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Ginat 11:01:53 PST

We know that every front has a back, and that something as big as macrobiotics must have an equally big backside to it.

What is your personal macrobiotic stumbling block? What makes it hard for you to tow the line and keep with the program?

If you could make one wish for your macrobiotic practice what would it be?

Let's chat, console and mutually inspire. Tell us your favorite resistance excuse. 

Chick

I wish I could give up butter. 

Rebecca

Yes, I love it so much- and I wish that the day to day planning and cooking could flow more easily

Sheldon

You don't have to give up butter.  Just make your own with onions or carrots or squash or cabbage.

Chick

That isn't the kind of butter I crave.

Sheldon

Cravings can change if you want to try. When my daughter gave up ketchup sandwiches, I knew that anything could change.

Leigh

That question about what we'd most like to see in our life to make macrobiotics make more sense for us…well, it’s to have other macrobiotic people in my daily life

Rebecca

I went through a terribly excessive almond /tehini craze..

Sheldon

Create macrobiotic people in your life! One woman in our community invites her neighbors for a macro breakfast to get them interested in eating better. It works. Be creative; expand your social horizons and don't give up.

Ginat

I see that the first subject tonight is cravings. Can you understand in terms of yin and yang what you are craving and why?

Sheldon

Rebecca, often tehini or almonds are craved by people not eating enough beans or bean products such as tempeh or tofu or seitan. Think if that is what is happening to you.

Rebecca

Ahh- this is my newest understandings- the balance of protein to everything- and planning it in.

Klara

My wish would be that I were so focused that the meal would almost cook itself (like the magic wand) and most important, that I would never run out of new ideas.

Ginat

Klara, are you looking for magic answers, or are you lazy? (That's ok!)

Klara

No, I want to work more on focus, then I know things will flow better.

Ginat

What kind of person can be focused--yin or yang?

Klara

Yang would be more focused as it's bringing energies inward

Ginat

And what does it take to become yang in this respect?

Sheldon

Rebecca, start planning by making the following list. grain/bean/long cooked veg/short cooked veg (one or two different kinds). Then fill in the missing boxes. Do it at night but not when you are hungry and have to cook in a hurry.

Joanna

I sometimes dont eat enough in the morning and lunch because i tend to oversleep, and that limits the time i have to cook, than even with a great dinner i will still be very hungry at night

Ginat

Why do you oversleep? Too much yin? Bad habit? Avoidance?...

Joana

I’m not sure, it's been a problem for years

Leigh

When I think what do I really feel like eating, and tune into myself on that day, at that hour- its an approach with more ease

Ginat

What things are you able to get up on time for?

Ginat

We have cravings and time management as two issues. What else is difficult?

How about social considerations. No problem there?

 Rebecca

KI Summer Conference has been the best thing in my life!

 Sheldon

Rebecca, it was the best thing in my life also for a number of years.

 Ginat

How do you manage social eating?  Colin?  Millimacro?

 Leigh

I’m cooking for a young person with illness and also cooking for healthy older son and his pregnant wife. I’m cooking all the time- glad too- but it feels like too much

Ginat

It's true.  We need to find ways to cook AND have a life. Do you have some shortcuts?

Colin Larsen

I am confident yet humble about how I eat so as to set a good example with out agitating people

Chick

I go out to eat once a week with friends and I eat the fish and veg. on the menu.

Ginat

I sometimes go to a cafe, order tea, and don't drink it.  I just want the social contact.

Rebecca

Hot water and lemon may be okay for you too

Rebecca

Millimacro, yes!  And eating mostly a good meal before I go out, and then a little some thing there.  I also bring rice/nori rolls and veggies to a great fish place.

Colin Larsen

There are many options that one can choose from on a regular restaurant menu that are good for occasional and festive times

Ginat

Social restriction doesn't seem like a big stumbling block. That's so nice to hear. I'm surprised!

Ginat

Are there any big problems that really make macrobiotics difficult for you? Or is it all cool?

Sheldon

Everything depends on your condition as to what to order at a restaurant. When I was very ill, my kids loved eating at Souen restaurant in New York. I took them to enjoy, but ate my own food that I brought from home. Now I have the freedom to enjoy much broader choices.

Colin Larsen

Macrobiotics is deeper than the ocean. It can be difficult to accurately interpret a situation and know what to do. The solutions are so many!

Ginat

Do any of you feel left out of the mainstream? Do you feel different and left out?

Gary

That the social aspects of sharing, even if you don't eat, are its own type of food

Sheldon

When the solutions are many, it is easier to play and not be up tight about every ingredient of each dish on a restaurant menu.

Ginat

Colin, I think each of us knows what to do on some level. It's getting in touch with that and honoring it.

Colin Larsen

That's the deepest, easiest and also the most difficult aspect of macrobiotics

Klara

Big Problems for me: Eating from boredom or emptiness, eating other foods that are around in my home, eating late

Chick

I have been macrobiotic for over 25 yrs. and i don't think that eating non-macro once a week is going to kill me.

Ginat

Back up a sec--what is "non-macro?"

Chick

Manicotti, for one

Sheldon

Chick: there are no rules, only guidelines. Your best guide is your feelings; if something feels OK and you don't suffer afterwards, enjoy whatever there is.

Ginat

What is non-macro (whatever that means) about manicotti?

Chick

It contains cheese.

Ginat

Chick, is chesse "non-macro?"

Chick

Yes

Ginat

In that case, we are practicing micro-biotics.

Sheldon

Klara: if you have trouble with eating late, try not eating at all in the mornings.  In time you will get used to eating only two meals: then you later binges will be easier to handle.

