3rd week of my crash diet

I lost another 2 kgs bringing my weight to 80 kgs. I am now able to vigorously exercise on treadmill for more than 15 minutes. However I now get so tired that I don't have the strength to exercise at the end of the day.

The exercise regimen and the deliberate cutting of my diet keeps me hungry most of the time. I think the hunger is causing sleep disturbances. Due to that, I found one day my BP to be touching 146/84. The simple truth is that I have to somehow find a way to get good night's sleep to control my blood pressure.

I would like to keep shedding off kilos till I reach 77 or 78 kgs. Then I would begin to take more food and add more exercise so that I can maintain that weight. I hope to achieve that by end of next week. I will tomorrow head for another round of blood test to see where my glucose levels currently stand. That would give me a solid idea of whether my diet plan is working.

second week of my crash diet

The treadmill has been chugging along carrying on its belt its unwilling passengers. Actually I am the most unwilling to step on it. Kushagra is always ready to jump on the conveyor belt and start running on it. Some days back he ran on it with its speed set to 14 kmph. He ran for almost 2 minutes. WOW!

Anyways, now that I have settled in some kind of routine, the diet and the exercise regimen are not that bad. I have already lost some weight. Yesterday I noticed that I have also lost some inches. A t-shirt that was too tight for me suddenly fitted me to a T. With the excessive weight gone and the muscles getting the exercise they sorely needed, I feel like a new man. I can now hop, skip and jump. 

I didn't lose weight this week. That is the saddest part of it. I will keep on running and jogging. Perhaps now the actual battle begins.

My high blood pressure has come down mostly but I still see readings beyond 140. On monday 14th, at around 7 PM, I got the reading of 147 by 86. That explained why I was feeling irritated and angry. On Tuesday 15th, I took the reading at the same time and I found the reading to be 126 by 82. I have to find a way to keep the blood pressure from fluctuating so much. I have now started to drink lemon juice in  the morning, especially after taking bath. I have been told that it will be helpful. I don't want to take drugs but I don't want the blood pressure to keep fluctuating. 

I have almost stopped taking sugar in my food. The tea that tasted so tasteless last week now doesn't taste so bad. I still get up every night at around 1 AM. From the net, I learnt that the liver makes me get up. It is busy breaking its cell to generate sugar for me. That factoid has made me anxious. Is my diet plan going to hurt my liver?

first week of my crash diet

I feel tired, constantly irritated. Perhaps it is because of disturbed sleep last night. I woke up at least 4 times between 12 AM and 5:40AM when the alarm woke me up. It was like I would want to sleep but the body would keep me awake. The more I toss and turn, the less sleep I get. The less I sleep, the more irritable I am the next day. That leads to less work and a general feeling of dissatisfaction that permeates my whole world with sadness. The first step towards depression, I am sure, would closely resemble how I feel.

Could it be because of the crash diet that my wife has put me on? The purpose is to make me lose weight, I know and I can very well appreciate it, but I can't bring myself to accept it. I am not hungry but I am tired. My right arm is cramping out. I am unable to keep it on the desk to type. I am unable to give it rest. Two days back it was my right leg that was cramping up. What is going on with my body?

The first three days were horrible. I have cut down on my chapattis and completely stopped taking sugar. The taste of everything seemed to be off. But now after almost one week, I have forced myself to develop the taste of less sugar. I have also started an exercise regimen. I force myself to walk at least 2000 steps every day.

The result has been outstanding. I have lost 2 Kgs weight in the very first week. I now have to force myself to lose 5 kgs more and then I will be quite close to my ideal weight. I need to take another blood glucose test by March end. Keeping my fingers crossed!

my struggles with high blood sugar and high blood pressure

At the outset, I need to clarify that I pretend to meditate. Every morning I sit on my mat, crosslegged (rather my own variation that puts one leg on top of another) and I pretend to empty my mind. I focus on my breathing and sometimes on the patch of the sky that is visible from my vantage point. I try not to think of anything and if some thought arises I gently kick it back to its hiding hole. Every single time, this session ends with me having murderous thoughts. I believe I must have killed at least 20 people violently in my reveries. Then I get up and marvel at the time spent in this foolishness.

I always used to believe that apart from sinusitis, because of a deviated nose septum, I would not be getting any other dreaded disease. Turns out, I was wrong. Last week I was diagnosed with high sugar level in blood (making me a fit case for pre diabetes)  and high blood pressure. For the record, my fasting blood sugar level was 121 (max is 110) and after eating blood sugar level shot up to 175 (max is 140). The blood pressure stood at 150/80.

