I found this video at the CrossFit Central Women blog, and thought it would be awesome to show you the place I go many mornings and the sorts of things I do. My workouts are nothing like the one Chris does in this video (mine are scaled way down and take me much longer to finish!) but it’ll still give you a rough idea.

Chris, by the way, runs the CrossFit workout I have on Wednesday mornings. His classes are awesome. “Christine” is the name of the workout he’s doing. Check out the look on his face when he’s almost finished and has to (maybe!) convince himself to keep pushing.

The way he seems to have his shit together is something that’s going to stick in my mind the next time I’m almost done with a workout. For some reason, that really resonates with me.

Right now, I’m at CrossFit Central three days a week, Tuesday through Thursday. My Mondays and Fridays got interesting, so I dropped back from the five days a week just for a month or two. I’m still getting a HELL of a workout. And I’m sure gonna miss these while I’m in Vegas!

It continually amazes me that I’m still actually doing it, loving it this much, considering everything going on in my life and various experiments (especially food experiments) that make CrossFit particularly challenging. A few years ago, I doubt I would have stuck with it. Exercise was important to me, but it was still way at the bottom of my list—and something as hardcore as CrossFit would have fallen off the bottom fast. It’s a real pleasure to know these people. I can’t wait to go back to having classes every weekday. Dude.

Can you really believe that something this badass has made such a positive impression on me? That thinking about it makes little happy hearts and rainbows fly around my head? Stars. Lights. We’re talking tinsel, people.

Human beings are complicated and wonderful.

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes is a fantastic book so far. Halfway through, I am fairly certain it could be retitled “Good Science, Bad Science” or perhaps “Good Science, Bad Science, Crappy Politics.” I’d say that you wouldn’t believe the politics that affect your food, but knowing the sort of discerning, intelligent folks who read this site, uh, you probably would. And do. And weep, just like me.

As we know, it’s not just food industry and availability that political climate affects, but national dietary policy and recommendations. Right here (in this book) is where we realize that we can’t trust anyone but ourselves and (maybe) a few well-chosen researchers. Disheartening. Discouraging. Infuriating!

The problem is, no one can give you a straight line on nutrition because no one really has a straight line on nutrition. Scientists trust other scientists to provide them with accurate environmental information surrounding their preferred subject, because no scientist can get the truth about everything on her own. She has to stand on the backs of the researchers who went before, and she has to assume that the information she’s been given is reasonably correct. Otherwise, she’d have to start from scratch. I’m sure there are scads of examples where this works just fine. Taubes tells us a story of where it didn’t.

Taubes’ book explains how massive fumbles get made. So far, he’s told us how science mistook the merits of a low-fat nutritional regimen for the merits of a regimen low in refined carbohydrates. The intrigue is insane. I never read War and Peace, but I bet it’s a little bit like this. Dense. Informationally intense!

Of course, I can’t trust Taubes, either—not exclusively. Not even when I’m this grateful to him for further opening my eyes to the vagaries of food politics! (I like him and all, don’t get me wrong. And I love the book!) But I can make a judgment about where to get my information and how to rate my sources in a reasonable manner. I’m quite fond of Michael Pollan, and he has good things to say about Gary Taubes. Halfway through Taubes’ book, I’m pretty impressed with his attention to detail and follow-through and thorough (-seeming, as I am not a nutrition scientist) grasp of the history and circumstances surrounding the arguments of fat and cholesterol and refined carbohydrates. A lot of the stuff he says makes me blink in disbelief, and much of it leaves me unsurprised. Yeah. People can get mixed-up. Especially people with important roles to play, especially people entrusted to make policy that affects hundreds of thousands of others.

What does this mean? Don’t trust the folks in charge? Ignore the rules? Take down the government? Well… probably not. Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do about a mistake made on a grand scale. (This is NOT an excuse for some of the folks Taubes writes about in the book, but it’s not an indictment either. Who knows what they could have chosen to do differently? It doesn’t matter now.) We can, however, be more hands-on when it comes to decisions made about our health and well-being. We can do our own science in our own ways. We can absorb information and test it, instead of parroting it and calling it canon without real knowledge of whether it’s true or not. We can listen to our bodies and learn to make decisions that affect us positively, instead of fooling ourselves into believing that someone else will always know better, someone else will always take care of us.

