don't sweat the small stuff

i've always endeavoured to be as "sustainable" with my lifestyles as I can be - I don't know how I ended up like this, but it's obvious why.

the last few years have seen me intensify my focus: not only have I tried to apply this to my own life, but also those around me, and use my social influence to widen my impact as well.

it seems though, that the biggest limiting factor at the moment is myself!

I've concluded that in my focus on trying to squeeze sustainability into every corner of my life, i might have overdone things, and it's limiting my ability to reach others.

a simple example: my insistence on minimizing heating use now has turned it into a bit of a domestic conflict. shruti now seems to view heating as a guilty pleasure instead of something that needs to be used responsibly and appropriately. this is not a productive state to be in.

also, focusing too much on myself and too little on others means I've limited my impact to one person!

it doesn't matter if I only use the car twise a month, when my neighbours use both their cars twice a day, for short journeys (which are the worst of all!)

it doesn't matter if i cycle everywhere, if everyone else thinks cycling is dangerous and i'm some sort of freak (because I probably seem quite a risk-taker to most people, with my motorcycling and all!)

I think a more productive use of my effort would be to talk about how people can make small changes that would make a big impact when many people follow them.

for example: reducing and reusing over recycling and disposing. I think everyone understands the benefits of recycling, but not many seem to realize that recycling is only slightly better than disposing stuff! reducing consumption of any item (whether it's packaging, or the product itself!) beats recycling by miles - as much as 100x depending on the product. it's more sustainable to responsibly drive a 15 year old well-maintained car than a swanky new electric "green" one! making two grocery trips a week on cycle is better than one a week in a fuel-burning vehicle.

but even in the above example, i need to make sure my message isn't an extreme one! consumption does not need to be guilty - it just needs to be as sustainable as it can be. with time, the needle will move, and we will find new ways to improve. there's no point going to extreme extents or trying to convince people to go to extremes, if they cannot sustain it.

anyway, feels like i'm going off on a rant - time to log off and think about how I can help everyone make small changes. good night!

My story for the Sustrans Active Travel Challenge 2021

1. What journeys do you currently do cycling/walking/and/or using public transport to get to work, to do the school run, to go to shops, to get to leisure activities, for example? 
   
   

   I prefer cycling wherever possible – to get to work (pre-pandemic), to go to shops, and also to visit places in and around Belfast if they're within an hour's distance on cycle each way. I have occasionally ventured further, mainly along national cycling routes. I usually cycle alone, but occasionally also with my partner. My partner prefers walking, so we occasionally walk to shops. We sometimes walk together for our weekly shop with my cycle, and use it to carry groceries back in the panniers. My partner does not drive, so she uses public transport if she needs to get somewhere beyond walking distance. She has a folding cycle that she can take on buses with ease. I also like swapping items for free over networks such as freecycle, and I have explored a lot of Belfast on cycle while collecting and dropping off items to other like-minded freecyclers.

2. What are the benefits for you of walking and cycling and or using public transport for everyday journeys?
   
   

   I feel more connected to my locality, and have also learned a lot more about my neighbourhood and Belfast in general. As a newcomer to the city, cycling helped me learn the layout of Belfast and explore it in a way I wouldn’t have if I got around by other means of transport. Joining a few walking groups has helped me meet people and socialize when I was new to the city. I occasionally cycle with friends, during the pandemic, as this has been the only safe way to meet people outdoors. I have recently also started walking with people from my local area as a way to connect with my neighbours.

3. When, if at all, do you walk, cycle or run during your leisure time, simply for the purpose of getting exercise?  What do you do?
   
   

   I cycle as a means of combining exercise with my shopping/commute, and take detours or lengthen my rides when I have the time and energy to turn a chore into something more enjoyable and fulfilling.

   I walk with my neighbours and partner, and especially have taken to exploring cavehill on foot as it’s very close to my home.

   I have taken up running in the past as a means of exercise, and while I found it very energizing and fulfilling, I find it much harder to maintain my fitness to the level that I can enjoy running, when compared walking and cycling.

