soos_mite_ah

Fruits I know in general I don't have a lot of fruits in my diet other than banana and avocado. I don't have anything against fruits. I like a lot of them but I simply don't find myself reaching for them but if its around or someone gives me some, I don't mind having them. The only fruits I really don't like are melons and unfortunately, they are always there in a fruit salad when I try to buy them somewhere. I'm thinking of increasing the amount of variety of fruits I eat on a regular basis to have a little bit more variety and also get some more vitamins and minerals in. Some fruits I instantly thought of that I really like watermelon lychees guavas pomegranate strawberries grapes blue berries raspberries and black berries occasionally grape fruit pineapples (especially when paired with meat or something savory) kiwis apples, oranges, and pairs (but not super often, idk why those always feel kind of basic because they seem like they are always there hahahaha) lemons and limes (This is a little weird but I like to eat lemons and limes just straight up. Like if a couple slices are given to me in a dish I could just peel the outer skin and eat it like an orange. Also I really like this in water. I know people pair a lot of fruits with water but to me lemon/ lime water is the only one that does it for me. I don't think it has any special detox properties but it is just really refreshing) And my college did this thing in the dining hall where they would always 2 large pitchers of water on the side with some fruits in it. They had different fruits every day but my favorite ones were the lemon water, the orange water, and the melon water (I know I said I don't like melons but this is the only place where I actually do like it). Idk, ever since I had to move back into my parent's house because of COVID, I haven't had fruity water and I think part of me just misses it. This is a random note but I also find fruit when they are either in desserts or used as decorations for desserts is so beautiful. To me they make sweets more beautiful (and more appetizing to look at/ taste) than any other elaborate design. And I know they always say that you eat with your eyes first. For example the right cake looks prettier and more appetizing than the left one. I guess fruits as part of an aesthetic just scratches that primal nutritional itch that is in the cave man part of my brain in a way. I also went through this phase as a kid where I watched a lot of baking shows where people decorated wedding cakes in really elaborate and over the top ways. Most of those cakes to me were absolutely amazing and too good to eat because they looked like these amazing sculptures and works of art. But for me, if I were to go all out on a cake, I want all the decorations to be fruits and maybe some flowers. Idk to me fruits just look like these pretty little sparkly jewels I guess because of the vibrant colors. But I don't like fruit when it's directly baked into a cake like Christmas fruit cake. I like it more paired with an airy yet squishy sponge cake or a chocolate cake. Something like the picture below honestly so beautiful to me. I just want to dig in. And I'm not normally like that when it comes to cake. And speaking of desserts and fruits, I always wanted to get one of those edible arrangements where they get you a bouquet of fruits. I might just get myself one of these for Valentines day if I get too impatient in waiting for a relationship. But I normally just stick to chocolate covered strawberries since those tend to be less expensive. I didn't intend for this post to go this direction. I was going to just going to talk about how I want to add more fruits to my every day diet but I got side tracked and I am just having fun at this point. And I think that is very important. I know in a lot of circles that emphasize diet and healthy eating, people harp on this idea of how "food is fuel." I agree with that statement especially when it comes to becoming more mindful of the kinds of foods you eat so you pick options that are more nutrient dense. But as with a lot of things, sometimes I feel that the whole "food is fuel" mentality can go too far in the other direction where people just stop having fun with food. I know I have talked about this elsewhere on my journal but it eventually leads to seeing eating healthy as a chore that you need to do instead of something that can be enjoyed. And in the worst case scenarios, it can lead people to being really strict with themselves and being restrictive to whatever goal they have in mind which isn't sustainable because that can strain a healthy relationship with food and focus too much on the outcome rather than the journey which then in turn can sabotage the creation of healthy habits in the first place.

I'm probably going to take a break from doing these food diary entries for like a week. I'm catching myself get nitpicky on this journey that is intended on improvement over time. Being too rigid and perfectionistic is often a problem for me when it comes to developing a healthy relationship with food. And in order to create healthy habits around food, it's important to go in with the correct mindset as the foundation.

@Husseinisdoingfine The only reason why the fascists and the white supremacists can storm the capitol and get this far is because they are for Trump, Trump is president, and America is more okay with this than leftism. If this was a bunch of leftists or POC, everyone would be dead by now.