Someone else won’t always take care of us. Not only won’t, but can’t, because we are the only souls truly capable of being stewards of our own lives. That counts in health, it counts in work, it counts everywhere across the board. You need to take care of you. If that means climbing a few learning curves and paying attention to the world around you (and the responses within you), so be it. Get going.

If we don’t start paying attention and taking care of ourselves, we’ll just keep getting sick and dying and trying to blame it on somebody else.

And that’s just stupid.

I am absolutely filthy. Covered in dirt. No hugs. ;}

This was my fourth week doing five CrossFit classes a week—Monday through Friday—so I decided to celebrate by doing one more day, and making this week six. There was a free boot camp this morning, under the bridge downtown near Town Lake, so Marty and I hustled down there around 8. Push-ups on the ground meant we all ended up covered in dust and dirt and little leaves, and all the sweat meant it stuck. It was awesome.

I should mention, too, that I’m still the last one back from the run (apologies to my teammates at the end there), but unlike my starting situation in May, I can now do real squats, like a person with… muscles. In their legs. Holy cow. It seems like a little thing until I remember exactly how weak I felt when I started doing this. What I’m experiencing is progress.

So I’m sitting here writing this entry, covered in dirt (at least it’s not mud, right?), and the only clean thing on me is my hands. Because I washed them. And while I wait for my breakfast to be ready, I figure, I have to say something about these people. Because these folks really watch out for me, and it means a lot, and furthermore it says something—about Crossfit Central in Austin, about the kind of people who work there, about the folks coaching their classes.

Zachary Thiel taught us CrossFit Elements when we started out—it was fantastic. Now, I have Chris Hartwell Mondays and Wednesdays and Lance Cantu Tuesdays and Thursdays. I drop in on Carey Kepler’s Monday-Wednesday-Friday women’s class on Fridays (which Jen Cardella helps coach), and it’s the only class I have that isn’t a beginners’ class. All of these classes kick my ass, and I don’t know how I lived without them before.

This isn’t like grade school gym where the teacher is frustrated with the slow kids, and mostly ignores them. This is something else entirely. This is a whole different motivational ethic, and I love it. There’s tons of encouragement to go around. No one gets forgotten. That’s something I was really sure would happen, the more behind I was—I was worried I’d get forgotten.

Never happened.

These coaches all go out of their way to be helpful and share advice as needed. They’re friendly and they know their shit. They have senses of humor, good hearts—and high standards. I walk out of these classes feeling so proud of myself, feeling this enormous respect for what I’m doing even though I can’t really do it any better than anyone else (and, uh, far from it). But I still leave feeling amazing. Competent. Adult, not just because I’m 28 years old and “legal”, but in a true sense of what it means to be responsible for yourself and your own well being.

In my conversation with Marty this morning, we decided that it wasn’t the exercise we liked, specifically. It wasn’t even that we were doing something that would be good for us, result in better health and flexibility and longevity—though those are all great effects. It’s that we like the way we feel when we do these things that are hard. It raises your self-esteem to know that you did the thing when most people wouldn’t have bothered. It feels good to have made the extra effort. It feels good to know you can do it, no matter how far you still have to go.

It makes it all even better that Chris always has a warm smile and Lance always has a word of encouragement and Zach has a friendly hey when we walk in, and Carey cheers us on and Jen cackles when I lose count (Jen is awesome, and yes, I probably should have been using the 20lb dumbbells. Next time!!) and that they all adamantly push us to do our best, every minute. I love seeing these people every morning. Man, I can only imagine what a hardcore gym workout every day could have been. What I got was so much better than I imagined. Jesus, if I can do this, who couldn’t?

And crap! Exercise isn’t my thing—it’s never really been my thing. It’s not that I was born to do this stuff or that I’ve gravitated towards it all my life. I’m a freaking couch potato. So it has to be something else. It has to be the challenge and the play of it, and the environment, and the people.

Hell.

It’s probably just CrossFit Central.

Thanks, guys. :}

Do you know what’s terrifying?

