Tom's Diary

01:00 PM: If beliefs make reality, then spearmint tea quenches hunger. Too many headaches from green tea, though it worked well historically, and scientific studies support “going green.” But I must lose a few pounds. No headaches with the mint but less weight loss too. Yet, green tea is out. So I “know” that mint will melt… the pounds; proof notwithstanding. The scale readings in 30 days will tell for sure.

03:00 PM: Hmmm. If pictures are there, they’re likely to appear on Google Images as well. I’ve often wondered how Google associates people’s names with their pictures. Well, public Facebook would be one very easy to do it.

03:02 PM: You’ll never see that, since our culture is all about putting that best foot forward. Whether discussing humans or devices, conventional wisdom says that we should spend far more time describing what we (or it) CAN do than what we (or IT) cannot. But if people want the unvarnished lowdown on something, then they need to read something like Consumer Reports.

04:00 PM: Yes, many argue with that sort of unhelpful bluster and gusto, and as soon as they start, I excuse myself. You didn’t call him an Apple Drone to his face, did you?  

04:00 PM: Strawberries are really quite good this year. We got some fresh-picked specimens yesterday. Yum. Serioulsy. YUM!

10:08 PM: Immitation is NOT the sincerest form of flattery when it’s plagiarism!

11:21 PM: Don McLean.  Love that song Vincent, and have for decades.  In fact, I liked it more than American Pie; though hearing it still moistens my eyes to this day.

11:36 PM: Best-foot-forward is so old-school, and I just hate all the hype and puffing besides. Just give me the unvarnished truth immediately for goodness’s sake. I mean, I’m going to learn it sooner or later. So why delay? *sigh* I wish they’d publish a Consumer Reports that rates people like they do appliances! It’d sure make it easier to cut through all the … um … warm air.

11:57 PM: M-80s are my favorites; those king-sized fire-crackers that flash like a camera and boom like a cannon.  They’ll also shred a coffee can and pulverize a brick if placed properly.  So light ‘em, then run like … the dickens!

12:42 AM: Hawaii Five-0 returns to CBS this fall on Monday nights.  Hopefully, the cast will include a Jack Lord equivalent; though this could end up feeling a lot like the CSI shows, which I’m not crazy about due to all the fast-moving visuals.  But the theme music sounds similar so I’m eager to see if the show duplicates the success of the original, which ran for twelve seasons (1968 through 1980).

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2010-05-31

Today, I consumed the following items:

• Peppermint tea and diet caffeine-free Pepsi throughout the day.  0 calories.
• 01:00 PM: 1 pickled egg.  100 calories.
• 01:00 PM: Salad with assorted vegetables.  100 calories.
• 01:00 PM: Caesar dressing.  200 calories.
• 01:00 PM: 1 bowl of cheese soup.  400 calories
• 01:00 PM: Garlic bread.  400 calories.
• 01:00 PM: Soft serve ice cream with hot fudge.  400 calories.
• 05:15 PM: Multivitamin.  0 calories.
• 08:00 PM: 1.5 cups of skim milk.  120 calories.
• 08:00 PM: 1 dozen sugar-free vanilla wafers.  390 calories.
• 11:00 PM: 1 dozen sugar-free vanilla wafers.  390 calories.

Total calories: 2500.

Tom

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• Today’s Business: 2010-02-10
• Weight Loss: 2010

From audio journal episode: AJE-2010-01-30-11-05.

I wanted to talk today about green tea and caffeine a little.  You know, the last couple months, ever since I purchased this Mr. Coffee coffee machine, and then consumed copious amounts of coffee through the holidays, I often got headaches.  Even if I kept drinking the stuff daily, not allowing my body to begin the painful caffeine withdrawal process, I still got the head pains.  I’ve found also that when I don’t drink coffee, the headaches go away. Now it takes several days for all the effects of the caffeine to disappear, once consumption of it stops.  But in my case, they do stop.  Indeed, there have been months-long stretches over the years where I’ve not consumed java, and in those times, I practically never got headaches. 