That's not what embracing your feminine side is about lmao. It's about being empathetic, gentle, kind, and doing small gestures to show that you care. It's about showing emotional intelligence and being able to be vulnerable / open about your emotions instead of letting toxic masculinity get to you. Those things can help you be more relatable and warm romantically speaking.

This isn't really a "serious emotional problem" but I didn't know where else to put it. This year things have been really rough on my family. We don't really celebrate Christmas like that but I wanted to get my parents something small just to show my appreciation. There is this thing that my dad said he liked and thought was interesting but he never got around buying for a number of years. It wasn't expensive and since I have a small budget I decided to get this for him. My parents gave me some money so that I can buy something nice for myself but since I didn't really want anything for Christmas I decided to spend that money on gifts for them. When I got him this thing he laughed and said "what a waste of money, what made you think I would want something like this?" I told him my reasoning and he basically said it was stupid and to just give it to my mom instead because it is a waste. I know things are really rough on him right now financially because he took a large cut in income and socially since we know a lot of people who lost their lives to COVID but I really wanted to do something small to cheer him up a little. I'm planning on asking him what he would want instead, return what I originally got him and get him something else. I walked away from him for a couple hours and just cried. It isn't that he didn't like it, we all get gifts we don't like sometimes, but because of his attitude. It still makes me really sad thinking about it tbh. This is super small but I don't know why this is bothering me so much. I would really like some insight so I can get over this.

1/4/2020 Food Diary Seriously.... I don't know what it was about the Chipotle veggie bowl but I woke up feeling TERRIBLE this morning. It was the same feelings of lethargy, tiredness, bulkiness, and bloating I felt last night. There was a little bit of nausea thrown into the mix as well. I skipped breakfast because I didn't feel good. I wanted to skip lunch but I decided against it because my body still needs some type of food to function throughout the day. I felt much better after having brunch and a bowl movement (sorry I know tmi), but I still felt drowsy and tired throughout the entire day. Brunch: Spinach and banana smoothie: This has a banana, some unsweetened peanut butter, unsweetened almond milk, a little bit of vanilla extract, and a whole lot of spinach. I didn't feel like eating breakfast or lunch but because I figured I needed something in my body, I decided to opt for a smoothie. That way I could get some food in even though I don't feel like eating solid food. It tasted really sweet despite it not having any sugar because of the banana. Really all you can taste is the banana, the milk, and a little bit of the peanut butter. I added two handfuls of spinach into the mix but in this smoothie, you don't taste the spinach. It just gives it a nice rich green color and some more nutrition. Snack: Chocolate: I did my chocolate haul that I explained in my last post in this journal. I bought all of the chocolate and had a small amount of each. I had one piece of the Mounds bar (so half of it), a few of the chocolate pomegranates, one chocolate orange slice, and half of a square of the Ghirardelli raspberry chocolate. I was going to have the whole square but I didn't feel like it tbh. The Mounds bar was ok. I normally like coconut in sweet things but with chocolate it wasn't all that. The raspberry chocolate was also alright. I think I like raspberry and chocolate together in a cake rather than in chocolate. The chocolate pomegranates were amazing as was the chocolate orange slice. I really liked those two. Dinner: Kale Salad: In this salad I had kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, artichoke and spinach hummus, olives, tomatoes, green onion, flax seeds, bell peppers, tahini, avocado, balsamic vinegar, a couple slices of dried tomatoes, and a very small amount of the green goddess dressing I saved from yesterday. I felt much better after having this salad and a little bit like my usual self. I can see myself feeling better and back to normal by tomorrow. Snack: Egg muffin with spinach, kale, bell peppers, onions, and turkey: I was getting really bad sugar and carb cravings after dinner. It didn't feel like my usual cravings I get now a days when I simply want something sweet. Then I realized that I had no protein today so I popped an egg muffin in the toaster to heat it up and ate that. And as I thought, it helped me satiate my cravings. I noticed that when I get a good amount of fat and proteins, I don't get as many cravings.