THE WHOLE WORLD.

The whole world is a scary, horrible, terrifying place that gives no quarter in hours of stress. You can’t run away. You can’t hide. It is always out there, waiting for you. You are expected to just put up with it and be brave and be strong and so you put on a chirpy happy face and pretend everything is okay even though you are SHITTING YOURSELF in terror.

And there is nothing more terrifying than getting your fat measured by your svelte CrossFit coach on a Sunday afternoon.

NOTHING.

So I go to get my body composition measured because it’s happening today and I want to know if the measurements I took on my own were correct.

I’m pretty sure they weren’t, but I’m hoping they aren’t worse.

They can’t really be higher than I think they are, can they?

First I write down some goals (very nice goals, I think) and then we measure circumferences of limbs and things. I stand there and pretend it’s completely normal. La la la, nothing much, just getting my FAT MEASURED by my CrossFit coach! Ho hum, lazy Sunday afternoon, let’s see what my body fat percentage is today, I look over his shoulder as he writes it down, FORTY PERCENT?? There’s a plus sign, what does that plus sign mean? OVER FORTY PERCENT!?

Much higher than I thought. A part of me dies quietly of horror, and the rest of me makes pleasant conversation. “Ha ha, it was such a coincidence that you were doing body composition today, since I measured myself exactly a week ago and expected to do it again pretty much now,” ha ha, what SERENDIPITY! THAT’S SO FUNNY! Would you like more fat to measure? HERE’S MY BUTT, LET’S MEASURE THAT!

I was going to write this post a few weeks ago, when I started the instructional classes. I was going to write it then because, while I have maintained my internal composure excellently in the days leading up to CrossFit classes and in the spaces between them, I have rediscovered every single class how absolutely fundamentally terrifying it is for me to be there. Just to be there. And I finally wrote this post today because on the way home from measuring my body composition I remembered how very much I wanted to hyperventilate into a paper bag just thinking about it. Why, Megan? Why should this be terrifying?

Well… here’s the problem.

I don’t really believe I’m meant to be there.

I don’t really see myself as ever occupying the same universe Emily does, with her 125 pounds of muscle and 10% body fat. I can’t imagine how I can possibly belong at CrossFit. There is a small part of me who is waiting to be kicked out. “You can’t do these things,” they will say. “You’re not good enough. You’re different. You’re just not capable of them.” And I won’t be allowed to attend classes anymore. Maybe they won’t even refund my money! Because I’m not like them, not worth bothering with.

Every little indignity rubs the terror in, even though they haven’t kicked me out (yet, something says to me)—that I’m not like them, and not good enough. I needed to be in the beginners’ classes instead of the regular CrossFit classes. I can’t keep up with the run. I can’t do a fake, easy pushup. I run out of oxygen so fast when we’re doing anything. And apparently my body fat is ten percent higher than I thought it was. O GOD, the VIOLENCE done by NUMBERS!

Why is it that I think I’m “not like them”? Well, I’m just not capable of the things they’re capable of. I have to make excuses for myself—oh, I hurt myself easily. I can’t move that fast. I’ve never been able to do regular pushups. Whine, excuse, complain. Every time we learn something new, I actually have to STIFLE THE REFLEX to take someone aside and let them know that I need to do something different because I’m not like everyone else. I’m supposed to be an exception. A weaker exception. My whole life, I have made allowances for myself. It’s okay, you just can’t do what they’re doing. That doesn’t make you a bad person.

BUT IT DOES. IT DOES, it DOES make me a bad person. It makes me a bad person BECAUSE THOSE WERE ALL LIES!!

BIG FAT STINKING LIES!!

My whole life I’ve been lying to myself saying that I can’t be like that, I can’t be strong, I can’t be fast, I can’t feel good, I’ll never be able to climb a tree or run a race or fight evildoers with my bare fists, I have completely exempted myself from those categories, and I’ve been telling myself these LIES for SO MANY YEARS that NOW I FINALLY BELIEVE THEM. I believe them so powerfully that the very act of attending a CrossFit class—completely separate from the fear of being physically unattractive, of not being liked, of having spent money on the wrong solution—the very ACT of participating instills an enormous amount of terror just because I’m afraid I don’t belong there. Afraid that if they really knew who they were dealing with, they’d reject me out of hand. And wondering when they’ll find out, wondering how long I’ll last before they do. WHEN WILL THE OTHER SHOE DROP? Will they yell? Will they be disappointed? Will they be disgusted with themselves for not having seen it sooner?

