Since I’m always willing to plagiarise myself, here’s my rebuttal:

I don’t agree with Huxley, I’m afraid, although I’m a big fan of his novel Brave New World and find his portrayal of the future to be much more analogous to the present day than his contemporary Orwell’s 1984, but that doesn’t have anything to do with happiness in any event.

Over the last few years, I’ve become a devotee of “The Happiness Project” and it’s author Gretchen Rubin. The idea behind it is all about living in mindful happiness and tweaking daily life to be just that bit happier. One reason I identify so much with her is that her approach to becoming happier involved copious amounts of research and reading on the subject. Her sources are both ancient and modern, scientific and philosophical in nature.

I’m pretty sure she mentions the Huxley quote in her book, along with several others which go against her basic premise. Certainly, there is a balance in how much analyzing of one’s happiness is healthy, but I do believe a certain amount of reflecting on what works and doesn’t in the pursuit of such abstractions as happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction are needed to avoid getting stuck in a bleak rut. Once thought about, it is necessary to go after those things which make us happy.

I find the kind of ruts which can deprive us of happiness come in two varieties. First is the “autopilot” where we get so busy with the stuff of daily life, we forget the happiness that comes from a job well done, a simple meal, interactions with the people around us. Part of the is the “hedonistic treadmill” which makes it so something that once made us happy, over time, is normalized and we end up back at the baseline of happiness. It’s understandable when it happens with a new cell phone or a pair of shoes, but darn sad when it comes to getting married, friendships or having kids. It’s to easy to focus on the annoying things about all those things which also make us happy if we’re not careful.

The other type of rut I’ve not only seen other people in but lived in for a long, long time is a rut of obligation and figuring life is what it is and there’s not anything to do but keep pushing forward regardless of happiness. As one of my other “life coach” heroes Adam Carolla always says, the best thing about humans is the capacity to change. Animals don’t have the ability to decide to change, to decide to behave differently in the pursuit of better results. Personally, I’ve worked my butt off over the last three years to change every aspect of my life in pursuit of happiness and otherwise making the most of my time on this planet. It hasn’t always been easy, but the results have given me so much more than happiness alone. I feel confident and in control of my destiny even while accepting life will never be perfect and I don’t have to have everything I think I want to be happy.

Without considering happiness, plus the cause and effect of various parts of life, how can one even decide how those variables are working?

Without a doubt, for me, happiness must be both actively pursued and pondered in order to happen at all.

For a while now, I had been discontented with the state of my body and health. As little as I blog anymore, I even wrote about it back in January when I went through my wardrobe and was disappointed to find an entire laundry basket of items I’d gotten too big to wear. It was demoralizing. I was frustrated with myself gaining back all but around twenty pounds of what I’d lost in 2010. Worse than the weight gain, I was feeling sluggish, old and unhealthy. Worse still, I couldn’t imagine how I could reverse the trend beyond finding the willpower to eat a very small volume of food while battling hunger and cravings every single day for the rest of my life.

I was caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock being my 4 foot 8 inch frame carrying, as of April 2nd, 259 pounds which is around BMI of 55. Now, I’m not here to argue about wither people can be overweight and health or make any moral judgements about people who choose remain overweight. I believe in body autonomy for all bodies and don’t judge others for making the choices they make. For me, however, there is no doubt my cocktail of medical issues is vastly improved by slimming down. I’ve seen it for myself and, you know, science. I want to be healthy, have all my various body systems function, and avoid illness. I’ll be happy to be thinner for all the vanity and fashion reasons, but I would never have been motivated enough by those things to actually make a change.

But then we have the hard place. Just as much as medical science tells maintaining a normal-to-thin body weight ups the likelihood of leading a long and healthy life, science also tells us it is next to impossible to loose weight and keep it off once you have been significantly overweight. I know from experience I’m extremely unhappy on programs which force me count, measure and track. I feel trapped. I find it triggering for anxiety. I can only manage to stick to it in the short term, but I know I couldn’t make it a lifestyle. Same for “eating less” which is how I got down to 217 pounds three years ago. I’d eaten small amounts of various things all throughout the day and kept hunger away with more Diet Coke than I care to admit. Chris and I had tried the “slow carb” thing a la Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Body (affiliate link) and while I agree many of the principles are sound, it was complicated to do on a budget, plus my food cravings never dissipated.

All those things always felt like a diet to me. They also felt forced. I knew I couldn’t commit to a lifetime of anything I had tried. I knew anything less than a lifetime commitment seemed futile from the outset.

Several months ago, I’d begun eating more vegetables and taking walks on my lunch break, but I didn’t see any change on the scale or in the fit of clothing. Still, I figured those habits were healthy anyway and the walks specifically were great for my mental health.