Dark chocolate is my go to when I'm having cravings. I absolutely hate white chocolate. Milk chocolate is okay imo. I will eat milk chocolate, but to me it's nothing too special. After watching this, now I'm going to only go with dark chocolate. I'm not here for fake chocolate lmaooooo

Chocolate Haul I am going to try to get over my chocolate cravings. Upon cleaning up my diet I noticed that my sugar cravings, and really cravings in general really decreased. But do still crave chocolate. It's the only food that I really crave. I thought I had a problem with having too much sugar in my diet and then upon doing these regular food diary entries, I realized that I don't have a sugar problem rather I specifically have a chocolate problem. Most of the time when I have something sweet, there is chocolate involved. So I'm hypothesizing that if I take care of my chocolate cravings, I won't really have any problems with sugar like at all. Now, how am I going about this? I did a chocolate haul of sorts where I bought my favorite chocolate and created a small stockpile. When people think of getting over an addiction when it comes to food, people usually think along the lines of getting rid of the food entirely so that it is out of sight and out of mind. In my experience that works in certain circumstances when the reason for the cravings is familiarity. Like in many areas of life, we are attracted to not things that are necessarily healthy for us but things that seem familiar. Therefore once you get rid of the familiarity by distancing yourself from said food, you stop craving it. This method has worked for me in the past with foods like bread, pizza, fried foods, soda, and more. But it didn't work with some foods, namely cheese, chocolate, and ice cream. I felt like I was always craving cheese and chocolate. I also found an alternative way to deal with cravings that don't involve cutting out the food in question. This alternative way involves eating the food you crave until you reach a point where you get tired of it, the food loses it's novelty, and you don't crave it because it doesn't feel special to you anymore. Often times in the beginning this seems like self sabotage because it's like you let yourself go all out with the food you're "not supposed to be eating." You end up shaming yourself and feeling bad which then feeds into the novelty of the food even more because it gets branded as a "guilty pleasure" of sorts. But if you keep eating without judging yourself while being mindful of how the food in question affects you physically, eventually, you're naturally going to want to stop without having to force yourself to stop. That's what I did to cheese and ice cream and now I don't crave them anymore. I still let myself eat these foods every now and then but because the craving aspect isn't there any more, I'm much more in charge of portion sizes because I don't feel this need to binge anymore. I don't feel the need to binge or stockpile anymore because I'm out of the scarcity and restrictive mindset that was creating the novelty factor. I don't judge myself for eating these foods and when I occasionally have a craving, it takes a much smaller amount to satisfy those cravings. Before if I was craving cheese for example, I would have a huge bowl of mac and cheese and if I was craving ice cream for example, I would have a three scoop banana split. Now when I do crave cheese, I'm satisfied with a small square of cheese just to scratch the itch. And when I crave ice cream, I find myself satisfied by eating like half a scoop. I'm trying to do the same method with chocolate, hence why I did a whole chocolate haul. Me going on this chocolate haul isn't one big binge. There is a method to this madness lol. I got one of each of these. Here is the stuff I bought: dark chocolate orange: Since the holidays are done, these oranges are like half off so I got one of those. Dark chocolate pomegranate: I tried the blueberry version of this last month and I loved it but I also wanted to try this out as well Mounds: These are these coconut candies that are covered in dark chocolate. I haven't had these in like a year so I thought I'd get one bar. Each bar has two pieces. Ghirardelli dark chocolate raspberry: These are these dark chocolate squares with raspberry filling. I never had these and I was simply intrigued since I do like raspberry filling and chocolate together. So yeah, I'm going to eat these until my chocolate cravings more or less go away. Given the state of my chocolate cravings, it's unlikely I'll go all out and binge on it right away. Even after I bought it, I didn't have this immediate impulse to just dig in which I noted because prior to my diet change I would have really gone all out and ate most of it by now. I can see myself having like a piece or two every day to every other day or so. I know earlier in this journal when I was trying to get rid of regular bread and cream cheese from my diet completely I would have one slice of French bread with a little bit of cream cheese to get rid of the cravings and within a couple weeks or so, those cravings were completely gone. I can see my chocolate cravings following a similar trajectory.