It’s not just coffee either that affects me so.  Indeed, any beverage or food item containing caffeine makes me feel bad after a few days of consuming it.  Unfortunately, this includes green tea; my favorite appetite suppressant that I’ve relied upon through many diets to help keep my food cravings at bay.  Now ten years ago when I brewed several cups of green tea per day while dieting, I never thought that it would trigger the same sorts of headaches that coffee does.  Indeed, the amount of caffeine in green tea feels to be less per cup than coffee.  But green tea appears to cause the head to hurt as well; particularly on days that I skip having it.  In fact, earlier this week, I experienced lots of headaches.  Then on Tuesday, I suspended green tea consumption.  Though the headaches persisted another two and a half days, eventually, they went away and today, I really feel fine; just as I did when I wasn’t drinking caffeinated liquids. 

So this may be a key to assuring that I’m living up to my fullest potential: Avoid caffeinated foods and drinks, because the symptoms impair my abilities to concentrate, and the headaches irritate and make me irritable, and they’re just no fun to carry around for days on end.  Based on this latest find, it appears that to avoid the headaches, I must severely limit how much green tea I take in on a day.  I’m even afraid to drink the decaffeinated versions of either coffee or green tea, because I get headaches from them too. 

I know that lots of people have no problems with caffeine and these drinks.  But unfortunately, it appears that I do, and if I’m drinking a whole lot of the tea, I wake up the next morning not only with a headache, but I feel nauseous; a sort of tea hang-over.  Thus, I really should avoid these products and find other ways to curb my appetite.  Indeed, I’ve read that caffeine can increase the sensation of hunger, making overeating all that much more enticing and irresistible. 

I’ve also read that green tea is what they call a thermogenic, which means that it does rev up the body’s metabolism through the stimulation of heat production within the body, and that this is why it triggers weight loss, since it kindles the body to burn up more calories per hour.  But I’m wondering if this action occurs due to the caffeine in the tea?  Without the caffeine, would the tea still function as an effective thermogenic?  I don’t know, nor do I care to run any further tests on myself.    

I still have lots of green tea here.  So perhaps I’ll just drink one cup per day until I use it all up.  Then the rest of the day, I’ll drink the naturally caffeine-free teas such as the spearmint, peppermint, chamomile and other herbal concoctions.  These teas never give me headaches, and I’ve consumed five to seven cups of them per day without headaches in the past.  They’re just as effect-neutral as water, and so I think I could drink ten cups per day without ill effects.  They seem to diminish how good I feel, except that they force me to visit the restroom more often.  J   

While green tea does encourage greater weight loss for me, I have to cut way back on it and then, cut it out once I exhaust my supplies of it here.  I’ll make the necessary adjustments to enhance my work energies.  In fact, even without the tea, I still feel energized. If I find something to do that I’m impassioned to complete, I feel just as invigorated without the tea as with it.   Plus, without caffeine, I don’t get that madly-scurrying-about, spinning-wheel feeling that I experience when I’ve ingested too much caffeine.  You know that feeling where you have all kinds of energy, but you don’t gain any traction.  So you accomplish little because it’s hard to stay focused on one task for very long.  Let’s see.  Let me do this.  Then, let me do that.  Then let me come back to this, and so on.  I’m jittering and bouncing around when I have too much caffeine; that natural speed, and I end up getting less done because the subsequent headaches slow me down much more than that initial rush speeds me up. 

Now caffeine can indeed wake me up the morning after a restless night.  For the short-term, it works great.  But it makes directing and focusing that energy harder. This is the downside of caffeine.  True, I’ve sung the praises of green tea over the years.  But now, this downside of it I must acknowledge as well, and come up with a less painful way to help me keep the scale moving in the downward direction. 

Take care.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Abstaining from Caffeine
• Today’s Business: 2010-01-30
• Today’s Business: 2010-01-31
• Weight Loss: 2010-01

When I’ve observed the following symptoms in myself, careful inspection of my recent diet habits reveals that I’ve consumed lots of added sugar and other refined carbohydrates over a period of several days to a couple weeks:

• I feel hungry more often and more intensely besides.
• I crave sugary foods.  The more I’m eating, the more I want.
• So as a result, I often overeat when I’ve been consuming lots of sugar.
• Then, I gain weight.
• Blood triglyceride values rise sharply.
• So does my LDL cholesterol.
• Mosquitoes bite me more.
• More canker sores and cavities can appear.
• Irritants bother me a whole lot more.
• I complain and gripe  more.
• I feel at least a little tired throughout most days.
• Periods of full awareness become quite short and infrequent.
• Ability to concentrate and focus weakens.
• I take more naps.
• I experience more broken sleep at night.
• I acquire nervous habits like picking my fingers.
• I feel more depressed than usual.
• I remember more of my dreams, which tend to be stranger and more unsettling than is typical.
• I get more colds.

