Gussacks, I have an announcement to make:
It has officially been one week since I quit smoking. (Update: Now on day 9!)
The negative feelings, the self pity and sense of being deprived, continue to plague me. But the positive feelings about what I’ve done for myself continue to grow, and are winning out. At the end of this momentous week, I feel like I’ve turned a corner. Quitting smoking is no longer something I did because I felt like I had to. It's now a joyful new discovery about one of the many ways I could be living a far happier life than I have been.
Many of you may have similar feelings, so this won’t seem so amazing until you get an idea of where I was before. I loved smoking, and smoked a lot. I was that person who could smoke while eating. I was that person who wouldn’t ride in a car with a nonsmoker. I was proud of it, too, and was a loud defender of my rights as a smoker. I enjoyed smoking so much that the huge place it occupied in my life wasn’t just a matter of the addiction, it was a conscious choice.
So how did I get here, just one week later? There are some specific reasons, and that’s what I’d like to share with you after the fold.
GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or thinking of quitting, please -- join us! You can also click the GUS tag to view all diary posts.
Week One: I Am What I Eat
In the first diary I wrote for GUS, I summarized some of the strategies I was finding useful at the beginning of my quit. The fourth of these was buying healthy foods that took time and effort to prepare, and being conscious of my diet in general. Part of the rationale for this, of course, was trying to avoid that 8-10 pounds of "quit weight" that statistics said were in store for me. But more importantly, it was a strategy to help me navigate my day without cigarettes:
4) Give yourself something positive to focus on. By getting all that food I had to prepare and being aware of how I was eating, I was able to concentrate on what I was doing to be healthier, and not on what I was not doing (smoking). I made sure I would have no time to pace the floor and fantasize about cigarettes.
Not only did this approach prove effective, it has steadily grown into something more. I’m experimenting with all sorts of ways I can make a healthier life for myself, and discovering that I like it! Quitting smoking is no longer a fire breathing dragon filling my entire field of vision. It’s a part of something much bigger that I’m doing – something fun, educational, productive and fulfilling. Rather than write some long narrative about it, I thought I’d just share with you a few of the discoveries I’ve made. Maybe some of my fellow Gussacks will make a discovery of their own today!
A Great Book Find: What to Eat by Marion Nestle
I’ve always been conscious of the political ramifications of my food choices. I buy organics, choose Fair Trade Certified when available, and buy as local as I can. But I’d never really given much thought to nutrition before. I spent an hour on the floor of a book store looking for the perfect guide for the rank novice. I found it in What To Eat by Marion Nestle. As a nutritionist and a food politics activist, Ms. Nestle is uniquely positioned to help people like me. Marion blogs at Food Politics, so some of you may be familiar with her. For those of you who aren’t, join Marion in the dairy aisle for a quick primer on milk choices (skip to about 3:00 if you just want to bust a groove with the Organic Valley rap):
The book is a simple, comprehensive guide to food choices that pulls together the politics and the nutrition science in an idiot proof way. Picture me in the coffee aisle: "Oooh, organic. But wait, this one is Fair Trade Certified. Does that mean it’s shade grown? It doesn’t say on the package. Hey, this one is Rain Forest Alliance Certified – what does that mean? Wait a minute – should I even be drinking coffee? Is caffeine bad for you or not?" So many uncertainties about such a simple decision. Ms. Nestle sorted it all out for me.
I’ve been to the supermarket three times since I quit smoking, and each time is more enjoyable. (That means a lot coming from someone who used to hate shopping. I have actually skipped meals on occasion simply to avoid going to a store.) Now I understand, really understand, what I’m seeing on the shelves. I’m having fun looking for the best products and making plans for what I’m going to do with them when I get home. Thanks, Marion!
Must See TV: How To Cook Your Life
My mind had been groping at something, something just on the edge of my awareness, for several days. There was more to this "healthy eating" thing I was playing around with than just good health. After watching How To Cook Your Life (link to Netflix, available for instant view), I think I know what it is. Americans treat food as merely a fuel. How much we’re missing! How we sustain ourselves is, or should be, a huge part of what it means to be alive. It’s at the center of so much of our social lives and relationships. It determines our relationship with the rest of the natural world. It shapes how we see ourselves and can make the difference between a life joyfully lived and a life merely expended. Master chef and Zen priest Edward Espe Brown introduced me to a new way of approaching food. The trailer:
For my breakfast today, I had a fresh, perfectly ripe, locally grown peach, cut up and drizzled with organic vanilla yogurt, and sprinkled with a little wheat germ. It wasn’t just delicious, it was an event. I pictured the tree it might have come from. I imagined a cow grazing in a field of clover. Then the cow was grazing under the peach tree. Just over a hill, I could see a golden field of wheat. I was eating all of these things. The idyllic image in my mind wasn’t real, of course. But that wasn’t the point. For the first time I could remember, I was eating something joyfully, with mindfulness. I felt profoundly aware of my connection, through my food, with the world around me. I felt humbled, and thankful.
