Rice is nice

I first got started with this yin and yang technology about 25 years ago when I was about 37 years old. I had gotten divorced from my first wife and I was pretty frightened about my future. I was overweight at about 180 lbs. and I had an ample beer belly. I didn't feel attractive and I felt sluggish and lazy. What to do? I was in Sunday school class one week and one of the members mentioned that an elderly woman in the church had cancer and was trying to cure herself with a diet called macrobiotics.

I had heard of this diet in the 60's when I had first gotten married but I had written it off at that time. I decided to do some research and see what it was about. I went to the library and got a book about the diet and found out after reading it that macrobiotics is much more than a diet. Macrobiotics is the technology of balancing yin and yang in your body, in your house, in your neighborhood and in your community. I was amazed to learn that such a technology existed and that I could adopt it in my own life.

At the time I was a typical unbalanced diet consumer. I loved meat and ate it with gusto along with eggs, and other high protein foods. My first wife and I loved to cook and we had an assortment of gourmet cookbooks which we used often. One of the recipes that we loved to make was red beans and rice, a traditional southern favorite. It called for ham hocks cooked long and slow with red beans. Yummy. The recipe also called for whole grain brown rice. Because we liked this recipe so much, we were in the habit of keeping a box of brown rice in the cupboard.

From what I had read, I knew that brown rice was in the middle of the yin and yang spectrum and so I decided to try an experiment. I wanted to test out this "technology" and see if what these people were saying had any merit. I pulled out that box of rice and cooked it up.

I started adding brown rice to every meal that I could. In addition, I started eating other whole grains such as rolled oats, barley, etc.

Within two weeks I started to lose weight. Within a month my taste for meat seemed to be reduced. Within three months I had lost 25 lbs and had lost my taste for meat almost entirely. I was starting to feel different. My blood sugar levels evened out and I stopped having mood swings. My anger levels were much reduced and I felt much calmer, less stressed.

I was amazed with these results. Suddenly all of the problems that I had been having with my body, headaches, colds, flu, pains, etc. simply disappeared. I began to be able to control my diet and even my mind became clearer. My life became less about food because my cravings had reduced so much. I was satisfied which was a tremendous freedom for me.

Since that time rice has continued to amaze me with its versatility and its ability to solve so many issues. I call brown rice my first guru and I credit it with saving my life in many ways.

More in the next post.

Thanks for reading.

Steve