I just wanted to say I really liked this insight

1/3/2020 Food Diary Ok so today is a bit of a weird day. My dad wanted to take us on a road trip of sorts because he is tired of being stuck in the house all the time so we spent the day on the road, driving for 8 hours, for a total of 600 miles only to come back home at the end of the night. So as a result we had most of our meals outside the house. While eating out isn't a habit of mine, I guess today's entry will shed light on what my preferences for eating out is like. Since I did a lot of eating outside, I'm going to provide the nutritional information I found on each of the things I ordered from the websites of their respective restaurants. Breakfast: 1 banana with peanut butter and cinnamon: We left in the morning but I wanted to get in a quick but very filling breakfast in so that there is one less meal for me to worry about and because I didn't know when we were going to stop for food. I also added some flax seeds since I was sure that I wouldn't get those in any other way. Snack: 3 jalapeno poppers: I got these at Jack in the Box. My parents went through the drive through so they can get breakfast. They kept insisting I get something so I got these jalapeno poppers. They are basically 3 jalapenos that are deep fried and filled with cheese and served with a side of ranch. I haven't had something fried to this extent in a while so I thought why not. Plus it's only 3 small jalapenos so I thought it couldn't hurt. (I know the formatting for the nutrition facts are awful on the jack in the box website. The first image is just to show what the colors mean while the second image has the nutrition facts of what I actually got. The 3 jalapenos I got are is the top row on the second image. I highlighted the numbers.) Lunch: Green Goddess Cob Salad: I got this at Panera bread. It was really good. I only used about half of the dressing that I got (given that the nutrition facts on the site may be a little off since it assumes you used all of the dressing). I'm not sure what was in the dressing but it paired well with the salad which had arugula, romaine, kale, 1 hard boiled egg, chicken, pickled red onion, cherry tomatoes, and avocado. I don't know what it is about salads in restaurants, but to me they always taste better. I thought before maybe it's the dressing but this time I didn't use much of the dressing the gave me. Maybe for this particular salad it's the chicken and the pickled onions. I normally don't add meat to salads at home so there is that. The pickled onions was a nice touch tbh. I really enjoyed that. Dinner: Chipotle Veggie Bowl: On this veggie bowl I got what I normally get from Chipotle which includes a small amount of rice, fresh salsa, guacamole, black beans, fajita vegetables, and a small amount of tomato red chili salsa. This was super filling. This order used to be my go to but if I'm going to be honest, I felt awful after eating this. I felt really bulky, bloated, and lethargic. I felt so tired and sleepy after eating to where I almost didn't write this post. I don't know what it was. I mainly got vegetables. I didn't get a lot of rice but I think that might be the culprit. I haven't had rice in a long time and I guess I always felt this way when I ate rice but I didn't realize it until now because I before I didn't have a period of not eating rice to know better. I had to recheck if rice was gluten free which it is, but I guess I still don't get a good reaction from it. I checked the mirror a couple hours after eating and I immediately broke out so there's that. Over all, probably won't go here for a while. Also their website has a place where you can create your own bowl and check the nutrition on that so I just reentered everything I got and this is what nutritional information they spit out:

God dammit I'm so close. I just want clear skin ???

Small Appetite I am looking at my food diary entry for today and some entries from other days and idk why but it doesn't seem like a lot of food to me. I'm pretty full throughout the day and my portion sizes aren't necessarily huge but part of me wonders, am I eating enough? I guess one of the reasons why I might feel this way is because I don't feel bloated anymore after I eat. I remember before I would feel really full after 2 slices of regular bread to where I felt like I had a food baby, but ever since I cut out gluten, I don't get that reaction anymore. Once I cut out gluten, after my meals I felt full and satisfied but my stomach didn't feel cartoonishly huge if that makes sense. I had to get used to that full yet not bloated feeling and have an eye out for that in order to stop eating because for the longest time I associated feeling bloated with being full. I think that bloated feeling and how I interpreted it for fullness in the past may be the reason why I in a way accustomed my body to get by on less food and therefore unintentionally train myself to have a smaller appetite because I was regularly not eating enough thinking I was full. It might also be how I have been conditioned to think that I don't need that much calories to function. Maybe my perception of how much I don't eat is influenced by how often I don't snack anymore? I used to be a huge snacker who craved food constantly before I made these changes. Or maybe I have this perception in my head of how it's normal to eat a lot of food because the portion sizes in the US are so big to where I can't finish them most of the time? Idk I'm a little confused tbh. I'm still figuring all of this out and that's ok.