These are feelings you can’t get by snarfing down a Pilsbury Toaster Strudel while checking your e-mail, watching the news, and whatever other activities you can perform with your free hand. That’s the way I used to eat, and I think that’s true of most Americans. Maybe we put so many flavor enhancers on our food because we can’t taste it any more unless it’s shouting at us, "Salty! Sweet! Spicy! Eat, eat, eat me!" And how sad that we’ve all found an extra hour every day to surf the net and text people, but we can’t be bothered to cook. How much of the obesity epidemic in this country has to do with the mindless, profane way we eat?
A Great Man: Masanobu Fukuoka
As a teenager, I read a book by Mr. Fukuoka, The Natural Way of Farming. To this day, my ultimate fantasy is still to be a farmer. Thinking so much about food this week renewed my interest in Mr. Fukuoka’s work. After all, there’s a lot that goes on with the food we eat before it gets to the supermarket. Mr. Fukuoka’s method is more horticultural than agricultural (similar practices are often referred to as permaculture). It's about cooperating with one's immediate environment and harvesting the sustinence naturally provided for us.
Here’s a short video from an interview with one of Mr. Fukuoka’s students (and a familiar face). This will give you a better idea what it's about than I could (embedding was disabled since I wrote this diary, follow the link):
Masanobu Fukuoka once said, "Natural farming is not just for growing crops, it is for the cultivation and perfection of human beings." Mr. Fukuoka died last year, at the age of 95.
My New Favorite Book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Saving the best for last, may I humbly suggest that all of you immediately go to your nearest bookseller and buy Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I just started reading this book, and I'm only 100 pages into it as of this writing. But let me tell you, Gussacks, it's all I can do not to abandon you all and run over to the couch to pick it back up. I cried three times in the mechanic's waiting area yesterday. It really is that good. It covers everything about the food you eat -- it's about nutrition, politics, family, farming, and falling in love with the Good Green Earth. Oh, and it's got recipes. Synopsis from the back cover:
"This is the story...of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."
Author Barbara Kingsolver abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life -- vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.
No, this isn't one of those wacky experiments where some guy in an NYC apartment only eats things he can grow on his patio, and ends up barely surviving after a long winter eating refrigerator mold. It's about a family trying to reclaim a food culture that's been taken from us by modern agribusiness. Just a woman, a man, two kids, and a farm. The book is so great, as a matter of fact, another family took it upon themselves to write a song about it:
The book has also inspired a website. Check it out if you've been thinking about taking the locavore challenge yourself!
Old Favorites:
Here are a few other books and movies that I’ve enjoyed over the years that now have a renewed interest for me. I hope you’ll share yours in the comments!
Books:
Diet For a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe
Recipes For a Small Planet by Ellen Buchman Ewald
(Both of these books are older classics, popular enough I hope to be in updated editions.)
Movies:
King Corn (link to Netflix, available for instant view): Watch the journey of corn, the "king" of modern agriculture, from seed to waistline.
Super Size Me (link to Netflix, available for instant view): You may never eat a Happy Meal again.
Until this week, food has been a necessary evil in my life. It costs money, it requires work, and it’s always trying hard to make you fat. If you’re lucky, it might taste good. I’m working hard on developing a new relationship with food – where food is an ally in building a healthy, happy life. And now that I’ve quit smoking, I’ll actually be able to taste it!
For those of you who did not have the opportunity yesterday, please take a moment and visit the memorial post for our own Arthur Wolf. His daughter, Samantha, was also gracious enough to post a final diary from her Dad, here. Arthur will be missed. May he rest in peace.
Current members of the GUS team! Please post a comment if you would like to join, or if your name is here in error:
1BQ, 3rdGenFeminist, Abra Crabcakeya, addisnana, amk for obama, Anne933, aoeu, ArthurWolf (in memoriam), awkawk, bamablue, barnowl, bgblcklab1, Bike Crash, BirderWitch, blue husky, Blue Intrigue, bluestatedem84, BoiseBlue, breedlovinit, BrowniesAreGood, bsmechanic, burrow owl, Chocolate Chris, ChurchofBruce, coppercelt, dadanation, dangoch, donnamarie, DRo, duckhunter, Everest42, Fineena, flumptytail, FrugalGranny, greylox, gchaucer2, grndrush, Im a frayed knot, Indexer, interceptor7, inventor, itsbenj, jvolvo's Mom, jwinIL14, kai99, khloemi, Khun David, labwitchy, ladypockt, langerdang, LarsThorwald, Last Starfighter, Lipstick Liberal, lmdonovan, luvsathoroughbred, maggiemay, magicsister, marknspokane, Mikeguyver, Minerva1157, MinervainNH, nannyboz, ncsuLAN, Nick Zouroudis, one pissed off democrat, Ordvefa, Pennsylvanian, post rational, revelwoodie, rosebuddear, SallyCat, seenaymah, Scrapyard Ape, sheddhead, smartcookienyc, spmozart, triciawyse, trueblueliberal, Turn VABlue, uc booker, Unduna, Vacationland, webranding, weelzup, Wood Dragon, x
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The GUS Library
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NEW RULES: If you are looking for a current diary and the schedule has an open or snark entry, it is a go for it, first posted, first commented on situation.
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For those of you who made it to the end, here's a bonus vid to celebrate my one week anniversary:
Update 10:15 AM Eastern: Well, I'm off to start my day (a little late). I'll check in later for diary volunteers and new group members -- post a reply to the tip jar if you would like to be one or the other!