Zig Zag Zen Diet
Don’t ask me why but many years ago I went on a fast. No solid food, only liquids. It wasn’t that I wanted to lose weight or purge toxins, just decided to see what fasting would be like, go without for a few days, experience a yogic mind over body experiment maybe. Mostly I was hungry the first couple of days but that subsided although I sure thought excessively about eating. I told myself it was good to deny myself that pleasure, actually that necessity, but I never intended to fast longer than a week, if that.
Once, earlier on a solo summer’s road trip back in 1976, I lived on a few nuts, some raisins and a handful of Triscuits. By the end of that 3 months, down from 175 or so to 135 pounds, all fat gone, I was just a skinny 6’2” 26 year old who could hike barefoot and run across gravel. Maybe I was training to be a Buddhist monk or something, but not consciously. Mostly I was testing myself but hell if I could tell you for what.
This past month I’ve been doing something similar, stopped drinking, cut way down on eating, quit the homemade bread, exercised more and dropped, so far, 27 pounds, nearly a pound a day. Maybe I just want to lose weight, maybe go on the wagon awhile, maybe just prove to myself I have the will power to push limits. I am, after all, an old man of 76, easy enough to ease into geriatric complacency, stick to old habits and routines and tell myself it’s too late to change much of anything anyway.
Besides, life is good, no need to upset the apple cart looking for an imagined bruised one. Next thing you know, I’ll be planning a pilgrimage to some Holy Land, Stanwoodopolis or Smokey Point, find myself a Zen Master, take a vow of silence, live in a cave and meditate all day long, write koans and listen to the sound of one hand clapping.
On the other hand, maybe I just wanted my pants to fit without buying a wardrobe one size larger, no need to turn this into a metaphysical quest. And sure a lot cheaper than paying prescription prices for Ozempic. Big Pharma has enough profit already.
Tags: Dieting the Old Fashioned Way, Losing Weight the Hard Way, Non-Ozempic Diet