1/2/2021 Food Diary I was greeted with a nice juicy pimple this morning from the flatbread I had yesterday. That type of thing definitely gives me negative reinforcement for my unhealthy habits pretty instantaneously. Breakfast: 1 egg with avocado on a gluten free toast with some flax seeds: I was thinking of finishing the egg muffins I had but I really wanted something that tasted fresher so I made a fresh egg, over hard as usual, this morning. I also mashed up some avocados, mixed it with some balsamic vinegar and basil, and put that on a gluten free toast. I feel like I haven't had this breakfast in a while. I'm thinking of eventually doing without the toast in the future, but I'm just trying to use up whatever is in my fridge for now. Lunch: Chicken curry and cauliflower rice: This was the same curry my mom made a week ago or so. I had some cauliflower rice with it which was previously stir fried with bell peppers and onions. I still need to learn how to make this from my mom but I do know that she uses good whole ingredients. Over all, pretty satisfying. Dinner: Zucchini noodles: These zucchini noodles are accompanied by broccoli, shredded carrots, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and bell peppers. I sautéed them in olive oil and added red pepper powder as well as some onion powder. I also added a couple spoonfuls of flaxseeds for an extra crunch.

IDK maybe it's just me but one time I had this realization that a lot of people's personalities, including my own, comes up in very early childhood as some form of survival given the social dynamics in our area and because that happened really early on, so early that most people don't remember it, people just assume that their personality and ego is this fixed thing. That can lead to the conclusion that a VERY large percentage of our personality is learned and shaped by socialization meaning personality being biological isn't as big of a factor. One of the reasons why personality can seem biological is because a lot of people are mainly exposed to their biological parent's growing up in very early childhood and as a result they pick up different mannerism and attitudes early on. I think I remember taking a psychology class where we talked about nature vs. nurture when it came to personalities and while it isn't a clear cut answer, the data heavily supports nurture, while nature can have an impact as well, albeit small. Even if you get adopted kids who were adopted as babies, when they grow up, they are more likely to take on the habits and personalities of their adoptive caretakers rather than their biological parents. There was a really interesting experiment I remember having to learn about that involved these identical twins (meaning there was some form of control in the variable of genetics) who were separated at birth. One twin grew up as a Nazi in Nazi Germany and the other grew up as a Jew. Then years later when they were like 70, they had to meet each other and they had completely different personalities because they had completely different life experiences. But there were some aspects that they had eerie similarities. When they sat down for breakfast, they buttered their toast the exact same way to the point where they looked like they were in sync. There were a couple other really small similarities regarding their habits where they were in sync, I can't remember them off the top of my head, but the overall conclusion was that there is a biological component to habits and personality but they are incredibly small and don't perpetuate beyond shallow little habits. ****Also side note, I don't think this was the intent or assumption of this thread or original question but I would be very careful with attributing genetics to personality and/or ego development. There are certain parts of the world that is less evolved on the spiral and a lot of it has to do with the sociopolitical infrastructure of that area instead of it being inherent to the people living there. The reason I want to make this environment/ socialization vs. genetics distinction is because attributing a large chunk of people to a personality and/or ego development can easily spiral into racist ideology with the assumption that certain groups of people all similar personalities or that certain groups of people are less psychologically developed than others. Again, I don't think that the original question had any undertones of this but all I'm saying is that the attitude of personality and ego development being attributed to genetics can be taken to a very unhealthy extreme.

I think that whatever spiral stage a large amount of people can get stuck in has to do with the time, place, and environment they grew up in. Don't underestimate how powerful the socialization process can be. That said, socialization is behavioral, not genetic. You can socialize someone to be more open minded or not but a lot of that needs to be handled in childhood since it's one of those things that becomes formed and solidified early on. If people would be genetically programmed to a spiral stage, there would be less moving up the spiral in the collective level. The vast majority of the people hundreds of years ago were blue and below and we all have ancestors from that time. Would that mean we all have genes that hold us back to stage blue and below? And while biology and personality coincide, I feel that it is necessary to emphasize that correlation does not equal to causation. One way to interpret biology an personality coinciding can be that biology creates your personality. Another way to interpret this is that personality creates biology. Being exposed to something for a long period of time, whether it is something as physical as toxic substances or being exposed to toxic people, can physiologically have an impact on us but that doesn't mean that biology caused said impact if that makes sense. I know what I said might be confusing and I apologize if I didn't find the best words to articulate what I'm trying to say. If you have questions regarding what I mean, I understand and I'm open to answering.

