Day 17...Surviving the Village

after a huge breakfast of...everyone else's omelets

It's day seventeen, and I would love to say that I made it through our week in Sikkim with flying colors but it was more like... with flying cauliflower.  Sikkim is a little-known formerly-independant kingdom turned Semi-Independant Indian State.  It is developing quickly but there are still many small villages to be found with friendly people, no shops and tons of rice and lentils.   To one very kind lady who was trying to give me rice I said
   
Me:  Hoina...Adja-bholi ma bhaat khaadina...
        No please...These days I am not eating    rice...       
Lady:  Bhaat Kanuhunna?!   Kina?!
          You are not eating rice...Why?!

in Rumtek looking East toward Gangtok, early morning

Me:  Kinabane mero dzyulai break garnu chahanchu.
        Because I want to break my body.
Lady:  Eh?!
           What the...?!
Me (realizing my mistake):  Kinabane chini bata mero dzyulai chutti dinu chahanchu.
        Because I want to give my body a holiday from sugar.

And it did mostly feel like a holiday except whenever sweet sweet sweet chia was served (this was like every 10 minutes or so) and it felt like a scene out of Dante's inferno, you know... hell level seven for people who ate too much sugar... always smelling never tasting.  Not eating rice here was tantamount to self-starvation because honestly... if you're not eating rice... what else is there?  Except for a few sips of chia and a big fried chickpea chip, I made it by toting along cooked cauliflower, boiled eggs, plenty of nuts, and coffee.   The sugar cravings are still bad, today for instance I think I could take down a super sized Hershey's Chocolate bar by myself in under a minute... but I am pushing forward to... fit.

Day 12: Gettin back on the horse...radish

I have begun again.  It is now round two, day 12.  Yesterday I went on a picnic with the family and had rice and chilli-chicken but my rice was actually stir-fried cauliflower.  It's a great substitute.

This time I am going to focus not so much on meat but on volume of vegetables.  I am past the initial sugar cravings and oreo dream sequences, and am pushing forward hoping for the promised tiger blood of days 20-30.  Tomorrow I travel north into Sikkim, which is deep in the bowels of rice and bean territory.  For ensuing battle am arming myself with cauliflower, boiled eggs, nuts, coffee, oreos, fruit and resolve to finish.  Check here for updates as I again attempt to answer the question... will I be fit... or fat?

Digesting the Fit-Fat Experience

My Family and I.

Ignorance Exposed:  I have food domains.  Times, places, feelings, and activities that are married, dating, or at least having a DTR with food.   And not just one or two domains, they are legion, and all have long relationships going way back to those early days when I actually considered Taco Bell to be "food", thought of peanut butter as a substance that I could live on exclusively, and drank more whole milk than your average quarter-ton bovine, and wrote run on sentences that made marathons look like the hundred yard dash.

Laziness Unveiled:  A lot of my eating habits are rooted in laziness.  Cooking real food is hard, it takes time, planning, and makes a huge mess, none of which I like.  And these factors more than any other have conspired together to trace me a meal-path through candy land, or at least carbohydrate land.  Carbs are easy, they have a long shelf life, often require little to no cooking and therefore make very little mess.  And since college, fast, easy and not messy have been my eating mantra, instead of healthy, natural, and hearty.

In my Doggie Bag:  What I am taking home from this meal of discovery is a longing for peace.  Inside a single day I am used to having what could be referred to as "mood swings".  Sometimes, in the morning I am plotting the creation of 100% Green, Trans-Atlantic shipping companies utilizing sail boats and solar power, but that same day in the afternoon I am having trouble whipping up the gumption to take a nap.  I always attributed these manic phases to caffeine but there's no way I'm dropping coffee...(perhaps another issue to explore), but during my fit-fat experiment these emotional rogue waves evened out.  I was more even-keel, I was not too excited or too discouraged, and never ravenous or over filled.  Generally, I was content, I had energy but knew what to do with it. 

Ke Garnu? (what to do?): So although I have certainly caved, I am planning to return to fight another month... perhaps in February of 2013.  So stay tuned, though I am currently pushing back my plate... I am certainly going for seconds.  

And for all you 'Bamas out there... Roll Tide.

Day 11-16...Confessions

chicken doing dishes

I spent some time in a village in Sikkim (a bit father north).  Sikkim is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  It's like Kalimpong but everything is more extreme: the hills are higher, valleys deeper, and during monsoon season there are more landslides than people.  The friends I took with me were all into the kind of diet I am attempting, and several of them had done the Whole 30 a few times, that was encouraging.  But... We were deep in Rice and Lentil territory and so here's where the confession comes in.

from this rock we saw the picture below

I broke it.  I broke the Whole 30... perhaps "smash" is a better word.  I will say that I came prepared to continue but living in the village has it's... challenges.  I never knew where my food was, they kept moving it and eating it.  The police lady in charge of granting me permission to stay in the Dentam District handed me grilled corn and in addition to the fact that it looked delicious, for other reasons I simply could not refuse.  Then of course there's chia which is kind of a meal here 1/3 of which is sugar.  I would love to paint my self as a victim of heartless carb-cannon pirates, but in the end, I choose to stop.