You may have experienced some of these, or perhaps you’ve seen other symptoms not listed here, develop in you.  But if you’re King Sugarholic like me, and have struggled to control your weight as I have, I think you’ll find that if you give up the added sugar, these problems will either disappear or become way less pronounced.  Hey, it’s worth a shot isn’t it?  Rather than spending all the time and money to treat each of these problems separately, wouldn’t it be wonderful to make just one fundamental change to the diet, and correct them all?  I believe that omitting added sugar can achieve this though admittedly, I’ve not been able to consistently stay away from it, because I like it way too much.     But one of these new years, the New Years resolution I make every year to swear off of all refined carbs just may take hold, like when I gave up snuff in 1986 and when I totally eliminated all alcohol consumption in 2004.  We’ll see.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• My Last Time Rubbing Snuff

Smoking herbs is fruity, ’cause it makes vegetables.

Tom Hesley

Yep, I used to chew snuff, as well as the so-called “side chew” tobacco.  Here are just some of the tid bits I remember regarding that horribly expensive and disgusting habit.

• 1974-04: I started chewing, and kept at it though it sickened me every time I tried it for the first couple weeks.  The first brand I rubbed was Copenhagen.  But that burned my lower lip so much that it became raw quite often.  So eventually, I switched over to Happy Days Mint, Happy Days Raspberry, and then, to Skoal brands. 
• 1974-05: Those of us who did it used to hang out in dorm room 307 at WPSBC, spitting out the windows onto the roof.  When it got too cold to have the windows open, we’d use Pringles Potato Crisps cans as spittoons.  They fit nicely underneath the beds of the day, making them, and our habit, easy to conceal from the house parents; or, so we thought.
• 1974-05: I got caught chewing on the Altoona bus one Friday afternoon.  In those days, the buses had ash compartments, located in the arm rests of each seat. By this time, just over a month after my first chew, I was highly addicted to the brown and moist granules, each about the size of a carpenter ant.  Maybe there were some ants in the snuff cans.  But I was too inexperienced to recognize them if they were there, and too young to care.
• 1974-05: We bought the snuff at various places near WPSBC.  But the usual store we visited was an establishment called  the Briar Bowl, located in lower Oakland, on the south west corner of Oakland and Forbes avenues, right across the street from the Gus Miller news stand. 
• 1974-06 –1974-08: I don’t remember chewing much during this summer.  I don’t know where I would have gotten the money to buy the stuff.  Back then, it cost around $0.27 cents a can.  However, the boys that hung out across the street at the North Side School playground in Bellwood, chewed it as well.  So for this whole summer, they didn’t mind me bumming chews off of them.  I think they were happy to see me hooked, right along side them.
• 1974-09: When my eighth grade year began, I graduated from Pringles cans as spittoons to Pepsi bottle.  The 64-Oz. Boss bottles made of glass, a predecessor to the 2-liter plastic bottles found today, was nice and big, and took at least a few weeks to fill up.  But the drawbacks were that it stunk as far away as the moon when finally emptied.  Plus, as a glass bottle, one had to be careful not to sit it down too hard, as it could, and in fact, did break, especially on the concrete floors found in the WPSBC main building basement as well as in the instruction building.
• 1975-06: My parents learned of my vice.  Mom grumbled over it relentlessly, and Dad took me to the basement sometime in this summer for a man-to-man, heart-to-heart.  He explained how gross it appeared, and smelled, to others, who observed someone chewing.  I didn’t listen though.  I kept it up, for it was cool, and it provided a sort of rite of passage, into the social circles at home and at WPSBC, to which I so wanted to belong.  Perhaps Mom and Dad got this, and perhaps this is why they never, ever grounded me for doing it, and never insisted that I stop.  Occasionally, Mom even sprung for a few cans for me, and so did Dad.  She hated the habit, but liked seeing me gratified more strongly. Dad was a heavy smoker.  So I believe he kept quiet about it so as to avoid falling into the old, do-as-I-say-but-not-as-I-do quagmire.  Plus, being a veteran tobacco user himself, he must have appreciated how strongly the cravings for it, as experienced by someone addicted to it, can be.  So he never said much to me about it after this.
• 1975-08: Throughout this entire summer, a bunch of us chewers hung out across the street at the school playground, including   the now-deceased David Middleton and others.  If not for Dave, I likely would have rubbed far less.  He was quite generous with his stash and back then, I thought of him as a sort of hero because he always provided me my tobacco fixes any time when he was nearby.