Counting Calories When I searched up how many calories was in the flatbread for my last post, I was shocked by how many calories there were (730 calories). I don't usually count calories because I tend to get carried away but I know I have this habit where whenever I go to a restaurant or fast food place, I tend to check the calories and get an option based on that, usually in the 450-650 calorie range. I know this has to do with the time when I restricted calories a lot and to a certain extend, I'm nervous about eating too many calories because I'm afraid that is going to mess up my weight. But it's like, if someone ate 730 calories for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they would have eaten 2190 calories which is average for a lot of adults. I guess part of me is conditioned by diet culture to not eat more than 1400-1600 calories per day just to maintain my weight. I know this isn't the healthiest mindset because the amount of calories you need can be determined by a lot of factors. But even then, 1400-1600 calories isn't enough for most people if they aren't trying to lose weight. I guess again because of conditioning, I have been conditioned to think that if I ate that much I will be huge and as a result my metabolism adapted accordingly. I have linked videos regarding this phenomenon earlier in this journal but I will be including them again because they are soo sooo sooooo applicable to this post in particular.

1/1/2021 Food Diary Lunch: Gluten free Margherita Flatbread: I got this flat bread from Schlotzsky's. It had mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce on a thin crust and was topped with roasted tomatoes, basil, and balsamic glaze. I got this because I was craving pizza for like 2 weeks now and I didn't feel like going all out and getting a loaded pizza. I really liked it. My favorite part was the roasted tomatoes paired with the fresh basil, so much to where I went home and later that day learned to make some on my own so that I can use them as salad or pasta toppers. I just love cooked tomatoes in general and how sweet they can get. The balsamic glaze gave the flatbread some sweetness and a little bit of sourness which I really liked. I was ok with the mozzarella. Normally I'm a huge fan of cheese but ever since I addressed my cheese cravings, they kinda became alright. It felt refreshingly different having mozzarella cheese again after a long time but it wasn't like this OMFG I missed this so much feeling. The flat bread was a little greasy but it wasn't a big deal, I was still caught up with the basil and the tomatoes. My cravings felt satisfied after half of my flatbread but I went ahead and ate the whole thing because left over flat bread just isn't it. That's what I notice about my cravings lately. I don't get cravings that often but when I do they aren't as intense and they require smaller portions in order to be satisfied. While I don't have all of the ingredients used to make this, I did find the nutritional information on Schlotzsky's website. Granted I got the gluten free version so some of the values might be off. The flatbread I got is on the bottom line of the chart: Snack: Banana with peanut butter and cinnamon: My go to snack when I want something sweet. As I was eating this I was thinking how when I have this snack, I don't crave chocolate as much. I guess it's because the sweetness from the banana scratches that sweet tooth itch. And because I love/crave chocolate, whenever that sweet tooth itch comes up, the first idea I get is chocolate. I think ever since I cut out a lot of sugar in my diet, I don't have that much sweetness in my diet. I know I have talked about vegetables tasting sweeter in previous posts but still. This also reminds me of this one video I saw about bento lunches in Japan and how they incorporate a large variety of flavors in small amounts. Like one small thing might be sweet, another side might be savory, another might be sour, and another might be salty therefore as a result, people don't get a lot of cravings because all of the flavors and their desires have been met. Maybe incorporating more sweetness in my diet can be an answer for my chocolate cravings. I was thinking about mainly in the form of fruit since fresh fruit doesn't have added flavors and because I tend to prefer chocolate that has fruity elements to them. Dinner: Grilled shrimp: I made this by grilling some shrimp and seasoning them with some Italian seasoning, red chili powder, and garlic powder. I also added some red bell peppers, onions, and garlic. I loved this because the shrimp was super fresh and I could taste it when I ate it for dinner Cauliflower fried rice: I made more cauliflower fried rice in bulk today and added some carrots, green onions, and red bell peppers to the mix and fried all of that in olive oil. Grilled brussel sprouts: I cut each sprout in half and added red chili powder, garlic powder, and basil along with a little bit of olive oil and then grilled them. I really liked this and I can see myself eating it more often.

