Namaste

Apparently turning a new leaf on the calendar is the only change some of us made. I was ready for bed when the phone rang. I looked at the phone and sighed. A call came from that number at 1:05pm, 1:06pm (because I hung up within seconds of the first call, which I did again), and now again at 9:23pm. I answered. He wanted to know the price of my services. I asked if he trying to get new dentures or looking for car repairs. He said he wanted an escort. Thought we addressed that matter earlier. I told him he had the wrong number. At 9:27pm the phone again. Thought it was him. Different number. Female caller. She wanted to know if I had any girls available. I said I did not understand the question. She clarified by advising that herself and husband would like to have a female companion to spend the night with. Oh! She asked if I felt it was wrong to have a girl over for sex. I told her cannot pronounce on that, what I can say is that she has the wrong number. Okay. Time to turn off the phone. Interesting calls still happening.

Hitching a ride hasn’t changed either. Having left work early I went to Arouca on other business. When that was over I stepped onto the pavement looking for a maxi. Saw a big truck instead. The driver mashed brakes and extended his right hand. I shook my head from side to side. He accelerated. As he passed me I shouted: But you can give me a lift. He mashed brakes again. Nice! The man on the passenger side opened the door and sat watching me. Not just him. The folks in the line of vehicles behind the truck watched too. Probably awaiting my episiotomy. I told the man to help me up. He took my bag, then extended his hand, and I was up and in…sitting between them. Nice view. The driver said he thought I wanted to cross the road. I explained that I was watching him because some drivers don’t seem to know the vehicle they’re driving and end up grazing folks on the sidewalk. He laughed saying most drivers seem afraid of the white line to their left…always in the middle of the road, so it is funny that some are drifting past it and nipping pedestrians. I asked if it was a 9-ton truck. No. 7-ton. Fine. High enough. Down the Eastern Main Road we went. Not all the way. He turned off in Tunapuna. The guy on my left got out with my bag (he must be a bag man or something) and gave me room to jump. I collected my bag, thanked them and crossed the road.

Caught a maxi. The driver was engrossed in conversation with a male passenger who is Diabetic. From where I sat I could see that the tips of his fingers were red and looked bruised. I was itching to join the conversation because while the passenger was speaking from experience, he was not able to satisfactorily answer the driver’s questions. After he left another man came in and the driver told him of the conversation he was having. That was my invitation. I rehashed some of what the man had said with more details. The driver asked me to sit closer. Hmmm. I did. He wanted to know about carbohydrates and we went from simple to complex. Then he was back at insulin and I opted for the analogy of the passengers being sugar and the maxi being insulin. Without effective transport thousand would be loitering, wandering, etc. with only the few who are living or working nearby being able to get to their destination without such.

 

He then wanted me to set up a diet sheet for him because I seem to know about these things and folks are stingy with information requiring $500 to consult with a Dietitian, Weight-loss Consultant, or whatever is the correct designation they carry. I could probably charge $100 per diet sheet since I seem to know and leave the $500 for those certified. Anyway, my being the last passenger he pulled over and we bobbed around the endocrine system. Then he wanted to know about Hypertension as he had to start watching his diet because of that. He stopped eating cooked foods and lost considerable weight and felt that his actions were brash, so now he wants help in formulating a reasonable diet. The Police signaled to him. He asked me not to leave and drove a few yards further then pulled over again. We continued. Reasons for Hypertension…thin blood, obvious physical factors, psychological factors, etc. I tried to talk as fast as possible before the Police signaled again.

I asked if he knew anything about the thymus. Never heard of it before I mentioned it earlier. Alright, I had to leave, so I wrapped my speech and left. But the general idea was/is that the body has its natural rhythm which it fights tooth and nail to maintain. This fight is possible because the thymus is tasked with educating the body on what’s good and what’s bad for it. The T-cells stuff. They say that after puberty the thymus takes a hike, which is sad because it is after that that we are likely to get a job which allows us to buy and eat what we like…a lot of crap included. Having been given samples of the things the body should work with and the things it should fight against throughout our childhood, the thymus sets the necessary blueprint for relevant adaptive or protective mechanisms and bows out. When our newfound spending power encourages us to alter our eating habits, we’re kinda on our own because the thymus is busy watching its weight. It’s shrinking, and that process cannot be interrupted to facilitate our need for new cues on digesting foods we did not grow up eating as a norm.

Example, if daily portions of meat was never part of our childhood the thymus could not have educated the body on how to deal with that. Now that our pockets can afford what our taste buds want, how do we expect our bodies to respond to the extra 4-5 portions of meat it is ingesting each week? It’s probably screaming mutiny on the inside. And after the dust is settled we end up with a disease that isn’t even in our genes. The excess nutrients were probably not even recognized as nutrients and could have been thrusted on one organ after the others decided they could not deal with it, or simply dumped in the colon, or whatever happens when there is confusion at the cellular level. To some extent the KFC babies are headed in the right direction. They would have no issues with fast food in the future. Home-cooked food might create health problems for them. Imagine mothers catching up on their cell phones: My child is allergic to fried plantains and egg. Well girl, I have to buy coleslaw, vegetable salad gives my son heartburn. There are children who never ate bitter gourd (call it what you will), never had laxative, never had worm medicine. As parents we can count how many times we visited the Doctor as a child, and compare that with the number of times our children did. The statistics will determine how right we are in giving them a better life.