• 1975-10: I returned to school late this year, because I had hurt my leg a couple month ago.  But when I finally set foot there to properly start my ninth grade year, I found that several other guys besides [Mentat] and [Tad] had picked up the habit.  So, I now had more in common with more people.  Yep, in these early years, I firmly believe that my interest in tobacco was largely motivated by peer pressure.  Now no one ever made me do it outright.  But they did think me “cooler” after I began rubbing snuff than before.  At this time, fitting in was my number one objective, and I wasn’t nearly as critical then as I am today, over what I had to do to fit in. 
• 1975-11: I discovered side chew; a more coarse-cut, and sweetly flavored tobacco.  They called it    side chew   because guys generally put it between their cheek and gum near the back of the mouth, and so, could “munch” on it with their k9, incisor, and molar teeth.  You literally chewed it, in the side of your mouth.  Favorite brands were Beech Nut, Conwood, Apple Jack, and Union Workman. 
• 1975-11: [First Love] seemed impressed that I had become a snuff-chewer.  She’d been known to play with recreational drugs, and though, by this time therefore, tobacco use she’d probably have considered tame, my habit apparently went far to convince her that I was not so much an innocent little boy anymore.  Tobacco won me a few brownie points with her, to be sure, and in light of this I never cared, until well into the 80s, if a pretty girl saw me spitting the brown and snotty  juice into a transparent bottle.
• 1975-12: Eventually, the houseparents realized what I was doing. Like my biological parents, the house father said nothing, and the house mother complained incessantly about it.  But they did nothing more to force me into abstinence.  They tolerated my addiction.  But whether they did so out of compassion, or because they knew they couldn’t stop me even if they tried, I’ll never know.  They hated the habit, and today, I feel perhaps more strongly against it than they ever did.    Yet they seemed happy to just complain, without taking any stronger action against me.  They did what they could but knew when to stop.
• 1976-01: On weekend trips home from WPSBC, I’d meet up with a neighbor boy from next door, and we’d go into his cold garage and chew out there; even when the thermometer flirted with sub-zero temps, we both still had to have our snuff fix.
• 1976-03: I got braces on my top, front teeth.  Still though, I kept chewing, even though it was impossible to get the little pieces of tobacco out of the hooks and wires without meticulous teeth-brushing. 
• 1976-10: I tried for the first time to stop chewing snuff.  Details  here. 
• 1977-06: The two oldest boys next store were chewing Skoal snuff by this point, and the three of us started a snuff can collection in their garage.  Throughout this and the previous summer, we’d managed to save some two-hundred empty cans, which we stacked into a pyramid.  Later, after we got tired of picking them back up and re-stacking them after someone knocked them down, we actually glued the cans together.  No, we weren’t at all bored. 
• 1977-12: I pulled a nasty trick on a friend involving tobacco.  Details   here.
• 1983-11-01: I tried again to quit.  This time however, I stopped all at once, and for the next two months, I was moody and just plain miserable. 
• 1984-01-15: However I started yet again, once I beganmy college education.  Believing that, though erroneously, the snuff would lower my academic stresses, ignoring the wintergreen smell of Skoal, that long-time “friend” of mine, I could not resist any longer.  Then, I chewed like crazy for the next two years at a rate of one can per day. 
• 1986-01-01: Finally, I quit.  The third time must indeed have been the charm. 
• 1986-04-01: But the craving only lessened somewhat.  To keep it at bay, I kept very busy with my college studies and for a time, began consuming  significant amounts of alcohol as well as food.  In fact, I’d amassed quite a collection of different flavors of schnapps in my apartment at Moorhead.  100-proof peppermint was my favorite, followed by orange, peach, banana, cola, blueberry, lime, and a host of other flavors.  At one point I think I had twenty bottles around and consumed at least two of them per week. 
• 1986-08-01: Finally, I could sense a softening of the tobacco longings.  Ever since I stopped chewing, I’d have these dreams almost every night about sitting around with [Mentat] and [Tad], chewing, like we used to.  At first, I found these night visions pleasant.  But by the late summer of 1986, the same dream took on a malevolent meaning, and became a nightmare.  I’d often awaken with a start, feeling so angry at myself for having come so far down the road to beating this thing, and then having just through all that struggle away by allowing myself to chew again.  After my two foiled attempts to stop, I knew that when it comes to tobacco, there’s no such thing as moderate addiction; I’m either fully addicted to it, or I want nothing to do with it.
• 1987-04: Though I’d quit more than a year earlier, I’d still get occasional longings for snuff.  But fortunately, the worst of the craving was past by this time.