Holy Moley! I was walking a death trap. The high bp could have caused some capillaries to burst inside my head killing me on the spot. The high sugar level could have corroded away my kidneys. All the time I was smirking while I sat trying to meditate, believing that it would be beneficial, I was simply making a fool of myself. I was not getting any kind of health benefit from it. All that I ever needed to do was to get my sorry ass off the mat and go for a long run or for brisk walk. But I never did that.

Three days back I started on this mission to reduce my blood sugar level and to get my blood pressure in control. I have reduced my diet and I have started to go for walk. The treadmill should arrive within 2 weeks and then I will start vigorous exercises. I will maintain my journal here.

jiddu krishnamurthy's amazing diary

I have been reading J. Krishnamurthy's diary that he wrote around 1961, a series of notes that he left for himself. he could feel benediction all around him, making his mind more alive and more silent. The way he describes the beautiful natural scenes around him took my breath away. I want to be in his place, to feel the strength of the grave mountains, to feel the music of the bubbling mountain spring near his cottage, the dancing of the aspen leaves, the silence of the pine trees, the play of the shadows of the trees and of the hills, the green meadows where cows and sheep grazed. But then I read a passage that said that no event can be truly replicated, that whatever is passed has passed forever and that the mind would always try to compare the new experience with the old experience to mark it as better or worse and my heart despaired. Whatever K. felt during his meditation sessions, I would never be able to feel. Worse, whatever i am going to feel now will be used by my mind in comparing my experiences with the fragments of the experiences shared by K. I feel so helpless right now!

On the flip side, I also see endless opportunities for me to get in touch with the silent benediction that hangs over us, that is all around us, inside the room I am seated, heck even inside of me. The emptiness makes the world full, it makes the whole world move. I am now very interested in knowing more about emptiness but my previous knowledge hampers me, my pseudo knowledge hinders my growth. How can I look for emptiness when all I can force myself to do is to feel the air from the AC vent that is circulating in the room that gets mingled by the breaths of all the people seated here with me, everyone of their breath getting mixed in that air and then getting inhaled by me. If I think properly I believe I have already inhaled the air of my team members here and they have done the same so that all of us know each other intimately, far more intimately that anyone else would know me and yet we are total strangers. We don't know anything about each other and we don't care much about each other's desires or thoughts. I am sure the same would be true for any workplace or for that matter for any family. Even though we like to pretend that we are all strangers we are all so mingled up with each other that for all that it matters we are reflections of same distorted, deformed entity that gets manifested as several of us. These are the thoughts that keep running in my head and they make my head heavy.

I once read somewhere that each thought that arises in my mind is a sign of a desire. The thought is rooted in some desire deep inside me. I may not be even aware of these desires that make me 'me'. I believe that I am just a collection of thoughts or desires coupled with my unique set of experiences. That's all that is there to me. This false sense of 'I' drives me in this world. Even though I love to call it my false self, this is all that I know of myself. I pretend that I am something else than this false self but I don't even know what I am talking of.

The point that I am trying to make is that desires are all the time rearing their heads in my mind. Even when I know that it is a desire that is meaningless (I mean, what will I get from companionship of a young girl?) I am unable to control it. Forcing myself to not look at it only makes it stronger. And I can't act on it. So the entire exercise is meaningless. I am sure if I likewise argue, I can make similar cases for all kinds of desires that I have experienced in all my life. If I look beyond the desires, there is nothing worthwhile to live for. Then I can make an excellent argument for life being meaningless and nihilistic. And yet one part of my mind rejects it. Life can't be meaningless. If a new leaf blade can be so beautiful, so tender, so strong in the same moment, then a human life can be precious too. I just have to look at my son. He is young and restless. his mind is churning with jokes and his games, his concentration has to be constantly brought to the subjects that he is working on, I can't even pretend to think that his life can be meaningless. There is a possibility that he will be able to break free of the distractions of the society and that he might find a way to live his life the way it has to be lived. Heck, If I think of it, my life is not yet done. Even I too have a chance of finding a way ahead. A dream I saw sometimes back told me that I am getting ready for a journey. I just have to make myself ready for it but I don't know how to and it scares me but it also enthuses me. But if I make too many demands from the journey, if I keep too many restrictions, then the journey will become meaningless. I have to empty my mind and for that I have to empty out desires. How do I do that? By trying to look hard at the desires. Is that helping me? Not right now but I will continue to keep looking at it and some day it will make sense to me. Till then I choose to live in constant churning of desires and memories. Till then I choose to suffer. Till then my quest for experiencing emptiness will continue. One day I hope to feel same benediction that graced K.'s house. One day I hope to look at things the way K. used to look at.