From Digital Junk Food to Mindful Living: A Mid-Year Reflection

O.M.G. The year is half over. As I sit here and write this, on July 1, I have no idea where the year went.

Never-mind June.

To be fair, I was out of town working from June 11-23, soooo there goes half the month but it seems like it was just June 1.

I follow these Hedger Humor cartoons in Facebook and every first of the month is the same... "It's June!" "What!!??"

So, obviously I am not the only one who is appalled at the rapidly accelerating pace of time.

Part of it for me is that I look back and think... what have I actually accomplished in the past month, 6 months, whatever. And it always leaves me feeling... inadequate. Wanting. Like... I should have more to show for this month!

Time is that one precious, non-renewable resource that we all have and we all get to spend in whatever way we choose. But at the end of the day, week, month... I often find that I have spent my time on the equivalent of junk food.... scrolling the news sites, scrolling Facebook, scrolling Instagram... watching cat videos... Under the guise of "relaxing". But this form of "relaxing" always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and a packet full of regrets. Sure, cat videos might make me smile but... seriously... there is so much more to smile about in real life... particularly if you had a real cat... but we won't talk about that. (We are going cat-less after our beloved Minnie passed away in April... we are strong... strong I tell you...)

Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling... it leaves me feeling empty, slightly bleh and filled with regret that I have let an hour fritter away. This is not unlike how I feel when I eat junk food... still hungry (give me more), feeling definitely bleh... and filled with regret. 

But scrolling is so easy... it's right there... and just like junk food which has that perfect symphony of salt, sugar and fat... scrolling has just that right amount of addictive interest to keep us coming back and wanting more, more, more... but never feeling satisfied. You know when you open the bag of M&Ms... you can't just have ONE... they are so small, so yummy... and so you just gobble them up, one after the other... not unlike those short, small TikTok videos or Instagram Reels or... whatever... More, more, more!

I know this is probably a dopamine, endorphin, brain chemistry thing... social media is designed to keep us scrolling... the same way junk food is designed to keep us craving more.

And soooo... I find that time just slips away... eaten by my scrolling fingers... Day after day, week after week... month after month. I am sitting here at 6:24 am on a new day, of a new month, at the halfway point of 2024. Could I choose a different format for July? (I know this is getting published in late August so you won't have to wait long for the results of my experiment!).

Could I choose to do something else during those moments when I reach for the phone? Why the heck do I reach for the phone? Most of the time it's because it is easy... it is right there, always in my back pocket, always within reach. There is a reason for that... as an Airbnb host, I need to respond to guests soonest... but that also means temptation is always easily accessible. But perhaps I could have something else close by, my e-book reader, my journal, a pad of paper to write down thoughts. Heck, I could even just close my eyes, take a deep breath and have a mini-meditation.

I know that it is a habit. I know that I want to scratch that itch. And sometimes I find inspiration in my feeds... well... on occasion... ok fine... very rarely. Sigh.

So I am setting my phone's "Wellness" settings thusly:

• Total Daily Screen Time - 2 hours
• News/IG/FB Time - 30 minutes (that's 1 hour less than my normal intake)

And I'm hoping that being more mindful, more aware, more attentive, more present will.... slow down time. Maybe. Not sure.

But perhaps at the end of July, I can look back and not gasp in shock when someone says "It's August!" and wonder... where did the time go??

The Siren Call of Sugar and Processed Carbs

Every one in a while, I'm not sure why... we go through a bit of a junk food spell. One, or both of us, will cave and crave chocolate.. or sugar... or processed carbs.

Maybe it's because of a "bad" day... or an emotional day... or a hard day or... a good day! Maybe we got a lot done on the house or in the garden and... at the end of the day... we just want something to "reward" ourselves.

I am not sure why that reward has to be sugar but it is deeply ingrained into both of our psyches. Perhaps it's a leftover from childhood... "if you're good, you can have an ice cream". Although it's not ice cream we crave!!

For me... my kryptonite is Ritter sport chocolate bars. If I'm going to have chocolate, don't just give me some generic plain Eat-more (although that will do in a pinch). No, I wand the crème de la crème of chocolates (at least that are stocked in our local grocery store).

And my kryptonite comes in two yummy flavours... Praline... and dark chocolate with hazelnuts. And yes, I heard about the news article that dark chocolate can have high lead and cadmium. Charming. Anyhow... I vacillate between these two chocolates...

I wish I could say that I cold just eat one row of the bar and be done but... no... one row turns into two rows... turns into 3 rows and... well... at that point, you might as well finish it off!!

I'm not sure if the makers of Ritter Sport, with the efficient grid-like pattern of squares, thought that a person could stop with just one square of chocolate... because that is not my experience!!

And yes, I do know that chocolate and processed/refined sugars are bad for me. I know they increase inflammation. I know all these things and yet... there are days where I just want...chocolate.

Oh... and then... there are the salty treats too... let's not leave those out. For me... it is Hawkins Cheezies. None of that Cheetohs crap. No... Hawkins Cheezies are where it's at. They are soooo good... as long as they are cool. There is nothing worse than a warm Cheezie... ick! So crunchy... so cheesy... soooo... just... badly good!

