Well, it's July 3rd. If you know what Mondo Samu is, or who you think he is, then you probably already know my history and all about my old blog. If you're new here you may be wondering what/who the heck is all this about. Either way, go back and read this post to get caught up. Then come back here....I'll wait....
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You're back! Great...let's get started. Again.
So if you read that post, or the handful of others from 2019, you may be thinking "wow, he was back on track with his exercise and working on it...wonder what went wrong?"
Well, you see, there was this little thing called the Covid19 Pandemic. Lots of things happened. Lots didn't. And in the blink of an eye...here we are. The year is 2021 and we are MAYBE just starting to emerge from this pandemic. Don't get me wrong, it's still very much active. But vaccinations are slowly happening, and life is becoming again. Not returning to normal. That's not a thing. But it is becoming. Becoming a somewhat familiar-feeling, but entirely new, thing.
Anyhow, this isn't about the pandemic. It's about fully embodying my dharma practice. If you caught up on the blog, you know that I was already living a pretty great life in 2019. Practice was strong, except I wasn't sure what - if any - direction I was headed in terms of teaching. I had somewhat accepted that I was a teacher and I was slowly accepting what that meant for me sans the "official" training I thought I needed to wear that title. Health was great, except I wasn't exercising steadily which had resulted in gaining back half of the weight I lost when I discovered the dharma 11 years ago today...ten at that time.
So I had rebooted the blog to help myself get back on track, and I had blown out the old posts to keep from limiting myself to being a "diet blog" but to instead live up to the name I had given it. Mondo -- a sort of discussion between a teacher (all of us) and a student (also hopefully all of us) about the work or service we do. It was never meant to be my name...but it kind of became that as well.
And here we are. Now...I'm happy to report that at that time I had gained over half the weight back, but after a year and a half of sitting on my but all day at home I have lost about half of that half! How did I lose weight while also doing nothing remotely resembling exercise?? Well, it was a breeze. I changed my job criteria from world travel and eating out all the time to working and eating at home. Doesn't exactly seem like a recipe for weight loss, right?
I think this is a very important lesson though. What could be at the root of losing weight when you sit on your but and don't travel?! Something that is huge...no pun intended. Restaurants everywhere, at least in America, give us SIGNIFICANTLY more food than we need to eat in a single meal. And even when you eat healthy vegan or vegetarian foods, if you're eating way too much of it...you will gain weight, of course. Which is NOT mindful eating, by the way.
So what this shows me is that. when I was on the road, I was eating significantly more food than I needed because I was eating mindlessly and not wanting to waste food. If my OLD blog was still around you'd see that that was a major factor in how I lived a life of largess in the first place.
So for a world crisis that changed many things and had many far more horrible outcomes, this was one thing - among many - that I actually benefited from during this last 1.5 years of weirdness.
Now...let's try this once more. I'll try to keep posting about both health and dharma (which are really the same, after all) and we'll see how this goes. Today, on the 11th anniversary of me discovering the dharma and turning my life around...I'm also re-reading "Savor" By Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lilian Cheung. For probably the 11th time as well. I hope you'll find something useful for you or someone you know in these posts and I look forward to seeing what comes next!
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