4. What impact did lockdown have on your walking, cycling, use of public transport and exercise habits?

   I avoid public transport wherever possible, cycling instead. Lockdown has put greater focus on my health and I have tried to maintain a healthy schedule of walking and cycling to keep my body fit. Working from home had caused me to become overly sedentary and I had to commit to doing two hours of cycling every week to maintain my physical and mental health. Before lockdown, I would have a much higher activity level as I would cycle to work daily.

5. Why you would encourage people to participate in the active travel challenge this year?  Did you take part in 2019?

   I did not feel the need to take part in the active travel challenge in past years as I was already primarily getting around on cycle after my move to Belfast. I have found that cycling is a great way to get around, beat traffic, stay healthy and enjoy the outdoors. Even when the weather is not perfect, cycling is still fun if you’re prepared and dress appropriately. My own experience with cycling has been immensely positive and I would encourage others to try it, as there is an impression that cycling is expensive, unsafe, and impractical, but it’s neither of these. I will take part in the 2021 active travel challenge as I have now realized that my example might inspire others to follow my footsteps and embrace getting around on cycle and on foot.
   

post-second-wave?

it's ironic that a little under a year ago, I wrote a blog post about the pandemic being over. it certainly wasn't!

once again, pandemic restrictions are easing up, we can finally do things we couldn't do for the last few months, like travelling, meeing friends, eating out. and all of that is nice.

but there's evidence that this isn't the end of the pandemic. there's already the numbers creeping up in parts of the UK, even though everyone with authority is currently maintaining it's not cause for concern.

there is a research paper I read yesterday about how the most popularly administered vaccine in the UK (and India) isn't very effective against the newest strain of COVID-19.

and of course, the situation in some parts of the world hasn't improved as much as it's improved in the parts we've been paying attention to.

on one hand it makes me happy that most of the world has learned to live with the pandemic.

on the other hand, it makes me sad that the divide between those who have and those who haven't has widened.

i feel that more than ever, it's time the "haves" step-up and focus on helping the "have-nots" level up. not just for altruistic reasons, but because the world really needs it. the pandemic happened for the same reason, and it has played out exactly the way it has, for the same selfish reasons.

the sooner we realize selifhs behaviour only works in the short-tem, the sooner we can build a better world for everyone (including ourselves).

doing vs influencing

it probably isn't a coincidence that human-caused climate change is getting more attention than usual these days. what with a change of US president from one who went out of his way to trash environmental commitments to one who seems to be making the right sounds so far, think-tanks focused on the post COVID-19 pandemic recovery, and catastropic climate changes in some parts of the world that are getting harder than ever to ignore even by the most entrenched naysayers and skeptics, the time seems ripe for change.

however, change is not as simple as it may seem at the outset. one wants change to have an impact, because anything else is simply a waste of time (and time, when it comes to the environmental-time-bomb, is obviously of the essence, as it has always been).

I have tried making changes personally over the years: reducing use when economically and logistically feasible (by buying non-perishable items in bulk without packaging, practically eliminating food wastage, etc), reducing my energy footprint, reusing whenever possible (I go through about 2 plastic bags a YEAR), have taken up upcycling and freecycling items when possible, and finally, recycling when reuse is not possible. but... and this is a big but: all my changes are practically insignificant.

worldwide, household waste is under 3% of all carbon emissions. and we were relatively carbon conscious all our lives to begin with (my energy footprint in Mumbai was so low, I did not have to pay electricity bills for over a year!). Right now, in the UK, I've survived 3 winters without using heating until outside temperatures dropped below 0 - barring January, my gas bill in the UK is the same as it was in Mumbai, despite higher taxes + rates per unit! Despite riding a high capacity sports tourer, my overall fuel usage is under 1/5th of what it was in India - simply because I cycle on a daily basis and ride about once a month (or maybe twice a month when we were not in a lockdown).

And so, it seems clear to me, there's not much more I can do personally by way of action to avert the climate crisis. The problem lies elsewhere.

