Adventures in Dehydration

Last week I acquired a food dehydrator for the first time. On the way home, my head was swimming with the possibilities of different foods that I could preserve for later consumption. Excited about the potential to rescue some of the forgotten food in the freezer and begin my long awaited, long-term food storage.

The next week was wrought with attempt after somewhat unsuccessful attempt at drying various food items, most of which have now been relegated to: "future soup ingredient".

I believe the most successful attempt was the sliced bananas and the least successful was the juice concentrate, which was supposed to turn into fruit leather (says me), but just became very gooey and sticky. The most interesting was the bison jerky because the dehydrator came with a jerky gun, however I accidentally made it ridiculously spicy, so that too, may become a future soup or chili ingredient.

Overall, I've had fun, and will continue to experiment, after I take a little dehydration break. I'm also curious to see if/how the dehydrator responds to the high elevation (6000ft) of Colorado.

Weight Loss

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to weigh less. I've tried a few things, here and there, but I'm not a die-hard dieter. In fact, the more I learned about "dieting" in general, the less I was interested in the whole idea.

And then...

I read about a diet that used a chemical, which is produced in *certain* (to be explained later) bodies, which will unlock anybody's potential to use their own fat storage. Before you start to feel like I'm trying to sell this diet to you, it's called hcg, I did one of the homeopathic versions.

Twice a day for about 40 days, I sprayed a chemical into my mouth. During those 40 days, I was on a very specific, very low calorie diet. In that time, I lost about 0.7 pounds per day, making my total loss almost 30 pounds.

Hopefully you can see the difference in these pictures:

Right now, I am in the "maintenance" phase, which means I'm not eating anything with sugar or starch (I can have most fruits), attempting to teach my body that this is the new natural weight. In 3 weeks, I will slowly start adding sugars and starches until I'm back to eating like normal.

It's been an interesting time, eating only twice a day, preparing most of my lunches the day before. As the holidays have been approaching, it's been more difficult seeing and smelling all the candies, chocolates and other assorted treats. One of the things that has helped me recently is the discovery that blended frozen strawberries make something very similar to ice cream. And the best part, I'd say, is being able to fit into some of the clothes that I haven't warn in a few years, since the last time that I was close to this weight was about 2007.

So now, the more specific details about the diet, in case you're interested. Hcg is a chemical that is produced from the placenta of pregnant women. It allows the womans body to access her fat storages so that the baby has a constant supply of fuel, even when the woman isn't able to keep any new food down. This is the chemical that, when present, causes a pregnancy test to be positive.

Scientists have discovered a way to extract hgc from the urine of pregnant women and use it as a dieting tool for any body (male or female, in fact men tend to lose weight faster, which is typical). The traditional method of application is an injection, once a day, but this is far more expensive. There are two homeopathic versions that I know of, one is drops under the tongue, the other is a spray in the back of the mouth. Please note, that the homeopathic version is the "electronic signature" of the hcg, and not the same thing that's being injected. I paid $70 for one bottle of spray that lasted me for my whole 40-day diet.

Basically, on the diet, I'm tricking my body to think that it needs to unlock the fat storage, then I eat only about 500 calories a day, which forces my body to actually use the fat storage. Note, that this is different than a starvation diet because with a starvation diet, your body will use the "normal" fat and then start breaking down muscle. With this diet, you only use the "abnormal" or storage fat and to test this, I took a urinalysis test every morning to verify that I wasn't losing protein. Also, this makes the diet self-limiting, in that if a person were to lose all of their storage fat while on the diet, they would become very hungry and have to end the diet.

The results were fast and undeniable. I'm not sure if I would do the diet again, but I am glad that I did it. Here are the links that I read before I tried the diet, in case you want to learn more.

The original ebook about the hcg diet:

http://www.hcgprotocol.com/pandi.pdf

The weight loss story that convinced me:

http://www.myfatcure.com/mystory2/

The source of the spray I used:

http://www.myfatcure.com/blog/how-to-order/

Choosing the Filling

About a year ago, there was enough stress in my life that I developed eczema on the palms of my hands and finger tips. I received a prescription from my dermatologist for an ointment that was to be used sparingly (and easily so, as it was not pleasant). Since then the weak and dry areas have shifted around my hands, but have not gone away because my stresses have not gone away.

However, recently some of the more major stresses have abated and I'm slowly adjusting to the reduced worries that have plagued my mind. I've been asked a number of times lately if I'm relieved that certain changes have occurred and my response has been something like "I'm still getting used to the idea", but as I continued to await the expected relief, it didn't come. Instead, I continued to anticipate the next wrong thing to happen and I continued to stress over the issues that remained.

In place of feeling relief or joy at my freedoms or triumphs, I only felt an emptiness and eventually I began to wonder why the now empty space inside me that had been so bitter wasn't filling with sweet goodness by itself. I started to question my ability to be happy and thought perhaps I had been altered by my years of fretting.

And then I remembered something that happened to me a few years ago that was perhaps one of the most profound things to ever happen to me.

