The weekend of room decoration

Dizziness
From probably Thursday to yesterday, I felt dizzy when standing up from the floor (I sit on the floor to admire/arrange pictures). It was the first time I showed such symptom after I went vegetarian/vegan. I suspect it’s because 1) not only did I overeat in general, but I also ate too much starch and protein, which are too heavy for my stomach, and 2) iron. So this weekend I studied iron, along with zinc, another mineral that vegans usually do not take enough. Reason 1) may sound weird, but that’s my intuition. Starting from yesterday I began to consciously follow the 80% eater rule and eat less starch and proteins, and it does seem to work against dizziness. I admit that I didn’t follow the 80% rule well in the past few days.

Fruit
Does a vegan diet enhance your ability to listen to your body, or it makes you less adaptable? Recently I began to notice the effect of some fruit on my body. Probably even before going vegetarian, I had already discovered that pears were incredibly good at making me feel full. Even when I’m very hungry, one pear can keep me full for more than an hour. After eating a pear today, I felt very cold for a few minutes. Watermelons stuff me quickly and make me cold too. Last Tuesday, I felt very uncomfortable after eating a banana in class (MS&E 270, Markstrat party). It occurred to me that these fruits were all “of cold property” according to Chinese medicine. So I studied fruit today. Sure enough, cold fruit makes you feel cold and slows down your digestion, which makes you feel full.

Eating
I didn’t eat much today and it felt good. Couple of thoughts: 1) I don’t really need to eat as much as I usually eat. Moderate intake of food is enough; 2) water fills me up too; 3) feeling hungry is not necessarily a sign of actual hunger. After waiting for a while the hungry feeling disappears. If the feeling of hunger lingers for probably more than 15 minutes, then it’s real hunger.

Nuts
During my visit to Palentir this Friday afternoon, I had two handful of mixed nuts, and my stomach definitely didn't have a good experience.

Flax Seed Oil
I've only used my new flax seed oil once after I bought it two weeks ago, but starting from today I'll use it pretty frequently.

Sleep
Regarding sleep, it’s been both good and not so good. I was decorating my room for three days including today. I loved doing it so much that I didn’t want to go to bed or didn’t even realize that it was already past 11:30pm. So for the past two nights, I slept from midnight to 7:10am. I woke up at 7:10am in the past two days naturally and pretty precisely, and I didn’t feel sleepy at any point of the day (maybe it’s because I was loving decorating my room and studying fruit, vegetables, iron, zinc … …). So the not-so-good part is that I went to bed too late, but the good part is that I figured my natural amount of sleep now is 7 hours every day. I believe if I go to bed at around 10:30pm-11pm, I can sleep even less.

I’ll make a few new resolutions and edit my vegan documents tonight and tomorrow.