For example, my personal network in the UK comprises of people who either walk, or (mostly) drive cars. and when they drive cars, they usually do so for short distances. one less family ferrying groceries by car for a month would save on more emissions than I have in a year of cycling! A family of 4 who switches to bulk-buying non-perishables without packaging would save twice as much plastic as I could have. But it's even simpler than that. I don't expect families to go cold-turkey and stop driving completely. Simply cutting down on trips by better planning would make a bigger difference than I possibly can. Families with infants switching to reusable diapers even a couple of times a week would reduce more non-recyclable trash than I produce in a year.

Obviously, nobody is going to wake up and make such changes of their own accord. Which is where influencing comes in.

100 people making a 1% reduction is probably better than one person making a 100% reduction (if that was even possible). 1% is such a small reduction, one may not even notice it! Something like a 50% reduction would be possible without significant impact to cost and well-being. And even that will do spectacularly if a significant number of people do it. The network effect can do wonders - when it actually takes effect.

The question is: how?

How does one motivate people to make changes?

Preaching doesn't seem to help.

Example doesn't seem to help.

Not doing anything (obviously) doesn't seem to help.

One area I feel particularly handicapped is: data. hard numbers. Or better still, tunable models.

If I could spend some time with each person in my network, I could actually help them identify easy wins. But without data, that's practically impossible, becase I'll be asking people to just go by my word. And my word might even be wrong - I am no expert myself!

If I could locate other like-minded and similarly motivated people, we could help each other get better at this.

My goal would be to get people motivated enough to identify easy wins and spread the word about techniques (as opposed to actions).

I'm sure there are many tricks I'm missing, but for starters, let's connect and figure things out.

After all, it's our world we're talking about.

my experiments with food

TL;DR: If you want the short story, scroll to lists at the bottom :D

I've always loved to experiment with myself, and while I'm not very systematic/scientific about it, I have found certain experiments "just work" without sweating the details.

I've also always been fascinated with "paleo" - mostly just because it seemed instinctively right to me. My attempts at following it haven't been the great success others have made them out to be. It's hard to say why - I know that I've never maanged to sustain the activity level and type a paleo diet recommends. I did try it half-heartedly for years though.

I've also experimented with exercise and diet - that was for a much shorter time, becasue, for me, exercise seems to require external motivation (i.e. company) and company is a very difficult thing to have consistently.

And then, lockdown happened.

Coincidentally, just before March, we were going through a rather bad comfort-eating spell ourselves. Packaged microwave TV dinners and the like. So when we were locked indoors, the time was perfect.

Shruti had great experiences with keto, although I wasn't fully convinced going without fruit and other carbs was good for me, I thought I'd give it a go with her. We started sometime in March (or was it April? I'm so unscientific I don't even know the month, forget the date we started!), but I do remember it took us 3 weeks of eating through our stockpiled supplies (we didn't go crazy munching on all the junk at home in one go :D) from the day we decided, before we actually started in earnest.

The first few days were weird. Figuring how to cook the stuff we were to eat, how to make it satisfying, how to control the cravings. And damn... what cravings! We were already down to just one slice of bread a day (with our breakfast), but breakfast without bread was weird. And then there was the matter of portion control. We had absolutely no idea how much food we'd need. And we were aiming to only do groceries once a week. We started running out of eggs pretty quickly. And everything else seemed to slow down. Suddenly, we were only eating two meals a day - breakfast and dinner. Shruti decided she won't eat after 8pm. I decided I'd only eat when I'm hungry, mealtimes be damned.

We controlled our cravings.

Made sure we don't slip up.

We had 0 cheat meals for the first two weeks.

Two weeks later, Shruti wanter her first "cheat meal". I don't remember what it was, but I don't think I enjoyed it as much as she did.

I had stopped craving the stuff I decided I won't eat.

Two weeks in, we were already losing weight.

About one kg a week!

I decided I had to go back to having fruits. It just felt wrong to me.

I loaded up on fruits. Whenever I was hungry, I'd have a fruit. Breakfast, fruit, dinner.

About 6kg or so in, I was looking visibly thinner. People were beginning to notice (in photos - we were still not meeting people). I gradually started onions, spinach, and then tomatoes. So far, so good. Shruti also found food more palatable with these few additions, so it worked for both of us. We started eating more common meals.