How long before they realize I’m not capable and exile me to a special country for incapable people? How long? How long do I have? Because the incredibly perverse part of all of this is that with all of the effort, and the grunting and the sweating and the exhaustion and the struggle to have enough oxygen to breathe and the embarrassment of consistently being the very last person back from the 400 meter run, with 98% of visible participants slimmer or prettier than me, with Marty being insanely stronger and more conditioned than I am and better at all of it, even with everything else I’ve mentioned, with the sheer impossibility of ensuring my appearance when my hair is pinned up and my clothes are soaked in sweat…

With all of that…

All those things, the perverse part is…

I actually… LIKE IT.

I want to do it.

I don’t want them to kick me out. I don’t want them to tell me that they made a mistake, that I can’t really do this thing after all. I don’t want Em to IM me someday and say, You know, it might just be better if you did something else instead…

I am so afraid that someone will make me stop, when part of me is absolutely certain that I don’t deserve to keep going. And I like doing it so much I could CRY, because it scares the HELL out of me to go.

The world is like this.

The world is a fucking terrifying place with bad monsters and a perceived ability to hear all the negative thoughts in people’s heads when they look at you and situations that are hard and the frequent discovery that you’re worse than everyone else at the thing you thought you were good at.

The world is hard and scary and awful.

But you have to keep living there ANYWAY. You have to keep trying. You have to chip away at the thing, you have to change yourself. THIS is not an opportunity, this is not an obligation, this is a FACT. Opting out produces no results. No one can change you FOR you. You have to make the hard things happen because you’re obstinate enough to push and push and push until they do. You can’t just stop because something is scary. You have to be scarier. You have to be stronger and braver.

THAT is why I’ll go to every freaking CrossFit class. I will go five days a week as soon as they’ll let me in June, and I will love every minute of it. I will go to free workouts on Saturdays. I will voluntarily get my body fat measured and I will do it with a smile on my face, month after month after month. I will do the pushups I “can’t do” and I will run that 400 meters every time even if I’m way behind because that’s the only way for any of it to get better. Inside my head I will cry and scream and insist that I CAN’T and think of ways to trick them into letting me stay instead of making me leave, and I will sweat and pant and be afraid and keep going anyway.

Outside, I will look brave and determined and continue to do everything I’m supposed to do to get through this. I will keep going when it’s horrible, when it’s hard, when I can’t figure out how it ends, I have to keep going because NOTHING ELSE WILL GET ME THROUGH. Because the only alternative is to stop, and that’s no alternative at all.

Just wanting to feel better won’t make me strong. Pretending, lying to myself, won’t make me strong. Talking about it won’t make me strong. Being a pansy and getting away with less than my best won’t make me strong. Making excuses won’t make me strong. ONLY DOING IT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

So god help me, I’m going to do it.

Red-faced and terrified, I will conquer the world.

You know… I never really listened to these lyrics. And now that I’ve have, I’ve been playing this one song over and over:

As of last night, there is no doubt in my mind that eating more raw produce puts me in a more emotion-based state of mind. I feel moved more often. I feel connected. I verge on tears more often, in a way that identifies what is important to me, what must happen next, what it’s time for me to do. All issues with internal and external motivation aside, the explosion of emotional growth I’m experiencing has served as a compass for the decisions I make and the energies I expend. I’m getting more sensitive to it all the time. It’s one of the things that makes me truly wonder about being completely, 100% raw, even considering the dramatic change that would mean for my lifestyle. (Well, I suppose I’ve undergone some pretty dramatic changes already. Big deal, right?)