As The Years Go By, As We Grow Up And Grow Old I find these to be absolutely facinating. The 50's and 60s don't feel like they were that long ago to me, I guess mainly because both of my parents are on the older side and were born in those decades. But looking at these videos, it really feels like a long lost dystopian alternate universe. These videos really bring out the inner time traveler in me. I remember as a kid liking movies, books, and TV shows that had an element of time travel in them. One of my favorite shows growing up was this crime drama (one of my favorite genres) called Cold Case where two detectives in the early 2000s would look at cold cases from decades ago ranging from the 1920s to the 1980s and whenever they would interview people that the victims knew or people that might have clues relating to who committed the murders, they would show little flashbacks of younger versions of those people from decades ago as well as the societal norms they adhered to back then. I remember that one of my favorite episodes was about this teenage girl who was murdered in the late 50s. While the 50s are very known for their rigid gender roles, this girl was very much a tomboy. She got in trouble a lot with teachers and her parents and her peers often ridiculed her for having short hair, wearing pants, not having any interest in makeup etc. She wasn't trans but she carried herself in a very androgenous way. Because this was the 50s, they thought there was something messed up in her brain and thought she was confused about her gender so she was sent to a mental hospital where she underwent a lot of shock therapy that messed with her emotionally. Her death was super sad to me because she broke out of the hospital with the help of her friend. She had one guy friend who was also in love with her. She asked him to take her to the spot by the lake where they hung out and then asked him to kill her since the shock therapy more or less put her in a very unresponsive state. The way this episode was shot was in a way that show cased the social dynamics of the time, the rigidity etc. while still having a focus on the present day detective work. I remember searching up the accuracy of the depictions in that episode and surprisingly apparently shock therapy for not adhering to gender roles were very much a thing back then. I was horrified that things were that bad back then. Another vintage thing that I find fascinating is people's view back then of what the future is going to be like. This is a video from 1967 about what they thought 1999 was going to be like. I find this comical because 1999 wasn't like that lol. It also reminds me of the time I decided to watch the movie Back to the Future Part II where Marty travels to 2015 back in 2013 as a kid and finding it wild that the people back then thought we would have flying cars and actual hoverboards by then. I think focusing on the technological advancements of the future is a less controversial and more whimsical way of imagining the future. Maybe this is the way my mind works but whenever I contrast the 50s and now, the first thing that comes to my mind is social progress and how people view their place in society. Like sure we have a lot of technology that wasn't present back then but it's not to the point where it's like the Jetsons and its completely other worldly in that aspect. To me, the other worldly, dystopian aspects of the past comes from people's attitudes and world views. But predicting attitudes and world views can be extremely controversial since they often have a political aspect to them. Like imagine going to the 50s and telling someone that segregation won't be a thing in 2020, interracial marriage is legal, and that people are comfortable with coming out as gay and trans. Of course there are still people who throw a fit with interracial marriage and are homophobic and transphobic, but my point is that all of this would be absolutely inconceivable back in the 50s. Sure we still have problems now and I'm not undermining any of that, but it would be a misconception to say that we haven't come a long way in our collective mentalities. As usual, the trend of history is to be more conscious and loving and as a result more and more left leaning and radical in the eyes of conservatives and people who want to preserve the status quo. And I wonder all the ways we will advance as people in the coming decades and what things we will look back in the 2010s and 2020s and see as barbaric.

12/31/2020 Food Diary Lunch: Egg muffin with spinach, kale, bell peppers, onions, and turkey with a side of avocado and flax seeds: I normally would have this for breakfast but today I woke up still feeling really full from the large salad last night so I waited a couple hours and had this for lunch instead. I also felt too lazy to make lunch so because I made these egg muffins in bulk, I just heated one up and mashed up some avocados. Snack: A handful of peanuts: Just wanted something to munch on so that my appetite would be controlled til dinner. Dinner: Chicken Stir Fry: I cut up some chicken and I marinated them in red chili powder, garlic powder, basil, black pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. I let that sit for about an hour and in the mean time I chopped up some bok choy, broccoli, red bell peppers, onions, garlic, and cilantro. Then I stir fried all of that. Cauliflower fried rice with onions, and bell peppers: Really felt like the perfect side dish with the chicken. Snack: Another handful of peanuts: For some reason I catch myself reaching for peanuts whenever I crave chocolate 3 squares of chocolate: My mom gave me some right around midnight for new years. Anything sugary note: 3 squares of chocolate

@modmyth Yeah my parents are more keen on celebrating Hindu holidays. While the holidays are oriented around religion, especially in the U.S., when people come together to celebrate Diwali for example, there is more of an emphasis on culture rather than the religious aspects. Normally you would have to pray for like 15-20 minutes and then the rest of it is eating, hanging out with friends, music and dance performances etc. To me growing up and, hell even now, I always used those holidays as an occasion to get fancy and dress in traditional Indian clothes as well as interact with other south asian people because I grew up in an area where there weren't many south asian people there. Seeing what post-covid socializing is going to be like is going to be interesting to say the least. I can't wait for that to happen since I'm really ready to start putting myself out there more, but on the other hand, there is this inner sociologist in me that wants to stand in the sidelines to observe and analyze differences between then and now.