At some point, Shruti plateaued. I pushed a bit by upping my activity levels (also, since it was summer and bright till late, I was happy to go cycling when it was dry).

At my lightest, I reached 65 kg. I felt on top of the world. I purchased two tees to try at home, as clothes stores weren't allowing trials in store. Size XS. The cashier was unconvinced. I was unconvinced too. But 21 days' free returns, so why not.

The tees fit.

I fit into the smallest size an adult male could wear in the UK.

I was the same weight as I was when I was 13.

I was 13 24 years ago!

At this point, I declared my experiment a success.

Also, at this point, Shruti's motivation began to give way. Cheat meals got more frequent. The cravings were back. I realized how tricky paleo is for me - after every cheat day, I had to voluntarily control myself very carefully for the next couple of days or there'd be no turning back. And there were a couple of weeks where most of the days were "cheat days".

Surprisingly, my weight stayed put. I couldn't believe it. I was hovering around 66 without following any diet! How was that even possible?

Turns out, it wasn't possible. I'm now back to 68. And I can see the momentum. About half a kg every week.

Looks like it's time to "reset". But before I embark on the next phase, let's put things down for posterity.

So, here's what worked for me:

1. Control what you eat, not how much you eat. If (and that's a big IF!) you eat right, you'll know when you're full, and won't feel hungry until it's time to eat again.
2. (For me, not for Shruti - although I don't know how much was due to her body and how much was forced control - she's very good at control!) Don't control when you eat. If you wake up at 8am feeling hungry, go for it. If you thought you're full at 8pm so skipped dinner, but are suddenly hungry at midnight, don't go to bed hungry. MAYBE if you wake up in the middle of the night, just eat a few nuts and drink some water.
3. Don't buy stuff you don't want to eat, until the day you want to eat it. This worked well since we do our groceries on weekends, and that's also when we have the time to savour our "cheat meals".
4. Food is overrated. Cheat meals are overrated. They are merely gateways to happy memories associated with the food involved.
5. Alcohol is overrated. But it's hard to diffrentiate between alcohol and the junk that goes with it, so it's still hard to say. A double of good quality alcohol on ice at home is the sweet spot (no puns intended) for me. More than that, and I start craving junk. And if there's junk on hand, I'm out of control.

Here's what didn't work for me:

1. The 80-20 rule. Lots of places online said if you stick to your diet 80% of the time, you don't need to worry about the remaining 20%. Didn't work. Remember that one slice of bread? If I had my breakfast with one slice of bread daily, the rest of my day was inevitably out of control. As simple as that. IF the 80-20 rule worked for anyone, it was probably because they were using external control.
2. Socializing over alcohol. It's just impossible to stick to reasonable amounts of alcohol in social situations. While that worked well in lockdown, it didn't work when lockdown was lifted.
3. Watching my weight. It took 3 months of kinda-not-following the diet before I started gaining weight. But when I started, it seems like I can't stop. There were no warning signs - once I started piling the pounds back on, it was already too late.
4. Socializing in general. When there are other people involved, it's very hard to stick to your diet without feeling weird. If it wasn't for lockdown, I'd probably never have pulled this off!
5. Vacations are difficult. It's either processed food, or breaking my rules. Very hard to have a good time (since my vacations also involve eating and drinking local!) and stick to my diet.
6. Buying cheat snacks "for later". NEVER EVER WORKED.
7. Portion control when it comes to "cheat snacks"/meals. Once the bag of crisps is open, it's going in. Ditto for cake (serves 6? I'll have all 6 slices in one go!)

