Jul

24

The Invisible Cages of Belief

Filed Under Making changes, Self Discovery, Sociology | Leave a Comment

I’ve just finished reading these two great articles that talk about the mentality of students attending elite schools, specifically Yale and Harvard. The crux of them both is that student education has taken a back seat to student entitlement and their impending success, post education but the articles also imply that many of the students can’t see the cage they, and the processes that got them there, have built around their world view. Largely that those who are here (at the institutions) have made it and now, with their unlimited credit of success, they just need to figure out where they should put all the booty. This is something that I have come across myself, the Invisible Cage of Belief. The set of ideas that limits the expectations and modifies the experience of our lives.

I always thought that the world was just how I saw it. That I was perpetually doomed to be a raiser of cats, doer of mundane work and payer of bills. Even though I could see that it was such a stupid idea to work five days, complain about work on the next two and repeat until I was 65 - I still signed up for it.

My life isn’t exactly ideal:

And I felt BAD because I was having those thoughts.

My Invisible Cage of Belief was too small to hold me, but as my own jailer I was trying very hard to keep me in there. How did I get out? I went on holiday. A long holiday. To Europe, somewhere I have always wanted to go, but always managed to never make it.

It took me a long time to get to that point. I had to have weekends off from work. Then weekends away from home. Then a short holiday overseas, somewhere close but definitely out of mobile range. Then another short holiday slightly further away, for slightly longer, in a slightly more “backpacker” mode. And slowly, with the iron will of someone else’s expectations that people are allowed to go on holiday and a solid but quickly eroding belief that this was not the case, I made it out of the cage.

The first one was the hardest. It seems there are larger ones around it, like a Matryoshka doll, but with the knowledge that they exist and experience of what they feel like, escaping them seems to get easier.

I don’t know what those elite leaders of tomorrow are going to be like. I hope there will be some real human beings in the crowd. Some people who spent a lot more time tinkering with their inner workings than the outer workings of the world they want to take control of.

It’s easy for me to say this now, I can see the Invisible Cages of Belief I have escaped from. I’m looking forward to finding more.

Jul

17

Naturopath Visit #4

Filed Under Making changes, Naturopath | Leave a Comment

I returned to Essential Health for another progress check! This is post the holiday and while I was away I couldn’t avoid meat, dairy and sugar. Okay, I could have avoided them, but it wouldn’t have been much fun if I had. I tried to keep the dairy out as much as possible, so no ice-creams etcetera for me.

Body Composition Original Previous Current
Ideal Weight (kg) 88.64
Weight (kg) 78 76 77.5
Skeletal Tissue (kg) 10.64 10.64 10.64
Ideal ECW (l) 17.73
Frame Size Medium Medium Medium
Body Mass Index 20.51 19.99 20.38
Fat Mass
Fat (kg) 12.02 10.28 11.65
Ideal Fat Mass (kg) 15.95
% of Total Weight 15.41 13.52 15.03
% of Ideal Fat Mass 75.35 64.41 73.02
Difference from Ideal (kg) -3.93 -5.68 -4.31
Active Tissue Mass
ATM (kg) 35.87 36.2 35.92
Ideal ATM (kg) 44.32
% of Total Weight 45.99 47.63 46.35
% of Ideal ATM 80.94 81.69 81.06
Difference from Ideal (kg) -8.45 -8.12 -8.39
Fluid Balance
Total Body Water (l) 46.84 46.66 46.75
Total Body Water % 60.06 61.40 60.33
IntraCellular Water (l) 26.40 26.81 26.49
IntraCellular Water % 56.36 57.45 56.66
ExtraCellular Water (l) 20.44 19.86 20.26
ExtraCellular Water % 43.64 42.55 43.34
Optimal Health indicators
Phase Angle 6 6.39 6.09
% of Avg. Phase Angle 83.28 88.77 84.56
ATM Quality Index 0.76 0.81 0.77
Cellular Fluid Balance 21.27 17.58 20.10
Patient Age 32 33 33
Biomarker Index 30.69 30.94 31.48
Fat Distribution Index Normal Normal Normal
Fat Muscle Ratio 0.34 0.28 0.32
Basal Metabolic Rate 1892 1857.80 1878.35
 

So while I was away, I put on some weight. Some actual fat! Good fat, apparently, which is a general-all-over-covering rather than all-in-one-place fat. I have also lost muscle, probably because I haven’t been training much and most of the exercise I got while over there was walking/riding around, which is still exercise, but more toning than building muscle.

I seem to have gotten biologically older in the time away, which isn’t so great, diet and pollution perhaps? It was a long time between salads, although the food at “home” always had fresh from the garden vegetables. They were a life saver, literally it seems.

The overall results are good though, because while I was away my normal life was put on hold and it had an effect on my body. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting and now that I am back home I will be able to resume the good diet and improve my exercise regime. All of which should have a positive effect on my weight, both fat and muscle.

So in four months I am expecting some of those numbers to have changed rather dramatically. By whole numbers, rather than the currently error prone fractions.