The seeds of real change came later, like they so often do, with a side of serendipity and planted in a heart ready to accept the advice. They say when a student is ready, the teacher arrives and the old chestnut has often proved itself in my life. It happened to be Easter Sunday over at Chris’ family’s house when his brother Eric put on the documentary “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” which you can watch on Netflix or free on Hulu. It’s the story of Joe Cross – a man with a delightful Aussie accent and a painful autoimmune disorder – getting healthy on a juice fast followed by diet rich in unprocessed plant foods. On the first watching I was slightly skeptical yet curious. I thought about it afterward, too, and talked about it with Chris. We watched the movie again before deciding to order a juicer.

I’m fine with admitting my juice fast phase didn’t last long. I spent about five days on juice and water only and without even coffee before adding in some black beans and cottage cheese in the evening.At the time, I believed I was lacking in protein and while that may have been a small part of the problem, I have come to believe I was going through a physiological withdrawal from refined carbohydrates and sugars. I felt better with a little solid food in the evening, usually some spinach salad along with beans and cottage cheese and after the first couple weeks, I wasn’t drinking nearly as much juice during the day or the large amounts of water I needed the first week just to keep hunger pains away.

I’m also drinking two cups of coffee in the morning. I use a small amount of half and half, but have lost my taste for sweetener in it. So many studies have been done on the benefits of moderate coffee usage as a treatment for depression and my personal experience is it enhances my mood, so any trade off is worthwhile to me.

Weight dropped. For the first month, I lost an average of 0.6 pounds a day. People at work started to notice my glass of green or orange juice, along side a jug for refills and soon noticed how started to shrink. Some seemed interested. I’ve handed out a few juice samples along with recommending the documentary. Plenty people look at me like I’m crazy.

I’m excited about the scale weight dropping, to be sure, but it is things no one else sees which excite me the most. My energy level and mental clarity are better than I ever would have imagined. Of course, those are both subjective indications. I am, at the core, a skeptic. One change has cut through my reservations and sold me on this way of eating as healthful and not just slimming: My skin is so soft. I’ve always had dry spots on my hands, feet, elbows, knees, wrists and ankles. My hands especially would get chapped and painful from using harsh soaps to the point that I will sometimes carry moisturizing bar soap in my purse to use in public bathrooms. I don’t remember a time, even as a child, when I didn’t have these dry spots. Now, I’m not dry or flaky anywhere. It’s a wonder what proving the body with proper nutrition will do.

While Chris and I both were quickly sold on the benefits of juicing, one place “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” left us needing more information was what to eat in addition to drinking our freshly jucied fruits and veggies. Still even Joe the Juicer himself broke his fast after 60 days. Chris went back to the documentary and found Dr. Joel Fuhrman who is featured several times in the film. He downloaded Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (affiliate link).

Never in my life have I been so set against ideas in a book in the first few chapters and so firmly sold on the wisdom of the same book by the last page. I found the first few chapters difficult because they seemed little more than an attach on the overweight person. Living in fat phobic culture, the message isn’t one I find compelling on it’s own, after all average weight Americans – on the whole – don’t eat healthfully or suffer substantially fewer medical problems than overweight Americans. As a country, we eat terribly as evidenced by the sheer number of fast food joints which thrive in our communities.

As I continued to read, I found Dr. Fuhrman began to focus more on food as medicine. Throughout the book he profiles patients of his who have reversed heart disease and diabetes following his diet. He says weight naturally comes off when you eat for nutrition density. This is the same way of eating Alton Brown promotes in his Live and Let Diet episodes of Good Eats. If I hadn’t seen the results for myself, I’m not sure I would have believed much about curbing addition to junk food, but having started with juicing and experienced it for myself, I know I was addicted and now I don’t crave the processed carbs and sweets, nor do I miss eating meat. I can’t go so far as to say I no longer have a taste for any of those foods or none of them sounds appealing, but the deep longing for them which couldn’t be scratched with anything else is gone.

I would not have tried this way of eating had I not been desperate to turn the tide on my health. I want so much for my future in part because I wasted so much of my past. The thought of living with chronic illnesses kept at bay only with the help of medication with powerful side effects is almost as scary as the thought of dying young. I don’t want to simply exist, but to thrive in mind, body and spirit. I’d come a long way on the mind and spirit part, but my physical struggles had been holding me back. As I sit here today, I am around twenty pounds lighter than I was when I started this experiment at the first of April, I’m stronger and more active, and I don’t feel any temptation to go back to my former way of eating. A month is only a drop in the bucket against 32 years of habits, but so far this way of eating has created a positive feedback loop more powerful than those patterns. Even if I slip up, I confident knowing not only that a diet of unrefined plant food is health, but that I enjoy it enough to get right back on.