When I spent a year living in the USA, my friends would send me care packages with bags of Cheezies because... gasp... the entire USA does not KNOW what they are missing!! They don't have Cheezies... scandalous, I know. But our big secret! Oh... and they don't have All-Dressed chips either... go figure.

Anyhow... the Cheezies... and then... Ms. Vickie's Sweet Chili and Sour Cream chips... They too are soooo good. And so bad.

While my tastebuds love the salty treats, the inside of my mouth just can't handle it anymore. The sharp edges and the salt just trigger inflammation in there so fast. And so I can only have a few of these before my mouth calls it quits.

I wish my mouth would do that with sugar too. Although... lately, I have noticed that my tongue does not like loads of sugar - like a whole Ritter Sport bar - particularly the praline flavour. It gets irritated and upset with me.

Perhaps it is good to have an internal regulator like that... although I would have to actually listen to my body instead of just munching steadily through a bag of cheezies and a chocolate bar.

Listening to my body is not something I do all that well. It craves water and I ignore it. It dislikes sugar... and I ignore it.

I think that needs to stop. My body and I are a team... so it's best for us to work together. I've been starting by being more attentive to water cravings... so that is one small step.

But when the junk food craving hits... it might be the time to really touch base with my body and see if that craving isn't a cry for something else.

Covid Cravings

Have you gotten the Covid Cravings yet? The Meltdown Munchies? The irresistible craving for something salty, sweet or just plain fatty? Please say "Yes", so we know we aren't alone!

With the world upside down and our regular routines flying out the window, it's really easy to slip into old habits. Particularly when things go sideways. A friend and colleague for over a decade suddenly decides to unfriend, and even block, you over a disagreement on Facebook. A contractor says he'll be a week (or two... or three...) late in starting a project that you've been looking forward to for months. On a shopping expedition (and they are now "expeditions) to Superstore, where face masks are "mandatory", you see five naked-faced people within the first two minutes. People who aren't even trying to maintain social distancing either. An unexpected expense pops up on the radar. The phone company is overcharging your monthly bill. And... to top it all off... Halloweem AND Remembrance Day AND Christmas AND New Years (and any other holiday in the next few months) are likely to be very limp affairs. And let's not even mention the election south of the border. I could go on, but you get the idea.

It's just one thing after another... a never-ending supply of curve balls coming out of left field and... it's completely natural to crave just that little bit of food comfort. Chips. Chocolate. Ice Cream. Pick your poison. Just a little bit of normalcy in a world that seems to be slowly going off the rails. So nice to close the drapes, turn on the TV, find a movie and snuggle in for some good old snack time. For a few brief hours we are cocooned away from the world. But then... the world crashes right back in. The same things that were there yesterday... are there today... and tomorrow... and the next day. On top of that... you've now added a bit of weight gain to the mix. And the cycle begins again.

Cause, let's face it... there's always something. Some curve ball. Some monkey wrench. Something that just didn't go right. Your plans for the day are blown apart by a sick child or a vehicle that won't start or an appliance that goes on the fritz. Or maybe it's just the never-ending tedium of trying to work from home surrounded by all of the home distractions. A novelty for the first week and now a hard, long uphill slog. Maybe it's the subtle pressure of girding your loins to go out on a shopping expedition: Face masks - check. Lysol wipes - check. Hand sanitizer - check. Shopping list - check. And then the continual dodging around naked-faced people who seem oblivious to the reality of the world. I guess we all deal with stress in different ways and denial is not just a river in Egypt but one way that people handle the relentless pressure of a pandemic.

And all of this seems quite mild compared to other historical events: bombings, famine, earthquakes, hurricanes, war. A pandemic should seem like a minor blip in the grand scheme of world disasters and yet... this blip is affecting the entire world. Every single person on earth, except maybe Kim Kardashian (and her little birthday party flit to a private island so they could all feel "normal"), is affected by this virus. It is a relentless, every-present stressor - just enough to trigger our instinctive fight/flight/freeze response. Trigger our adrenal glands and get some cortisol flowing through the system. It triggers our "danger, danger" instincts and... it makes sense that some part of us thinks... danger - better stock up on some energy (eat) while we can because we might need to fight (be big and strong), flight (run like hell) or... if those two fail... freeze (and who knows when we'll be able to eat anything).

And so... we eat... we bake... we shop... we stockpile dried legumes and canned tomatoes. Still not sure what all the TP hoarding is about except... if you're gonna go whole hog on the eating front, it stands to reason that what goes in must come out too... 

The munchies seem to come in waves too. One week I'll be good and able to resist the siren call of salt, sugar, fat... but the next week is more of a struggle. Although, now, it seems like it's almost a daily thing. Good for a day or so and then ready to collapse and embrace chocolate like life-preserver. And maybe that's just the way it is right now. This virus has really fogged the future. We don't know what next month is going to look like, let alone 2021. It's really a matter of focusing on the here and now... or as Ram Dass liked to say - Be Here Now. Right here... right now. And take each moment as it comes, one small step at a time.