Millimacro

Every food is macrobiotic - sugar can save your life - we need it sometimes

Leigh

Non-macro is mainstream thinking, without questioning within oneself , willing to accept the cultural standard

Ginat

Ooh, dangerous ground there...

Sheldon

Millimacro: when can sugar save your life?

Rebecca

For me NOW a stomach ache from cheese is "killing” me—nonmacro would be commercial salt and non-organic veggies !

Klara

What works is taking the time to create a wonderful dish and savoring it

Ginat

When do you do this, and how can you encourage it?

Chick

What is micro-biotics about cheese?

Millimacro

A diabetic may need it at a point in time to save their life

Ginat

If you exclude cheese, or anything, you are limiting your world. This is not large life, but limited life--micro.

Ginat

We eat non-organic all the time. We just don't get enough variety here to sustain us. So we make that choice

Rebecca

Actually- I typed too fast- there's not enough good organics here all the time either! Bless all our nurishment!

Chick

Macrobiotics is about limiting-- limiting what is wrong for our bodies.

Millimacro

Macrobiotics is also about doing the best you can

Leigh

How about seeing it as macro being a fresh point of view, rather than a response honed by others

Ginat

Yes, that could be. But is thinking in terms of yin and yang must macrobiotics necessarily mean different? It's the most traditional system there is. All peoples do it, knowingly or not.

Sheldon

Chick: macrobiotics is about expanding, not limiting. It is about freedom that comes from understanding balance and working with it within the limits of your condition.

Chick

So then, it's okay to eat meat and dairy and eggs and all the things Michio has said not to eat?

Ginat

Yes, limitation does indeed allow freedom. But it does not define macrobiotics.

Colin Larsen

Michio eats those things

Ginat

It's okay if that is what you want to create. We are free. Look at Michio's condition--do you want that for yourself?

Chick

And what is his condition?

Ginat

Michio recently was diagnosed with colon cancer, and had a major operation. He is free, and created that knowingly. That is macrobiotics, not being a fearful slave.

Chick

Doesn't sound good to me.

Rebecca

In July Michio had recovered so well- taught classes and I saw him hurrying around and looking better than before!

Klara

I can take the time to cook when I have the rest of my life not pressuring me to be doing other things - or other interests wanting to come first

Ginat

Who allows that pressure?  Only you, of course.  If not, who's life are you living?

Rebecca

The key is to know the right amount and how to balance it, and having it once a month is so different than every day

Colin Larsen

Balancing food is a tool that helps us develop insight into the nature of life and existence, including the fact that all health will fail.  It's natural

Ginat

Back to difficulties--any rebels out there, who just don't want to bother with making the effort? What do you do?

Colin Larsen

I am by nature a rebel and lazy. I persevere.   That is the key to my success

Ginat

I confess--I'm lazy to garden. It's a weakness. But I want it just not quite enough...

Colin Larsen

(Limited) success.  I hope I have been sincere.  I am sure that what ever I experience, I am attracting it

Ginat

Sheldon's key is relaxing!

Colin Larsen

I do plenty of that

Leigh

My preference would be to put the attention into sharing cooking, finding a match to that kind of life, rather than getting so very good at it myself

Ginat

Are you attracting this in your life? You have to be sincere in wanting it.

Rebecca

Like sprouts on the counter- it has to be a routine- like menu planning- ahh I need to persevere- thanks, Collin!

Klara

Does lazy perhaps mean what I value is not what others value??

Ginat

Why do you think this, Klara?

Klara

I enjoy being on the computer, so my time goes there - I don't think I'm lazy about cooking, just putting my energies into what I love more.

Colin Larsen

I see things as simple, such as when I don't eat enough grain I am more likely to slip on the ice

Leigh

I have inner conflict having lived both in isolation and in a rural macro community with others

Ginat

What is your conflict then?

Colin Larsen

What do you mean by isolation?

Leigh

Enjoying we have wherever we are, doing our best day to day makes for peace.  Yet in envisioning, there’s a chance for greater joy, just as I believe macrobiotics is about people not just individuals. When energies are joined in harmony, and macrobiotics allow s a terrific chance for harmony, then we really get our juices flowing. My vision is for small groups living in proximity to share growing food, cooking, talking intimately, evolving macrobiotics through a way of life

Colin Larsen

Need more be said?

Ginat

Yes, we do.

Ginat

Consider those priorities--you go for what you enjoy more that for what is essential, i.e. cooking.

Sheldon

Everything is secondary to cooking, as our first priority is eating. When we don't eat right, everything else we do is affected sooner or later.

Leigh

Conflict means being split, sincere in two directions.  I’m having trouble getting behind a new direction, the old one being making peace with where you are and at the same time holding a vision for how you’d really like to live

Ginat

"I love myself the way I am and I want to change..." Tell us your vision! Does it conflict with making peace?

Chick

In consideration of what we have been talking about today, tell me what eating right is.

Ginat

Aha, fingers are flying! Eating right, of course, means balancing for your condition. How can you determine that? By the way you feel...

Colin Larsen

I think that it is more why you eat what you do, not what you eat that is the macrobiotic question.

Chick

After you determine how you feel, what do you eat?

Sheldon

Eating right cannot be easily defined. It includes consideration of climate, condition, mood, understanding, desire to maintain balance. There is no magical answer. I can feel its meaning easier than I can express it.

Rebecca

After cooking and eating carefully for a while you may love feeling so well- you'll want to get a timer to buzz you back into the kitchen for a while

Ginat

I personally enjoy feeling well, so I eat things that support that. For me, it means that I stay pretty macro-centered and don't stray much. It just doesn't tempt me to go "off." Does that help?