Today, nearly twenty-four years after my last chew, I’m pleased and proud to report that I never crave snuff, or any tobacco products at all.  Good thing too, as I don’t think I could afford the nearly $4.00 per can that it costs nowadays. 

Indeed, my case proves that on can quit snuff  if you have enough perseverance along with a host of other, more healthy passions to distract you, until the psychological yearnings for the tobacco disappear.  They will fade eventually.  But this can  (and in fact for me, did)   take years.

So my best advice to anyone considering using tobacco, would be to   avoid it,   because once you start, statistically speaking, you’ll probably never be able to stop.  Yes, I got lucky and somehow found the strength to quit.  I give thanks to the universe for that good fortune every day. 

But the sad truth is that most folks who start using nicotine thinking that they can stop whenever they want, quickly find themselves ensnared in a surprisingly potent, expensive, and risky addiction.  So before they realize it, they’re stuck, and they never, ever, get away.  So count your blessings and stay away from tobacco, while you are outside its clutches. Don’t do it.  Please.  Find other, more constructive and less harmful ways to gain acceptance from your peers. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• A Cruel Snuff Hazing
• All About My Tobacco Addictions
• David Middleton Passed Away
• I Quit Chewing Snuff Hourly At First Attempt
• My First Time Chewing Snuff
• My Last Time Chewing Snuff
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-27

Dear [Mentat],

Yes, I heard about Meckler’passing (details   here), and yes, I knew him pretty well back in the 80s.  I used to visit him and Deb when they lived at Moorhead, and we’d watch Hawaii-Five-0 on Sunday nights. 

Yep, Deb was on the heavy, as well as the unhealthy side – she had many medical issues, even in her younger years.

So, you want to make significant changes to your diet in the new year?  Feeling a little heavy, ‘eh?  Well, Changing life patterns involving food is, yes, much harder than with things that you can completely abolish without negative nutritional consequence, such as snuff or alcohol.  While complete cessation works best with the pure vices, it’s only marginally effective with ubiquitous foods; particularly when custom and people too, constantly campaign to get you to eat what you’d rather not.  Also the challenge grows in light of the idea that sugary and fatty items were often given to us as very young and impressionable children, as reward for good behavior, not to mention the notion that we’re somewhat pre-programmed to desire sweet and salty foods.  Those lacking this longing often didn’t survive in the wild in past generations.  So, not only did evolution program us to desire these foods, but we were taught to want them as well.  Double whammy! 

Besides, your situation is further complicated by your girlfriend’s relationship with food; she may make it difficult for you to eat well when she offers you junk.  Being that someone with whom we are fond can have great influence over our desires, you’ll probably find it difficult to stay on the straight and narrow if she’s baking you cakes, buying you candy, and so on.  If you’re going to maintain your resolve to eat better in the new year, then she and you will probably have to extensively negotiate, so that she does not inadvertently (or intentionally) sabotage your efforts. 

Yes, I’ve begun several successful weight-loss efforts in January, in years past.

