I’m writing more about health, and I’m going to try to stay on topic today. That’s probably not going to happen, but I like to have goals. Hope springs eternal and all that. Here is my post from yesterday.
I will say before I get started that I’m still working on the Cane Form with my new shiny saber. I polished up the second row (out of four) because there’s a move that I was having issues with while using the cane. It’s a simple block the leg move, but you can add a twirl to it. I like to add the twirl, but I felt as if I was doing it wrong. Watching my teacher’s teacher do it with the saber clarified what I was doing wrrong, and now I can do it with relative ease.
I gave myself a week to learn the third and fourth rows because they are a bit mor ecomplicated than the first two (especially the fourth row), but I don’t think that will be necessary. I got the third row with ease in two or three goes, and I’m optimistic about the fourth.
My god. My biceps are getting really hard. I have always been proud of my guns, and that pride has only grown now. My new saber is hefty, and it feels so good in my hand. I still don’t love the Saber Form, but I’m more positive about it than I have been in the past.
Back to health in general. I am trynig to cut down on how much I DoorDash, but it’s hard when it’s right there. In fair disclosure, I ordered tonight, but I did not feel good about it. I hate cooking. I hate it so much. There is nothing enjoyable about it to me, and if I never have to do it again, that will be way too soon.
I can do simple things like cooking pasta and throwing sauce, cheese, and veggies on it. I can bake a pizza, too, but that doesn’t mean I can make one. I have thought about going back to baking, but I’m not sure I want to do that if I’m trying to be healthier.
I think I have to go back to the basics. I can get a rotisserie chicken a week and then make salads and sandwiches to eat. Along with the pasta. These are very simple dishes, and I can throw any manner of veggies on top of them. I don’t mind eating the same food several days in a row, either. It’s just that when it’s six or seven, my lizard brain says, “Hey. I can just order from DoorDash, and it’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
Anything I make is going to take more effort than that, if not more time. And I am all about saving energy. Or rather, not expending more energy. I am big on inertia, and it takes a lot to get me to move. I really wish I could be more of a self-starter, but that’s jsut not me.
I think, once again, I have to make the decision to implement changes one by one. I get overwhelmed when I think of all the things I want to do. That’s only not true when it’s learning different forms, for whatever reason. I can learn several at a time, but I have to be careful to retain it. When I was watching my teacher’s teacher’s video on the Cane Form, I had to rewatch that twirl three or four times in a row because I would immediately forget it as soon as I watched it.
That’s my medical crisis, by the way. I used to have a great memory, buut I’ve accepted losing it as a trade-off for being alive. I get impatient with myself now and again when I forget something immediately after I read it/hear it/watch it. But knowing it’s not my fault goes a long way to mitigating the frustration.
Back to eating. I am not going to cook for myself; I am just not. I can try to fool myself, but that’s not going to happen. I think it’s better to accept the truth–I’m not going to cook. I just am not. Then I can think of reasonable things I might do instead of cooking elaborate meals.
Here’s an example of me wishful thinking. My brother extolled the virtues of the Instant Pot (which for some reason I called the Instapot. This was before my medical crisis). I bought a personal one and found out to my dismay that it was way more involved than I imagined it would be. What my brother didn’t tell me and what none of the websites on Instapots I read told me was that you have to already be a good cook in order to decipher how to use an Instapot. In addition, they never counted pre-heat time, letting out steam time, or anything other than strict cooking time.
I got a recipe book for ‘easy’ recipes that was included when I bought the Instapot. There was a recipe for Kahlua pork (or something like that. Not actually Kahlua). It was four ingredients, and they claimed it was so easy. They lied.
First of all, all the recipes were for a family of at least four. I am a family of one. I did not need ten pounds of pork. I quartered the recipe, but that was still a lot of meat. I had to brown the meat before putting cooking it. The Instapot said itcould brown the meat, but I found it easier to do on a skillet on the oven. And burned the hell out of my arm. Then it had to simmer for an hour or so. All told, I probably spent two hours on it.
Now, granted, some of that was because I am a terrible cook. But still. It was not the fifteen/twenty minutes that the recipe promised me it would be. In talking about it with my brother, he said of course you still had to do the prep like it was so obvious. Which it wasn’t to me. When it came down to it, the only thing the Instapot did was cook the meal a bit faster. Which was the least of my worries!
I’m done for now. I will write more tomorrow. I promise that I will (try to) get to what I actually want to write about–which is eating more healthily. It’s a struggle for me as evidenced by the fact that I’ve been writing around it and not about it. I will (most likely) rectify that tomorrow.