For those of you who are curious, I’m not completely sure when the step from 90% raw to 100% raw will happen (or if it will happen?), but I have a feeling there will be a time for it and I’ll know when that time is. I’m looking for the right route, the one that feels the best and results in the healthiest, strongest, most stable Megan. It’s not going to be exactly like anyone else’s, but that’s what makes it interesting. ;}

I feel like I’m understanding, in touch with, more than ever. Or maybe it all just spoke too quietly for me to hear, or maybe I just wasn’t listening. And although I’ve been following these ideas for awhile now, the understanding just continues to get… louder.

Your number has been called. Don’t let yourself down, don’t let yourself go. Your last chance has arrived. You’ve got to be the best, you’ve got to change the world and use this chance to be heard. Your time is now.

That’s pretty straightforward, folks.

Listen to the band.

I’m eating raw again! I expect this “experiment” to last much longer, as I have been pining after it for months and months and know how much happier and better it makes me feel on a day-to-day basis. I’m aiming for 90-100% and learning a lot of excellent recipes, as well as starting to understand some of the logistics of eating primarily raw food and, well, how to do it. This is exactly what I was missing when I tried it before, and so far results are fantastic.

An overview of my fantastic results, having begun three days ago:

• The food is freaking delicious.
• I don’t have to worry about burning anything. (Ha.) Or accidentally setting dish towels on fire. (HA!)
• I’m not having any issues with cravings, because I’ve been craving raw food for months—this is just getting what I want. (Not sure how long that will last, but it’ll be okay.)
• I can go running or do other exercise right after most meals, if I want to. Raw food is super duper light and I don’t really feel it (like, for instance, the “heaviness” of cooked food), except in my rising energy levels and general good feeling.
• I don’t feel tired or worn out or anything like that. (This is so much better than using caffeine and crashing all the time.)
• Cooked food is already starting to look largely unappetizing. Wacky!
• I feel great. Some parts of the day are “normal”, but some are getting a little weirdly zoomy. Example. (Oh yeah, I forgot, I’m always like that…)

My fridge is stuffed full of green leafy things and bags of nuts, and I have lots of fruit on the kitchen counter. The juicer is primed and at the ready. Green juice is DELICIOUS! I have leveled up to 28, and 28s eat primarily raw food. ;}

Yesterday Marty and I ate a pomelo / pommelo / pummelo / shaddock (I’m going to stick with “pomelo”, I think, in the interests of our sanity). It is a huge grapefruit-like thing, but less tart and more sweet. Marty called it the Grapefruit That Time Forgot, because it looks just like a dinosaur and we had to gnaw into it like cavemen. He also liked it because, chopped in half, it looked like a brain.

Devouring my half-pomelo, I felt like a wild girl on a sandy shore before the advent of human speech. Eating with my hands! Words just aren’t appropriate, you know?

It was a bit messy, but utterly worth it—and really, not as messy as some of the other strange produce I’ve eaten (read: tried to eat). I have decided that I will plan a gathering for the express purpose of eating pomelos. We can lay a tarp out in the living room. It will be just like a cuddle party! Except with pomelos. And… a tarp.

Okay, different from a cuddle party, but similar because of the glee.

I am experiencing a little bit of detox, even this early on; my skin is kind of dry on my hands and I know from reading Steve’s raw trial that it’s probably not just because of all the washing of fresh vegetables. But I feel pretty mellow and happy (and also pretty silly) so I foresee good things. I think I need a better blender, though. Y’all find me a blender company to sponsor my raw adventures, and I’ll talk about ‘em. (Am I famous enough yet?)

La la la fresh growing food! My life is good.

It’s the bounce that convinces me I’ve made a great change.

The one night of Chinese take-out. The innocent-looking deli meat sandwich (with actual wheat bread). A couple of Christmas cookies. A piece of pizza (with cheese!). A cutesy sugary cocktail. A couple bites of Marty’s restaurant steak. God forbid: a Coke.

You might find this list underwhelming (or worse, delicious), but for me each of these things is a bounce from the nutrition that keeps me functioning: Fresh vegan foods, without wheat or milk or cheese, plenty of fruit, very natural sweeteners (like agave) and as much as possible, raw produce. Delicious, fresh, real food!

