Heat, which is a mix of Chinese and West Indian food, fried goodness. I eat a big breakfast, as soon as I wake up, in order to jumpstart my metabolism. Usually, whatever’s leftover from the night before, so vegetables, some chicken and rice, or whole-wheat pita bread. Or a big bowl of spaghetti. Something along those lines.

I have a smoothie during the day, with berries, milk, banana, protein powder, and recently, spinach leaves. I have a big lunch, again just leftovers or whatever’s in the fridge, maybe tuna sandwich. Dinner’s usually at seven or eight, and it is similar to the rest of the meals. I rarely eat sweet stuff, not being a fan of it. My weakness is potato chips, but my mum rarely brings them into the house, and I will not go out and buy them, so that solves that problem. I do not like milk, so I take vitamin supplements to balance things out.

But recently, reading the slew of superfoods that have come onto the market (where did they suddenly appear out of anyway?), I feel that my diet is sorely lacking in a lot of nutrients. I do not really get sick that often, but when I do, it lasts for a week, and ruins the whole balance of things in my life. I do not have any superfoods in my diet at the moment, no spirulina, no seaweed, no alfalfa. Reading about all of that, makes me really stressed out. But why? I mean, I am doing well enough, I have great genes and good food habits. I look ten years younger than what I am, my skin’s doing great, my hair’s shiny, my nails are strong, but I do have a weak immune system, or that is what my mother says. Maybe adding in a few superfoods, would fix that problem?

But what about the food combination stuff that is really in right now? Do not eat grains with meat, Do not eat fruit with meals, etc. I mean, I have never followed those rules, maybe following those rules would help with some of the bloating that I experience right after I eat a meal. It just seems weird to me, because I always eat grains with meat, and I always add in a piece of fruit after as a dessert. That would mean changing the entire way in which I have been living for the past twenty-seven years. That is a big change. Do you see why this stresses me out?

The key is to make changes slowly, small changes, slowly. I am going to add in some spirulina and sprouts in my diet, slowly, and then, slowly incorporate the food combination rules as well. Lets see how it changes the way my body reacts to the world. Maybe I will stop falling sick once a year with a horrible cold. Or maybe I will recover faster from the colds that I do get.

Eating slowly

I have always been a slow eater. I like to savor my food. I chew slowly, I linger over my meals. I am always the last one off the table, especially in this culture of eating quick, as a meal is one of the least important things you shall do that day. Working as a server, gives me great pleasure, as I get to serve people food and let them savor it and enjoy it, among their friends and family, and leave satisfied. And if they enjoyed my service, I get instant gratification in terms of tips. A win-win situation for all parties involved.

Of course, being a person who studies human nature, and who absolutely loves people watching, I love being a server. I wanted to delineate one thing that I have noticed that I thought was important enough to be shared. There are two kinds of eaters in the world. Fast and slow. There is no in-betweens. Seriously. I am not joking. There are people who linger over their meals. They will sit and eat, and eat, and eat, slowly, over a period of hours. When I first started, I didn’t realize this fact. So I would go over to them again and again, and bother them with good service, but it just bothered them. Eventually I realized these people are here to eat, and enjoy their time together. They chat, they drink, they eat, and they are merry. Conversation flows, as does the alcohol and food. I leave them to their meal, coming over to their table maybe once every half an hour. If they need me, they usually call me over. When they leave three hours later, they leave me a nice tip, as a thank you for their uninterrupted meal time. I love the lingering eaters. They signify how we should do everything in life. Slowly with enjoyment.

There are the others, of course. The fast eaters. The really fast ones. These ones ask me to bring their bills over as I take their orders. Could you please bring the bill over as soon as possible, so we can pay before we eat, and then we can leave as soon as we are done. They do not linger. They do not savor. For them food is just a fuel. It is something to be pumped into their body like gas. It costs a lot of time and patience for them, but it is something that is inevitable. These are the kind of people who always leave too many hours in between their meals and then experience cranky-fatigue-annoyance due to the lack of sugar in their bloodstream. They are usually not in the restaurant long enough to even notice their presence.

Now I shall make a generalization. The slow eaters I find are usually Europeans and Russians. The fast are Canadians. This is just a generalization. Of course, there are overlaps. But this is the way I notice the cookie crumbling.

Shortage mentality (Hoarder)

I have an issue with shortage of food. I get worried that there will not be enough and I will starve for at least one meal, get all cranky, get a headache, not be good company for anyone around, and generally be in a mess. In addition, it makes me feel like I will have to spend money to buy some food from outside, and that will ruin the budgeting that I have set up for my life in general.
It is a weird issue. It doesn’t make any sense. I have never had any food shortages. My parents always made sure that we had a lot of food in the house, snacks, and otherwise. No matter what the state of the world might be, we always had amazing quality food in the fridge at home.

I dont know where this weird mentality comes from. I wonder about that a lot. Even when I am at home, I will eat, and then wonder if I have eaten enough. What if I get hungry in a bit? And at that point there is no food, or whatever? I mean, that is not normal thinking. You could say that it is just me being greedy and eating too much and then justifying it by saying it is due to a mental block. I dont know about that. Whenever I am overeating, I am thinking of the future. Not of the present. I am not enjoying the food. I am thinking in terms of hibernation. Or storage. I’m thinking ahead, so to speak. Too bad, you cannot save the glucose in your blood stream. It goes down eventually, no matter how much you overeat. And then, you have to eat again.

In addition, I cannot be one of those people, who go all day without eating, and are all merry to boot. They are cheery, happy, gay. They are happy to be alive. They do not get affected by missing one, two or even three meals. They go hard, and still accomplish all their goals. Me on the other hand, I am a nervous wreck, chattering nonsensically, biting everyone’s head off, cranky, irritable, and in no mood to do any mental or physical labor. Need food. That is the only thing I would be able to think of. Food. Must get food.

Speaking of which, I must replenish the body’s glucose stores, right this very moment. Thank Goodness, I have been bestowed with a high metabolism from my parents. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be the size I am right now. Although, that could change as well, if I am not careful.