Saturday 9: Twist and Shout

1) In the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris climbs up on a parade float and enthusiastically lip synchs this song, encouraging the entire crowd to join in. Do you know the lyrics of “Twist and Shout” well enough to sing along? (Watch the impossibly young Matthew Broderick as Ferris here.) Absolutely! I couldn’t come up with the all the lyrics off the top of my head, but I’d remember them by rote if the track was playing.

2) What other Beatles’ song do you know all the words to? Most everything on the Sargent Pepper’s album, Paperback Writer, Come Together, Get Back, Let It Be, so many more. Paradoxically, I’ve never considered myself a “Beatles fan” but I love Beatles songs, counting many of them above my favorite. Weird, I know, but it’s how I set apart myself from someone like The Gal who is mad over Paul. It’s a bit like my relationship with Star Wars. I can enjoy it without it triggering the obsessive fan behavior other properties do.

3) 49 years after their American debut, The Beatles are acknowledged as having a lasting impact on both music and culture. What performers on today’s music scene do you think will be remembered 50 years from now? I don’t know a damn thing about today’s music scene. No really, I’ve heard a few things here and there, but not enough to have an opinion.

4) Paul McCartney is an enthusiastic advocate of the vegetarian lifestyle. Could you/have you tried to “go veggie?” Funny you should ask. I’ve been juicing for nearly a month along with a diet composed almost exclusively of unprocessed plant foods. After a few really awful days while my body kicked the refined carb habit, I’ve never felt better in my entire life. The number on the scale – or in my case, the Wii Fit – keeps dropping, but more importantly I’ve got plenty of energy, my mood is great and my all the dry patches of skin I’ve always had have cleared up. I never imagined I’d say it and I wouldn’t have believed it had I not felt the results for myself, but I have no doubt humans are healthiest eating pretty much the same as our primate cousins.

5) As a young boy, Ringo Starr suffered a severe attack of appendicitis and almost died. Do you still have your appendix? What about your tonsils? I still have both. My large tonsils are a likely contributor to my sleep apnea and should have been taken out when I was a kid. I’d love to get them out and likely will pursue it once I’m thin enough the doctors don’t blame my weight for my sleep apena. If anything, over the years, the effects of undiagnosed sleep apnea lead to my being overweight more than the other way around. The medical establishment just don’t look at me and believe I was an average size seven year old kid who snored like a cartoon bear.

6) John Lennon sketched and doodled when he was bored or nervous. Do you have any nervous habits? I pick at my finger nails when nervous. If possible, I drown those nerves with words be it reading a book or checking Twitter and Facebook obsessively.

7) George Harrison loved Hawaii so much he bought a 63-acre estate in Maui. Have you ever visited our 50th state? I lived on Oahu from the middle of my fifth grad year to a month into my eighth grade year. I can easily count those years as the best of my childhood, but that’s in large part thanks to spending almost every waking moment with my still-BFF Kate but the tropical location didn’t hurt. I’ve never been to Maui, but I have been to the Big Island of Hawaii and Kauai.

8) Yoko Ono was a polarizing character in the Beatles’ saga. Has any of your friends ever dated/married someone you just could not stand? Yes. Love is blind and also stupid. My friends could certainly say the same about me.

9) Paul has had dogs his entire adult life, including a sheepdog, Martha, and a black lab, Jet. John was especially fond of a cat named Elvis and a tomcat he found in the snow and named Tim. Tell us about one of your pets. It’s a little hard to talk about my cats. They are the worst part of what I lost when my life got all crazy and even though I will certainly have other cats someday, I’ll always love Eddie, Cubbie and Otis, plus the later addition Hobbes. The first three from the same litter and the first pets I ever had. From the beginning, I loved how each of them was completely different in temperament and personality.

As previously discussed, I’m working on improving my wardrobe. One of the first things I did was pull all the items with stains for extended soaking in vinegar and multiple wash cycles. Some of them came perfectly clean, but some were left with a ghost of a stain. Honestly, the stain left on this sweater I bought on clearance for about three dollars when I was working at Target would have been fine to wear as it was. Only very close up in very bright light is the stain viable, but once it dawned on me how closely the color matched somepony I admire.

by KurosakiSoarin

I knew this was destined to be my first real embroidery project. I’d picked up Doodle Stitching: The Motif Collection in a little kit with a six inch hoop, a couple needled and some starter thread at Barnes & Noble right after Christmas and an assortment pack of thread at Walmart, but I had only played at various stitches. While practice may make perfect, I have to have a purpose behind my practice or I simply cannot motivate myself. I don’t mind messing up a “real project” as I learn a new skill and believe me, learning to sew over the last handful of years has been full of mistakes.