Health Related Things to Consider My issues: Deal with PCOS Deal with High ANA levels (due to inflammation) Treat Iron Deficiency Treat Slowed Metabolism Wanting Weight Loss Wanting to Clear Acne My family history: A lot of high blood sugar Some high blood pressure Being over weight

@modmyth Yeah as a kid they let me do whatever Christmas-y things I wanted to do which to me meant making cookies, putting up the tree, making Christmas lists, and hanging stockings but as I got older we all lost the motivation to go all out. I guess to my parents Christmas always seemed like an American/ Christian thing and because they grew up in a different country with a different faith. In India and Bangladesh, Christmas is recognized because there are Christians there, but because they are such a small population, it's not like huge deal there. Mainly people just get Christmas eve and Christmas day off and that's it. Even though they enjoy Christmas festivities, like the lights, the Christmas parties etc. it never resonated with them deep down inside on a traditional level. I mainly found about all of the things people would do on Christmas and Santa in school, particularly elementary school where our teachers would let us do a lot of Christmas related arts and crafts. We still decorate the house with Christmas lights because my grandmother really liked it but that's really about it. I would just tell my friends that straight up on how my family wasn't really into Christmas because it didn't resonate on a deep cultural level with them. It is normally not met with anything other than understanding but I remember when I was younger and I was in middle school some of the kids felt sorry for me after they talked about what they got for Christmas because I didn't really get too many presents. Yeah I'm trying to find more people to expand my social circle. I was planning on really putting myself out there and then COVID happened so those efforts got delayed lol.

12/30/2020 Food Diary Lunch: Gluten free spaghetti with chicken: Has onions, diced garlic, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, olive oil, gluten free noodles, basil, chicken and tomato sauce. Thought I didn't have spaghetti in a minute. I skipped breakfast because I was feeling rather depressed this morning. Snack: 1 can of sprite: I was satisfied with about half of the can but I went ahead and finished it. I noticed that my desire to binge on sweet things have gone down as my sugar cravings have gone down. I can have some sweets and still feel like I can control myself if I need to. But later on today I ran into some problems with my mom. She saw the empty soda can in my room and scolded me for having it. She was like "you are working so hard on your diet and health and now you're just going to throw it away with soda. Don't drink soda" etc. I think that's where I get my nit picking tendencies from. I know one soda isn't going to throw away all the progress I have made with my diet just like how one healthy snack won't fix anything either. But this perfectionistic attitude towards food I feel messes up my relationship with food and compels me to restrict, restrict, restrict. Over all, not a healthy attitude towards food and towards a life style change. Spinach and artichoke hummus and celery Dinner: Kale and spinach salad: This salad had kale, green onion, yellow bell peppers, carrots, cherry tomatoes, flax seeds, tahini, avocado, artichoke and spinach hummus, spinach and balsamic vinegar. I was so full after this meal. It was a fairly large salad. Anything sugary note: Sprite

Life Update General Health: I finished 1 month of Zoloft. I feel better emotionally and I feel like I have a clearer head. I think I'm going to request a smaller dose with the psychiatrist since I'm doing pretty well. I know I probably mentioned this before but it's like I got a break from my own mind. I can acknowledge my negative emotions but I don't have to go super intense with them and spiral into them. When a lot of that intensity was controlled, it was actually easier to process the things happening with me in my life. Gentleness really is key when it comes to processing. Going at things too strongly at once can be counter productive. I also changed up my diet quite a bit. I am keeping an entire food journal about this in my other journal here where I am recording what I eat in a day as well as anything interesting I find pertaining to my nutrition and health. I still have quite a bit to go but I feel like I'm off to a good start. I also started cooking my meals more by myself. Because I'm at home, I tend to let my mom cook (and she insists) but cooking for me has been empowering. Upon coming back home because of the pandemic, I felt as though a lot of my sense of independence and autonomy has been taken from me. Cooking and taking care of food on my own has helped me gain back that sense of control and that feeling of capability. Plus I'm having a lot of fun with it by trying new foods and recipes. I am getting my period again and it is coming closer to resembling my regular cycle. I think things should be back to normal in a month or two. My acne has also cleared up and I feel like I lost a little bit of weight. My hair also stopped thinning so that's good. I can't wait to continue on this health journey and see how much progress I can make.