As I implied earlier, completely giving up “the bad foods” all at once is probably not a good goal.  In my experience, I had to work into it over years because, especially when it comes to rituals surrounding the consumption of food, humans are indeed, quite the creatures of habit.  We want what we want, and this cannot easily be changed.  But I don’t buy the idea that a little sugar is as addictive as a lot of it.   While it is the case that the more of it you eat, the more you want, the reverse is also true.  That is: The less you eat, the less you want.  Now in an ideal world, yes, the absolute best approach would be to ban refined carbs like added sugar from your lips altogether.  But you’ll be hard pressed to maintain this stand if you run in social circles where people consume it. In my humble opinion, sugar addiction cannot be beaten by going cold-turkey.  As an intermediate step to quitting it, try using less of it, for sure.  But also check out the unbleached, organic sugars.  These are as sweet as traditional sugar, but are not quite as addictive because they give you fewer empty calories.  Also, that sweetener, Splenda, tastes almost exactly like sugar.  But it has zero calories.  Try this, or stevia, in your tea and on your cereal. 

Good luck in your efforts.

Are you at home now?

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Richard Meckler Passed Away
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-20

Log

08:30 AM: I’m up, with a nasty headache.  I really think it’s the coffee — I’m drinking too much of it.  Going to go without it today and see if my head feels better tomorrow.

10:00 AM: Headed out the door to go   shopping   and to visit Mom at the hospital.  Click   here   for more details on that visit.

01:45 PM: I’m back home.  Taking a nap for a while.

05:30 PM: Set up a temporary ramp — just a piece of plywood over the steps and supported by several blocks.  I’ll attach it to the top step tomorrow when daylight returns.

06:30 PM: Watched yesterday’s and today’s episodes of   The Young and the Restless   on the DVR.

07:45 PM: Calling [Emmy].  We’re going to listen to some of the Penguins hockey game.

09:10 PM: Talked with Mom.  Sleepy, she was, and still sounded frustrated.  But not crying; perhaps just resigned. 

09:30 PM: Talked with sister Christine to fill her in on Mom. 

09:45 PM: I’ll probably watch TV for a bit but I won’t be too long out of bed.  So, I’ll catch you tomorrow, readers. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Mom’s Status: 2009-10-30
• Shopping Trip: 2009-10-30

[Mentat's] sister came and took him home.  I was sorry to see him go so soon.  But we’ll do another visit soon.  Mom always enjoys his wit and loves having him around as well.

Several hours on the phone, social networking.  Lots of people sent me messages and feedback.  Apparently, the ladies there are starting to know me and are feeling more comfortable about exchanging messages with me.

Posted the Hampsterdance song (a repeater song) to that site.  People got a kick out of that, and wondered why I liked such music.  I just told them that it’s my nature to like what I like.  That answer satisfied them.  Or at least, they did not feel compelled to harass me for my bizarre musical tastes further. 

Had a bad headache; probably due to caffeine withdraw. [Jack] and I had lots of soda over the past couple days that had caffeine, and now that I’m not drinking it, my head is complaining loudly.

Talked with [Emmy] on the phone.  However, I had to cut this short because my head was hurting so bad that I was dizzy and felt sick in the stomach.

Began a summary document on last Friday’s foot party.  That should be posted to the   Tom’s Love Quest   blog tomorrow sometime.

Went with Mom to sister Christine’s post July 4th lunch.  There were some burgers left over from yesterday, and I had two.  Couldn’t let them go to waste now could we?

Napped for a couple hours.  I didn’t get much sleep in Philly.  So I was dead tired.

Watched part of one episode of   The Young and the Restless,   but kept falling asleep.  So I put that aside until tomorrow, when I hope to be more awake.

Today was very sunny and dry.  Temps in the low to mid 70s; a great day to hang by the pool and have lots of low-key conversation.

Tom Hesley

Had [Emmy] post a couple messages on the social networking site.  They said that she has a “hot” voice.

Spent a few hours social networking. Very addictive. Looking for ways there to promote my blogs, as well as to make new friends.

Uploaded my sent email for January, 2007 to the blogs.

Got caught up on   The Young and the Restless.

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died today. Farrah’s death was expected. Michael’s was not.

Watched the Dateline NBC special tonight on Jackson and Fawcett with [Emmy] on the phone.

Thunderstorms just after midnight; probably the most violent we’ve seen this season so far.

Tom Hesley