Month: January 2014

The No Sweets Diet

Today I swiped The No Sweets Diet habit in the Lift app for 15th time in a row. This is some significant achievement for me, who loves eating. In another 13 days I would have contributed my bit to the “world’s largest crowd-sourced randomized diet trial ” a.k.a. The Quantified Diet Project.

Why do you have to diet?

Just like that. Just for fun. There is no compelling reason for my participation in this diet. I never dieted in my life earlier so I just want to test myself if I can be on diet for a stipulated time. So I picked what I believed is the simplest diet to stick to. And then, this contribution to the bigger goal thing.

How difficult is this diet?

I found this diet to be very easy to follow. In fact, I expected this diet to be the simplest and easiest to follow of all the 10 available options. After 15 days, it proved to be so. Because I just don’t have to eat sugary stuff. I can still eat nuts, savories, chips, meat etc. And trust me, zero sugar coffee is not really bad.

Though it was a bit difficult ( or even rude) to say no to all those chocolate cakes, cookies, treats and post-biryani cokes, I think it is not impossible. It is also very well worth it because at the end of every day I had that much less unnecessary sugar in my body.

I feel slightly bad about not yet being able to put my tongue on some of my faves like Giapo, Whittaker’s and Hide n Seek Fab in the new year. Nevertheless, if Whittaker’s are selling since 1896, I don’t see any reason why they can’t continue to sell for another 13 days and beyond. I am sure, so will be the case with other stuff that I am missing temporarily.

What are the advantages of this diet?

Besides much touted advantages of eating sugar free, most importantly, I became more mindful about what I put in my body. Every time I eat something (sugary or sugar-free) , I pause and think a bit rather than mindlessly stuffing the food. This is an important positive change for me.

What next?

I am going to continue the streak for the next 13 days which will give me the satisfaction of finishing something that I started and contributing to the project that matters.

The idea of this whole exercise is not to eat sugar-free for the rest of my life. That is not practical and unsustainable for someone like me who has year’s worth of bad momentum.

It only means now I became more mindful about sugar and junk. Therefore I am less likely to eat them every time. Perhaps I will eat sugar selectively rather than hog any candy, cookie or cake that comes my way.

Essays

On Giving

Today I read thank you cards from a couple of families to which, a group of amazing individuals I have been fortunate enough to be part of, made a difference in the just ended festive season.

Some of those messages were written by little hands. Their gratitude moved me. And made my day. At the time of doing the work, I never thought that result of our efforts would be this much gratifying. It only cost each one us, puny money and a couple of hours of time. But the collective effort of our awesome team happened to be far reaching.

I have been involved in some charities in the past but this particular giving experience is not something I came across so far in my life. In this setting, both the donor and donee remain anonymous to each other. We only knew our beneficiaries by their first name and age so we could buy fitting presents. The idea is to NOT to make the children feel like some random group of individuals donated stuff to them but to project the whole thing like Santa and his helpers brought them presents and other goodies. The quality of presents was on par with the stuff we would buy for our own children.

Festivals and holiday season is not necessarily a good time of the year for everyone. The air does not always bring cheer to everybody. For many unfortunate families (with children especially), this season can be very stressful given the expectations and burden festivals bring along. So it feels good to do something about it.

No single person or group will be able to help unfortunate life situation of every needy family, everywhere in the world. So the point is not doing nothing or everything but to do something, sometimes at the least.

[The point of this post is to commemorate the amazing feeling I experienced today after reading thank you cards hand written by children. Not the public display of charity.]

Journal

Strawberry Picking

Post author By Chaitanya
Post date January 12, 2014

This summer we hoped to visit strawberry farms around the city to experience PYO ( pick-your-own). Although we don’t particularly like eating strawberries, we figured it would be a good outing doing something fun with our little one. So I searched for any farms that are offering PYO around the city. Google suggested a couple of farms, one of which is very close to the city which is why I deliberately avoided it. So we choose another farm located a bit farther west named Phil Greig Strawberry Gardens.

This garden is right on the state highway 16 en route to Kumeu. It is very easy to identify the place with big enticing hoardings advertising PYO, ice cream, smoothies and coffee. There is a plenty of parking available. Entry costs $7.5 upfront per adult which includes the first KG of picking. Children under 12 go for free. We are allowed to eat the fruit while picking. Any picking that weighs more than a kilo should be paid for at the rate of $7.5 per kilo.

After paying the entry fee, they give a bucket wrapped from inside with a polythene cover to collect the picked berries. The farm is quite big with so many rows of plant beds so it has plenty of space for everyone. There are good number of fellow pickers mostly mums and dads with their children, spread across the farm. Thanks to today’s temperate weather.

While entering I was a bit skeptical about finding the berries as I learned that they allow PYO only after the major crop has been harvested. However I became excited after finding the first couple of berries. The pathway between the plant beds is very narrow so had to walk a bit carefully. The berries are mostly concealed under the leaves. There are berries of all sizes including some unripened green ones and flowers. The small red berries are really sweet. In fact, I don’t particularly get excited about eating strawberries but those tiny ones made me rethink. After about an hour and covering many rows of plant beds, we collected almost 2 kilos of fruit so we didn’t need to pay anything extra.

While leaving we stopped by the enclosed ice cream shop . All the ice cream is strawberry flavoured. Though I could not eat due to my participation in The Quantified Diet Project, my wife and son had it. Apparently the ice cream is good but not good enough to break my streak. So I saved my ice cream for later.

So that’s our first time picking experience. It is so much fun to pluck the fresh and live fruit off the plants. Most importantly our little one enjoyed a lot pointing the berries and asking us to pick. The aroma of farm fresh strawberries is awesome. We definitely look forward to do this next summer.