Soma Purana

I wrote about walking 8 miles on one day and suffering severely from it. I concluded the week with 7 miles on Saturday. For the week, I did 5+8+0+0+6+7+7=33 miles. 7 miles, even 7.5 miles, is OK, but 8 miles messes me up. Strange! it looks like, going forward I can meet my 40 miles per week criteria (provided it doesn't rain). I did 7.5 miles today. I still miss my bike riding.

Buoyed by successful week of walking and running, I upped the ante and covered 8 miles on Monday 8/20/2012 with 4 miles of it running. Boy, did I exceed the limits that my body demanded! Later that day, that night, and the following day was hell. It felt like my knees were falling out. Advils did nothing. With a couple of days break, I restarted doing moderate 5 miles with no running. I have to figure out slowly what I can do. I am sure over time, 8 miles will be alright, but right now, I am no where near it.

Last week I was watching a program by Shawn Achor called "Happiness Advantage." Achor was relating how we derive happiness with smiling. He said if we put a pen across our mouth forcing it to look like we are smiling broadly, the brain dumps dopamine into the system and we feel "happy." It is not a real smile, there isn't a real happy event, but basically, you have tricked the system into producing happiness. So, I am feeling happy and I also know nothing has changed. Is this schizophrenia? Who is feeling happy? Is that me? why do I feel happy? Brain produces thoughts in mind. Theologians claim, mind and the body are two different things. The "body" includes brain. To illustrate, I have to use two me's, letme call them I-A and I-B. I-B decides to put the pen across mouth. My body and brain decide I must be feeling happy and introduce dopamine. Increased levels of dopamine cause I-A to feel "real" happiness. This statement assume...

Last week I walked five days covering approximately 25 miles. I started week 2 (Sunday 8/19) upping my previous per-day miles. I walked today 7 1/2 miles in an hour and a half. My goal is to do 40 miles in one week going forward. Probably, I will feel sore later today.

I am almost there to restart biking. But until then, I take the less pleasurable exercise of walking. I walked everyday Monday through Friday. On Friday 8/17/2012 I walked 6 miles, actually, I ran 2 miles of it. Exactly an hour and a half. That is pretty good rate. I am sure it is as many calories I would burn with 2 hours of bike ride, but not as enjoyable. Bike ride is tasting freedom in its purest form! I woke up today, Saturday, early as usual, reluctant to walk. And the weather cooperated, it was raining.

This morning before my first long walk after the 7/9/12 accident, I observed two planets close to crescent moon the moon being in between the planets in a line. One that was closest was really bright. I was not sure what these planets were and looked up on Google and found a fantastic website http://earthsky.org/ Now I know! Venus was the bright planet. I read that you could see with telescope four moons of Jupiter. I should get a telescope and try that sometimes. This is the first time, I uploaded a picture. I am planning to insert more images in my future blogs. I am going to look for another planet, mercury, insert itself on the dawn of August 16th. Two more planets - Mars and Saturn - will appear in the sky in the evening on August 20, 21, and 22. I am going to look for this.

It has been more than a month now since I rode bike. I am eager to get on my bike again but it is too early. So, I started brisk walk this morning at 5AM. I walked for little over an hour and covered 4 miles. I ran the last mile. Feels great! Gradually, I want to increase the length of my walk/run so I am prepared for bike ride again at my old pace.

The B and C vitamins are water-soluble and need to be replenished every day. The water-soluble vitamins tend more toward the deficiency side, since they can't be effectively stored. Drink your OJ and milk daily! The fat-soluble ones such as A, D, E and K, need to dissolve in fat and finally end up in the liver and in body fat, where they're stored until they're needed (much like fat). Fat-soluble vitamins, therefore, don't require daily consumption. They stick around inside the body. One downside of storable vitamins is that they can build up in your system, so it's important to make sure you don't overdo it. In other words, be careful with supplements containing fat-soluble vitamins.

There is a spurt of recent studies that indicate that nutritional supplements may not be needed and may actually do some harm. I do take some supplements such as multivitamin, flax seed oil capsule, garlic tablet. Recently, due to my fractures, upon my orthopedist's recommendation I am taking also Vitamin D and calcium supplements. I was concerned about the harmful effects mentioned in the recent studies and looked up several articles on internet. One thing that caught my eye was that o nly animal foods have vitamin B12 naturally. Vegetarians may not get enough B12 unless they consume milk, food that are fortified with B12 or take supplements. Fortunately, one serving of milk contains about 1.2 mcg of B12. According to NIH, adults require about 2.4 mcg (micrograms) of B12 daily. Breakfast cereals also are fortified with B12. I don't eat cereals and don't regularly drink milk. Vitamin B12 deficiency causes tiredness, constipation, loss of appetite, weight loss, ner...

I was very hopeful a week ago. Now I am not so sure. I had a lot of pain in my arm last night. I took oxycodon and slept well. I don't like oxycodon; it causes constipation for me.  I have no visibility to really know what is happening inside in my arm. I only feel the pain. This suggests perhaps there is a lot of muscle damage which has to heal. The fractures seem to be healing; I would know when I go for X-rays in a week. My biggest problem is sleeping at night. I have tried two couches and two beds in my home and one bed (not the one I usually sleep in) and one couch are relatively more comfortable. I developed a shooting pain in my right lower rib which was not injured during the accident. I must have injured it during sleep while turning or so (turning myself or getting up is always difficult). What all this suggests is until I heal completely, my internal condition is unpredictable. At the cellular level, in the neighborhood of my injuries within my body, it must be a...