When I was a late teen, one of my friends had a conversation with me where I was asked why I believed in God. I discovered then that my belief was not founded in something I could easily defend and as such, my faith was shaken. For years I continued to search for my truth, but in the end I finally determined that I must choose to believe in God if I have the desire.

So now, I’m faced with the amazing potential for options to fill this void that with any luck will continue to be left behind from the reduction of stress. I recognize that I must seize this opportunity and not just wait for the happiness to come, I must choose to be pleasant and enjoyable, I must exercise my smile and look for ways to assist others in finding delight in this world.

“You just think happy thoughts. They lift you into the air.”

–Wendy from Peter Pan

Blessed

I feel the need to take a moment to step back and appreciate my life. I've been going through a difficult time recently (and I can take the blame for a good portion of it). That said, it hasn't been easy and I couldn't see an easy way out, so for a little while there, I just shut off into myself. I stopped talking and I stopped feeling. I've been working to change that, to open back up and reemerge, but it's a slow process.

This weekend, I had a beautiful reminder of fact that I still have friends and family that love and support me. I have not been forgotten. So simple, yet so powerful. I'm starting to feel like everything is going to work out and it'll be okay. The journey isn't over, but a new day is dawning, and what a glorious sunrise.

Okay, so technically this is a sunset, but I took the picture with my phone the other day because it was so nice. Of course, the picture doesn't do the sun justice, so you'll have to use a little imagination...

Old and New

Today marks one year at my new job. I can't believe how quickly it has gone by, but a day turns into a week, which turns into a month, and before you know it, the year has passed. I still love my job and I know that there are so many more things that I can and will be doing.

Today also marks another significant change. Today, my personal business is officially dead and we are signing the lease on a new adventure. There has been much heartache and contemplation, but this change will be for the better.

Heart Adventure

I read a book recently, which talks about relaxation and visualization to reduce stress and reach goals. One of the exercises in the book goes something like this...

Imagine you wake up on a beautiful morning in a castle somewhere. The sun is shining and a warm breeze is blowing. You have no pressure and no deadlines, plenty of money and your family is taken care of. A servant brings you breakfast and asks you what you want to do today...

Now you're supposed to take a moment and really feel your answer. I've asked this to a few people and most of the answers (that weren't "I don't know") were pretty simple things like "read books" or "sleep all day", but the whole point of the exercise is to get a feel for what your heart wants to do. Whatever your answer is, you're supposed to figure out how to do that thing, and sooner than later.

I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat wondering what my heart desired to do on a perfect day, huh? Well, when I went through the exercise, the first thing I thought of was "let's go hang gliding!"

I didn't think much of it at the time, but less than a week later, a hiking/outdoor group that I belong to (meetup.com) posted a tandem hang gliding meetup. I figured, even if it wasn't "a sign", it was at least a opportunity for me to do something that I would enjoy. I signed up, and today was the day.

A two and a half hour drive and getting up at 6AM was well worth it. No mountains there, so we get to height by being towed up by a little one-person, sport airplane. A great temperature and thin clouds at about 3000 ft, was just fine for being towed up and dropped off at 2500 ft.

It was wonderful. Very windy, but that was okay. It took about 5 minutes to climb to height, were it felt like we were attached to a big kite (essentially we were). Then, we cut loose and suddenly we went from going-up to going-down. That was a touch startling, but not bad. Then we got to steer around the sky and gracefully float down for about a 15 minute ride. The best part was when we'd pull up a little into a "stall" and then catch and start down again. It was the little butterfly-in-the-stomach feel. But the actual ride felt very safe because of the harness that we were strapped in with cradled my whole body and just made me feel like I was on a windy hammock.

And of course, it was over much too quickly.

Was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again? I'd like for it to be closer and/or cheaper, but I certainly would love another opportunity. Simply marvelous.

Social Standards

Last week I went to a water park with some friends. We spent half the day, walking around in our swimsuits, surrounded by a bunch of other people walking around in their swimsuits. The longer we were there, the more obvious it became to me that there is a real separation between what is considered "decent" in normal public places, and the magical world that is connected to water activities. It is, not only completely socially acceptable for people to take off most of their clothes and wear what would normally be covered only by underwear, but it is expected. I'm not sure if it was more disturbing to be seeing more of all the total stranger's bodies, or the exposed skin of someone I have to interact with again. For example, I now know that one of my friends has a good-sized mole on the back of her leg, just below the underwear line. I would not know this, if we weren't walking around, in broad daylight, wearing brightly colored, spandex underwear... oh, I mean swimsuits.

I recognize that this is a widely held social standard, but stay with me for a minute. Imagine that you were home, and you had house guests over. You go change clothes in your bedroom, but they didn't know and accidentally step in to find you there in your underwear. Apologies and embarrassment would likely follow. Now, imagine those same house guests, join you to go swimming. Everyone takes of just as much clothing, if not more, and suddenly it's okay?

I suppose this is just the tip of the iceberg though. For example, why is it okay for men to expose themselves while urinating in a public restroom, but the toilets are separated by thin little walls? I'm not saying that all social standards should be abandoned, nor am I saying that we need to go back to the days of swimming fully clothed. I suppose I'm not really sure what my conclusion is... just that people are strange and the larger the group, the more odd they become.