And finally, for those who don't know what paleo is, here's my interpretation of it:

• Only eat unprocessed food
• Only eat food that's sold raw
• NO sugar, NO grains, NO lentils. NO anything that can't be eaten raw or roasted.
• Plenty of protein (but not obsessive amounts of it) - 3 whole eggs for breakfast is usually adequate, the rest is in my dinner. I enjoyed egg bhurji the most (especially boiled egg bhurji!), but it was good no matter what. As long as there were 3 eggs in it. More on that in another blog post!
• Plenty of fruit and nuts.
• As much vegetables as desired, with one caveat: too much salad made me full but low on energy.
• For meals, I switched between red/white/oily fish and the occasional shellfish. On days I wasn't too hungry, it was just veggies.
• Rendered fat > oil. However generous you are with fat, if things are being roasted, you'll be consuming minimal quantities of it anyway. The air fryer made it easy to render fat and roast.
• Minimal salt, generous spices. NO sauces.
• The one thing I didn't follow as well as I should have: Hydrate!
• Technically I should have stopped dairy, but I didn't.
• I also didn't bother with much exercise, although I made it a point to be active. Walking and cycling, when weather suited. About twice a week. Not even half as active as I was, when I was cycling to work daily but not following any diet!

the problem with trying to solve people problems

i've always felt the urge to solve human problems. mine as well as those that are not directly mine, but indirectly affect me (every problem affects everyone!)

my own problems are usually simple: the solution is usually about doing something that seems obvious but not very appealing. and the solution is usually incremental - i got here through many tiny steps in the wrong direction, and i just have to retrace/go the opposite way and i'm sorted. the big bang problems are generally not obviously visible to me until someone calls me out on it, and in that case as well, the solution is usually tiny steps in the opposite direction.

when it comes to problems that are indirectly mine though, it's interesting. as an outsider, tiny incremental steps by others in the right direction seem inconsequential, and i tend to focus my thoughts on chunkier things. the reasons for this are many:

• for every person seeming to do the right thing, there are others doing the exact opposite. unless there's an overwhelming majority moving in the positive direction, it's easy to get lost in the perception bias and conclude there is no net effect
• solving problems incrementally depends on consistency, and it's hard to perceive consistency in other people.
• it's hard to tell if tiny incremental steps are due to an over-arching strategy or just correlation. if it's the latter then nothing is being solved since the above 2 points are dominant.
• the obvious possibility that i'm wrong - if it's tiny steps, how do i correlate cause and effect on a macro level?

i could probably go on all day. but in short, that's why small steps do not lend themselves well to observation and solutions of people problems. and so, i'm unavoidably attracted to big picture problems/solutions. but again, trying to solve big problems, leads to a strange progression of thought: every problem leads to an underlying, even bigger problem. sometimes it leads to multiple problems. and eventually it leads to such a big problem that the solution seems to be... annihilation of the human race. that is a definite, conclusive solution to all people problems, isn't it?

but if that's the solution, isn't that where we're headed after all? why speed up a process when my now nihilistic perception of our race already predicts that as the inevitable destination?

and if that's the solution for our race, why should I attempt to go the other way?

nihilism quickly leads to hedonism - if we're doomed, we might as well enjoy the journey, and damn the consequences, right?

but then, i'm no longer part of the solution: i'm now part of the problem! and that's obviously something I don't want to be, because if that's what everyone else was, we'd be brought to a pretty swift end.

in short: since we have arrived at a contradiction, my premise must be incorrect: there's no point in solving big problems that affect other members of society before they affect me.

so, i must solve my own problems. fine.

but as part of solving my own problems, if i do not try to let others reuse my solutions if they desire, am i not wasting my solution?

so, i must solve my own problems incrementally, while helping others solve theirs by speaking about mine.

but again, i need to know what problems i'm solving for others, so that i'm not just pouring out an overwhelming stream-of-consciousness thatg dilutes my solutions to the point of them being lost, right? and for that i need to know what problems i want to solve for them!

there sees to be no correct approach to this, so i'm probably going to pick a few thing I feel are important, and focus on them consciously.

watch this space.

my problem with everything

1. too much opinion, too little fact. way too much opinion passed off as fact.
2. nobody talks about their intentions. everybody can see what, nobody knows why.
3. judging everyone who is too different for us to ignore.
4. "patching" of problems instead of moving towards real solutions.
5. the world has been rewired to keep us on a stimulant cycle.
6. there is no common goal, or even the motivation to find one.
7. i have fallen into all of the above traps and am currently refusing to get out.

the mask that became me

i think it's time to remind myself that everyone lives behind their masks, and the only thing different about this new layer is that it has been externally prompted. maybe it's time to be thankful that i've gotten this far without having to feel this way.