Practice makes perfect they say. I like to replace practice with consistency. We are all trying to lose weight. The weight of waiting, like me waiting for a particular form of transportation, but accepting anything as long as it moved me closer to the direction in which I am headed. The weight of burning sexual desires that dictate that we solicit the aid someone, anyone, be it a Massage Therapist or a cute girl or guy we never met before, to rid us of this thorn in the flesh in the sweetest possible way. Like those who undertook took fasting – 21 days long with the last 3 ingesting nothing – at the turn of the year to lighten the burden of those things they can or cannot see that disrupt their lives and that of their loved ones. Like those who are making efforts at physical weight-loss to enhance their health or manage a disease. Like the weight of our spendthrift habits that continuously leave us in debt and give us nightmares of becoming mendicant, etc. To be consistent at the perceived wrong thing is second nature, but it takes more effort when we’re on a path of higher ideals. It is not enough to join the bandwagon, from the beginning we have to have some intuitive understanding of the importance of losing the weight, no matter what form it takes, otherwise we will quickly tire of making effort. When we are clear on what is at stake if we do not make a positive change it becomes a vital necessity to persevere in our struggle to remain vigilant. We will observe ourselves getting close to that left line and even having one foot off the path at times, but we are not to be irritated or discouraged with ourselves. Instead we need to remain sincere and serious and the results will be perfect.

The talk of many women I’ve interacted with for the year has had something to do with losing some of the fat. Here again, running off to the most recently opened clinic because our friend recommended it is not the best route. We need an understanding, or a better one, of ourselves. By default, except for exceptions, being female means we are strongly governed by the work of the ovaries that decide on our daily doses of oestradiol and progesterone based on physical and psychological factors as induced by our eating habits, stress levels, etc. These hormones determine the size of our sex organ (eh-em!) e.g. the enlargement of the uterus, our menstrual cycle, changes in our breasts, the broadening of our hips, etc., etc. Just like the plant that is resident in a seed, very little goes on until puberty hits and the hypothalamus command the wheels of change to pick up the pace. Thereon we’re kinda prone to drama for most of the rest of our lives. Depending on the time of the month, our hips are out of alignment, which puts our thighs out of alignment with our lower leg, and by the time we get fedup with our knees grinding or stumping our toes or feeling weakness in the whole leg or whatever other clumsy thing is going on, and we decided to go see the Doctor, things are back to normal and we find that we wasted our consultation fee.

Our strength-weight ratio is always in flux which partly accounts for our weight-loss success one time, but not the other. The first time we might have accidentally started the diet when the body was just in the right groove so it all flowed well. But the last time we tried our basic metabolism was probably undergoing major adjustment when we decided implement a diet plan, so there was a fight all the way that ended with the fat winning. The admonition to know ourselves is not some far-out mystical saying, yet it is, but we need to start with knowing what we are enveloped in…our bodies. We keep trying to control a body that is foreign to us, hence we have more misses than hits and it frustrates us. To date a section of society is still whining about slavery and passively or overtly rebel against any hint of it from our superiors. Well, our cells are doing the same. They are tiny people with a mind of their own who don’t care for our imposition. They want us to get to know them so that we can come up with a strategy for the way forward. Me, myself and I planning a diet based on what we know about the three of us. We are a combination of systems: the Skeletal System, Nervous System, etc., and just like on the job, we can’t beat the system that is why we work for/with it.

Back to the ovaries… Oestradiol deposits fatty tissue in all the right places until it is satisfied that we are round enough in that area. If we have a problem with that we can head out to the gym or jug around the savannah, but as soon as we slack off, the work of oestradiol will reign again. Maybe the Doctors are indirectly seeking to relieve us of the burden each time they suggest that we remove the ovaries, though a different reason might be given. But we need that hormone so it’s best to keep the ovaries. One of the things oestradiol does is to reduce cholesterol levels in the blood so that we are not prone to heart diseases. If you’ve already removed yours, that’s fine, we’re not judging you. On the other hand progesterone keeps us hot; a good counter-balance to limit fat production. Without it, or insufficient, we will be emotional wrecks, always prone to depression and have decreased levels of trace elements like zine, folic acid, vitamin C, and even some of the Bs: riboflavin, thiamine, and the complex 12. The Pharmaceutical industry has been most kind in packaging the right combination for us which is widely used as contraceptive or as a means of regulating our menstrual cycle. The body protests. So we change brands instead of seeing what record the thymus left that we should be working with. The protest becomes passive, but still a protest that tosses up dis-ease in another area. But we don’t associate the new symptoms with the prettily packaged OTC hormones because we don’t understand that if the ovaries cannot speak its mind freely through our reproductive system, it will incite another endocrine gland to take up its cause. Maybe several will chime in and start a hormone scandal in our bodies leaving the average Doctor confused by our symptoms.

So by all means, let’s lose the weight of whatever is burdening us and also endeavor to gain knowledge too. And let’s not be so self-centered that we clamour for all the help. There are folks who would like to gain weight and they need attention too. One Nurse told me she wanted a few pounds added to her derriere, which is already out there, to further accentuate her costume. Carnival is around the corner, so I think she’ll have to be consistent in her efforts and hopefully next year she will have the perfect look.