dentam seen from viewpoint shown above

more chiya consumption

I think it was a good call over all since, in order to continue, I would have had to spent the whole day cooking my own special food just for me, and I had many other things to concern myself with, like eight tall, loud, hilarious Alabama Americans (roll tide) living in a Sikkimese village unable to drink the water and in need of toilet paper that I didn't bring, or couldn't find. And so with a little sadness, shame, a deepening belly button, mingled with resolve to begin afresh next year some time, I hereby temporarily declare the answer to this blog's question of whether I will be fit or fat as....   (wait for it)...

drinking Chiya

during a days hike

start 'em young on chiya

our road

fat.

trying our hand at hand grinding corn 

Day 10

My son noticed sugar cane in the veggie market... "look papa sugar cane" he said.  I looked but we walked on looking for mustard greens and squash... then...in the back of my mind this thought came.."sugar cane...now that's a vegetable... Right?"... Oh this sooo day 10.

Day 7

Pre Breakfast Entertainment:  Before we even got into the kitchen this morning we were visited by these traveling minstrels.  They had beautiful voices and were playing a kind of local banjo (this through the eyes of a banjo player).  Made from a single hollowed out tree, and covered with goat skin then strung and played with a bow.  They played three songs.  They come often.  Maybe they like me, or maybe they know that I over pay them by like 5x what they usually get... what to do?

Breakfast: well... you can see for your self... guacamole.

Lunch:  The awesome soup from Red Dragon and some good friends over, they all had chow mein another one of the Red Dragon's specialties.

Dinner:  Oh man, The Kitchen Magician turned a 3.3 kg gourd that I brought home from the veggie market into the best roasted squash that was ever smashed by the hands of men, and chicken and two pomegranates (but I shared with the family) and roasted squash seeds.  

Insights:   In communities where many languages are spoken, like here, sometimes different languages will be used only in specific situations.  For instance people may speak Nepali at home with their family, but Hindi in the market place, and English with their friends.  These are called language domains.  I think I have built food into my life in this way.  I have "eating domains."  Times, places, events, feelings that I associate with hunger but hunger isn't really present.  In college I had a Taco Bell domain, it went like this:  If not in bed by 1:00am then to Taco Bell go.  And a blueberry muffin domain that went like this: if going to general chemistry then two blueberry muffins eat you will.  So how to separate real hunger from these domains eh?  This seems like such a simple matter, it has been a bit... shall I say painful?... nah difficult.  Feeling hungry means almost nothing these days... it could actually mean just about anything from fatigue to fun.

Connections:  One of my favorite things about living in Kalimpong is the connection to creation that I am forced to abide in.  For instance, weather seriously affects my day, because... everyone here basically lives outside, I mean there are houses and everything but nothing like the well-sealed things in the US.  If it's cold I'm cold, if it's wet I'm wet, if the lights go out, I'm in the dark.  This Whole 30 thing has done something similar, I feel more connected to the things God made to be enjoyed and eaten, and I have been reminded that they take work.  I can only eat what happens to be growing... I love that!  In fact it has been one of my tests for discovering if I am hungry or if I have entered into an eating domain.  I ask one question.  Am I hungry enough to cook something?  If the answer is yes then rock and roll, lets munch.  If the answer is no, and a few almonds or a piece of fruit or something won't do... then it's something else masquerading  in a hunger suit.  Show thyself masquerading food domain and be dismissed!

Day 6

Breakfast:  This is the first hard day.    I woke this morning wanting everything white, super-processed and sweet, like the french toast Bethany made, but instead I had my usual Guacamole-esque meal with and a huge grapefruit-like thing called a pomelo.  Look at that rind!  It's thick but very spongey, I've even seen these floating at times.

Lunch:  Was just weird.   I had a strange assortment of food, all of which was good, but afterwards I felt odd and still hungry.

Dinner:  Was Awesome!  Through the middle of a power-outage my kitchen magician wife was able somehow to cook beef-stuffed cabbage rolls with "Unknown-Squash Soup"  All of which was amazing with the side of carrot-raisin-walnut salad.  I mean honestly it's like Kitchen McGyver around here, without the dorky mullet of course.

I almost lost it today:  Every time I passed a snack shop and here... they are like capillaries, no matter where you are in your body, you are never far from one.

As for my experience today, the pathos, I think requires poetry... enjoy.

Out of an ocean of coffee

Crawling on diced veggie sand

Traversing the dessertless desert

For to go to a healthier land.

The egg yolk sun making thirst that 

Dried milk-oasis won't slake

Cabbage tumbleweeds crossing my path

Through this carbo-less wasteland I take

The Oreo Cactus it taunts me

Blue package and white stuff they call

But the quills of resolve they will stay me

These 30 days I want them all..........................................