- Kris, almost 4 years ago

i've thought long and hard about why i don't blog like i used to. it's easy to blame things on being busy, but that's not the real reason.

this blog never really was a commentary about the world around me. it was about me.

and there's something that's changed about me that i can't really bring myself to show from under the mask.

we all have our secrets. our dark side, even. and unlike in the movies, we can't just embrace it dramatically in public. we could, but then we'd probably be quickly consumed by our inner demons or something (i don't know. i've been too afraid to see what happens when i let loose).

life seems fragile.

trying to be be the best version of yourself means there's too much at stake: too many chances to do something you'll regret for a long time.

my mind always seeks out the worst case scenario. sometimes, it seems like it's the only way i can keep myself away from the path of quick self destruction.

but that path sometimes seems like slow self destruction.

another rushed morning, another day at work that passed in a blink, another mindless evening that would probably be kept sane if i don't assert myself or think too much, another night of not enough sleep (even if it's sometimes 12 hours).

halfhearted attempts at eating healthy because i've wired myself to guilt-trip every time i do something else, getting to my activity goals because my phone reminds me to.

because: why?

most of what I do is not because I want to do it. i don't even know what I want to do. when I start thinking about it, everything falls apart.

i remember this friend who, over 15 years ago, said he hits the bottle every night he's alone because that's the best way to stop thinking, because when you think too much, everything falls apart.

i thought he was addicted or something. maybe he was. but i now know how he felt.

anyway.

it's not that terrible.

my problems are possibly not that bad. i know plenty others who have it worse.

my problem is that i thought i could see through everyone else's mask without attempting to see beyond mine.

and, so, here i am. at the end of a long winded blog post that lost its point, just like i did. just like (or so it seems to me) humanity did.

earth hour

last night, we observed "earth hour" - but went beyond the bare minimum: we didn't just switch off the lights, we switched off all our electrical devices (except the fridge of course). we lit one solitary candle in the living room, and sat on the couch. switched off our phones (after i clicked the mandatory photo) and set them aside.

and then thought about what earth hour means to us.

how our lives are no longer centred around the basics: physical work, food, family/in person time, rest. things that don't really have much of a carbon footprint/environmental impact beyond the basics. instead, we have desk-based work, quick-fix food, screen time, weird sleep hours.

belfast is a bit of an improvement over mumbai, as all our travel is on foot/cycle (i haven't sat in a bus for local travel in months!), but our carbon footprint has probably increased anyway: while our non-recyclable-trash bin fills up only once a month, our recyclable trash seems to fill up even faster! and recycling is not the "get out of environmental jail free" card it seems to be: while less damaging, it still costs energy, and is not sustainable in the long term. also, interestingly, our electricity is partly generated by "clean" natural gas, which is not as clean as it sounds - and coal!

also, in mumbai, we were consuming 30 units of electricity per month. in belfast, we're consuming a whopping 150 units! we're still very conservative electricity users - most people consume more in a month than we do in a quarter (our last quarterly bill came to barely 53 pounds)! and then, we use gas for a lot more here: warm water, in addition to cooking (yes, we have officially survived the winter without room heating!). a proper comparision, even with back of the envelope calculations for gas are complicated, but we were billed as much for gas in a month in belfast as were were for a year in mumbai!

and so, i can honestly say that while we feel better about our carbon footprint here, we've actually doing far worse. and we're still doing better than average.

so, what's the solution?

it's hard to say.

on one hand, we're almost at the limit of how low we can go, under our present circumstances.

on the other hand, we're surrounded by people who barely care - for varied reasons.

and then again, as the environmental crisis worsens, we may just have some sort of forced change of circumstances. but given how insulated we are from the effects of the crisis, it may just be that the realization hits too late, and we've nowhere left to go.

on a slightly less somber note though, that one hour in flickering candlelight, snuggling on the couch and talking about the environment was refreshing, although i can see it getting boring quickly if repeated often. maybe that's the change we need to make. incrementally re-wiring our brains to get used to a more environmentally conscious life.