Likely because I’m experienced in hand stitching to begin with, I didn’t have much trouble turning a resized imagine of the cutie mark into a thread and fabric representation. The white felt was the base, then after all the embroidery was done I carefully cut out the area where the blue fabric applique would go. I really didn’t want to cut it, but I also didn’t want the blue third to be filled in with stitches. Seemed a little too much. Too uniform. Too much like imitating store bought. It would have been a safer option, but it wasn’t what I envisioned. Sure, I’d spent the better part of a couple days on the project, but if I didn’t try to make it match the idea in my head, the time would be wasted anyway.

As for embroidery itself, I really loved watching the imagine take shape and using thread as a medium to draw on fabric. Add in applique techniques to lend the colors, patterns and textures of fabrics – I freaking love fabric – and the possibilities are endless. I’ve been saving scraps of fabric since I began sewing and now I can put them to use in other projects. Very exciting. I also love how portable the most projects can be. The pleasure of a “project in a bag” is one reason I tried so many times to get into knitting even though I never really improved. A little thread, scissors, hoop and I can do it just about anywhere. Granted a lot of Dash was done on the sofa while watching Capria on Netflix last weekend, but that is besides the point. I’ve got a couple ideas up my sleeve already which will remain undisclosed for the moment, but that I’m super excited to get started on.

21: Would you swear in front of your parents I didn’t for a long time, but I will now in moderation or when the swear word really is the only possible word for the situation.

22: Which continents have you been on? Only North America.

23: Do you get motion sickness? Any horror stories? When I was a kid, I got car sick easily especially on road trips where you get out of bed, hit McDonald’s or a greasy spoon for breakfast, then get out on the highway for hours on end. We finally figured out I did much better skipping breakfast, but I still would get sick from time to time.

24: Why did you name your blog whatever you named your blog? When I decided it was time for a new domain name to replace the one including my ex-husband’s last name, I tried to get the old title of my blog which was The Creative Nerd. Since that was already taken, I spent a few days thinking about possibilities until “Nerdbliss” popped into my head. I really love it because it reflects how I want to be. It’s a great reminder that being myself and being happy go hand in hand.

25: Would you wear a rainbow jacket? A neon yellow sweater? Checkered pants? Yes, I love colorful stuff. No, neon washes me out. Maybe, I don’t usually wear pants, so if I do they have to be *perfect* and flattering.

26: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Post a picture if you can.

27: In a past life I must have been a… rebel. I can’t see myself fitting into old fashioned notions of womanhood very neatly.

28: If you had to look at one city skyline for the rest of your life, which would it be? Of “major” cities, Atlanta not because it’s the most beautiful skyline but because it is the city I can imagine myself living in someday. For beauty, nothing beats the Seattle skyline, in my opinion, but the cold and rain isn’t my bag. Runner up: Honolulu.

29: Longest plane ride you’ve ever been on? Seatac International to Honolulu and vise versa three years later.

30: The longest you’ve ever slept? Maybe 16 hours straight when I’ve been sick.

31: Would you buy a sweater covered in kitten pictures? Would you wear it if someone gave it you for free? Likely not unless it was super cold or something.

32: Do you pluck your eyebrows? Nope. I am blessed with nicely shaped eyebrows.

33: Favorite kind of bean? Kidney? Black? Pinto? Chickpea. Either as hummus or roasted with various spice blends.

34: How far can you throw a baseball? Not sure, really. I doubt I could make it across the plate in on a regular sized baseball field.

35: If you had to move to another country, where would you move? England, most likely, even if the weather wouldn’t be my favorite.

36: Have you ever eaten Ethiopian food? Vietnamese? Korean? Nepalese? How was it? Of those, I’ve only had Korean. It’s good stuff. My favorite “ethnic” cuisine is Indian with Middle Eastern coming in a close second, through Chinese and Italian are always good.

37: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? If he’s smart, he’d subcontract that shit.

Saturday 9: The Way We Were

1) In honor of Valentine’s Day next week, what’s the most romantic movie you can think of?

2) The Way We Were was a tearjerker. Do you think that most real-life love stories end in heartbreak? Or do you believe in happily ever after? Endings are heartbreaking. All things end. It’s really more what leads up to the ending that counts.

3) What’s your favorite love song? For the sentiment matching my outlook on love:

4) In 1993, Barbra Streisand married actor James Brolin, who first became famous as Dr. Steven Kiley on Marcus Welby, MD. Who is your favorite TV doctor? Is this even a question?

5) In 2012, Streisand renewed her contract with Columbia, where’s she’s been recording since 1963. So she’s been with the same label for fifty years! Where have you worked the longest, and how long was that? I worked for Payless Shoe from October 1998 to August 2005.

6) Sam Winters once worked as a hostess in a chic bistro in Worcester, PA. That’s why she frequently gets frustrated by bad service in restaurants — she’s certain she could make it run more smoothly. Where do you find yourself getting annoyed most often?

7) Have you ever taken a polygraph test?

8) Crunchy, smooth or organic peanut butter?

9) Describe your favorite sweater.