Macrobiotic Life

I asked Klara for permission to post her beautiful words:

A couple weeks ago in our shul (synagogue) the rabbi was speaking about what exactly was this Tree that Adam and Eve sinned by eating from. He said there have been many conjectures, but his take was this – it was the Tree of More Than Enough – G-d have given Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden everything they needed for sustenance – but they didn’t need to eat from the Tree of Knowledge – but they did eat and now we “know” but we don’t – we’ve lost the innocence to know what is good for us – and our job now on this earth is to correct that – we’ve gone way overboard and disease and waste and destruction is rampant.

Now some of us are trying to figure out what it is that we really need – and there are wonderful organizations trying to help in all kinds of ways for the big picture. And more and more individuals are trying to change in their own individual lives. I’m glad mb is part of that in some ways – tho it hasn’t declared it quite officially – if there is any official mb stand – I do believe eating every edible part of the plant is part of it, not overeating is part of it, not wasting is part of it, chewing food well to get the most out of it is part of it – that’s in the big picture.

But in the small picture, I, at least, am still challenged – I still don’t know what eating til 70% full means, I still don’t always eat because of hunger, but rather because the food is so delicious, and I still eat much wider than I need to – ah, need? I still need to figure that one out, too!!!

Klara

You can visit her personal blog. Or you can join her Yahoo discussion group MacroloversOfJerusalem.

I am resolved to stop overeating and especially to stop eating all the junk foods I was stuffing into myself the last 3 weeks. I had eaten the worst foods yesterday night, like sausages, cheese, eggs, lard, lot of salt, lot of the cheepest chocolate, ton of honey, all mixed with white bread. I was eating till 23:00.
No I want to eat really strict again. Today I want to eat very small portion of MB meals. Chew very well and not to take anything else than MB foods. Control the yin side (barley malt).
But I have nothing else sweety than barley malt at home now. It would be good to go shoping and have some fruits (raisins, apples), dried soya milk, 100% fruit concentrates etc.
I start to dislike the barley malt more and more. And it’s not satisfiing me enought with the sweet cravings. I crave for honey, but when I start to eat honey, I crave for something stronger, chocolate.. it’s really vicious cycle, that’s not clever to start/open at the first place at all!! And I am really stupid to leting myself to eat honey the last days.
Also I crave for baked products. I should prepare sourdough leaven and do my bread instead of eating the salty graham bread.

Day progress:
It’s 21:00 when I am writing this. The day progressed very very well since far. The first meal I had at 14:00 and only small portion. It was even not salty at all, bland and very watery barley grains. I was whole day consciously observing everything, every thought and watching my hunger like it wasn’t happening to me, but to somebody else. I was trying to observe without the “me, myself” thoughts and tried to enjoy the hungry state. I would like to learn what real hunger really is. Because I am afraid I wasn’t really hungry for a long time. The feeling I consider hunger, is just little voice of my stomach. Another problem I have is to know, when I am full, not even to find out when I am full from 80% only. I am not sure what full (satisfied) for me does mean.
Anyway, I found out perfect, but very simple thing, important for my “home working” life. I don’t understand why it took me so long to connect all the puzzle pieces and realize this. I need movement/exercise/be active to stop the lazy, tired, unconcentrated vicious cycle! Yeah, sounds simple. But I needed to connect it all with the food and yin/yang theories. The physical action is making whole body more yang. It seems in another way than salt/shoyu, because I have no sweet cravings after finished running. Quite the opposite. The digestive system start to assimilate more nutrients into the blood and even when I felt hungry, I feel satisfied after a short intensive physical exercise. So I can prolong my eating and I have even more energy. I can start to concentrate and my brain is freed from the lazy/tired cage.
The perfect concentration and active lifestyle I had around the New Year seems to be not only because of the good quality macrobiotic I was eating, but mainly because I was going to weight-lift to gym (3 times a week) and run (3 times a week). It made my body/thinking active.
I need to incorporate any physical activity as my daily habit. Otherwise I will get stuck in the very bad, lazy state and doing nothing important. Only dreaming and wishing to do something, but without real power to launch things.
For today I was biking quickly for 15 minutes uphill. It started me to feel perfect. And for the dinner I ate small portion of spagheti, with leek+broccoli fried on oil, chickpea paste with little shoyu.

I have new simple quick spagheti recipe also:
- pressure cook chick pea with lot more water (I will use the water as a broth but it’s very tasty for drinking
also)
- saute vegetable for few minutes, add prepared spagheti and saute for few minutes, add broth and boil for a while, add shoyu to taste
- I have crushed hot chick peas to a paste before and I put this paste on top of the spagheti
- something green for a perfect look on top of that

I finished the dinner at 19:30 and because I was having small thoughts about what to eat now, even when I wasn’t hungry at all, I took a walk into the forest. I started to run there and in the end I pushed myself very well and was running really intensive. When came home, no taste other than thirsty. Well done.