The difference in the way I feel now from the way I felt several years ago isn’t so apparent… until I bounce. Every time I bounce, I remember why I made these changes. The bounces used to happen constantly. It was maddening! These days, I go longer and longer without bouncing. And yet, I’m still perversely grateful for the bounce—because it clarifies, again, why I want this.

After three weeks of eating strictly vegan, anything on that evil list will knock me out of my seat. Some of it will make me sick fast. Sugar takes down my immune system, dairy makes my sinuses act up in a scary way. The things on that list make me slow, and sluggish. They mess up my digestion. They screw up my sleep patterns, and waking up in the morning is nigh impossible. They make my arthritis flare up (ow). None of these things were all that apparent until I’d lived my life without them for awhile. I had no idea what my food was doing to me until I stopped eating some of it.

I don’t think these things happen because I’m some kind of food freak. I think these things happen because I’m a human being.

Without the bad stuff, I feel completely different. Light. Good. Happy, invisible digestion. Falling asleep when I want to and waking up easily. Sleeping soundly, even. Hands and fingers that don’t feel stiff or hurt when I work. A clear head. A great mood. Before I changed the way I ate, I don’t know that I’d ever experienced some of those things—maybe since the day I was born. And I would never have known the difference if I hadn’t started making changes.

Every time I bounce, I get back to business faster and surer than before. The bounce itself is unpleasant, and some bounces last longer than others (especially if I get sick). But I sure am grateful to the bounce for the reminder. My only request, O Bounce, is that you continue to get the job done faster and faster (with more months between) as time goes by. At least, that kind of bounce.

It’s hard to forget, after all, that my food experiences started with a bounce. When I ate meat at every meal and boxes of cookies for dessert, eating one vegan meal was a wonderful bounce. A wonderful, delicious bounce. Those bounces got better and better… until they inverted.

I request more good bounces, and hope to need fewer sober reminders. ;}

So… do you bounce?

(Do you need to bounce?)

You may have noticed that the post I made earlier has been irrevocably altered by entertaining zombie drawings. That’s because Marty is gloriously funny (and twisted), and he illustrated my story about joining a CSA. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should take a look.

I think we might do this more often.

I just read the most incredible article by Michael Pollan over at the New York Times. It’s thick with information and politic tie-ins, but once you get towards the end you start to realize what’s going on—to see that he’s constructing a world of real food and healthy citizens and nourished children.

The Food Issue – An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief

He moves from industrial food policies to smaller agriculture and then, of course, to private, family-sized gardening (a concept any Story of B fans, like me, can strongly relate to). I didn’t realize he was going to cover such a gamut of topics with one fell swoop, but in nine pages he takes you to an amazing place, talking about the “culinary equivalent to home schooling”. It all fits together, like clockwork, a finely-crafted machine.

I’m all done reading but I’m sitting here daydreaming about fresh produce and responsible citizens and new education and growth and a whole planet busting with health and I don’t think I can stop. This world he’s laid out so clearly, for presidential purposes, is absolutely astonishing. I mean, compare it to the one we’re living in now.

In the past month or so I have almost completely dropped the positive dietary changes I made while I was sleeping on a polyphasic schedule. I’ve been eating processed foods, meat, eggs, cheese, sugar, even corn syrup... and wheat.

I feel like crap.

I feel sluggish and loathe to focus. I am significantly more lazy. I don’t have any energy unless ingest caffeine, and if I don’t continue to do so, I crash (if I do continue to do so, I can’t sleep). The little joints in my fingers and toes hurt a lot, constantly, and the larger ones in my ankles and wrists and knees occasionally indulge in obnoxious stabbing pains that catch me off guard. I’d say the worst more recently is in my fingers, toes and knees. My wrists and ankles are obviously the reserves.

I don’t want to go running—in fact, I haven’t been running. I haven’t really even been walking regularly. I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I’m insanely stressed out by small things, so I won’t even explain that we’re working on buying a car (on a deadline, no less). I’m not getting as much work done as I was a month ago. And the cramps I experienced during my period last week sucked.

It feels like the world is moving very fast, and I am too slow to keep up. Compare that to any number of combinations I’ve experienced first-hand that result in me feeling like I have a head start on everybody else, and you have one frustrated and dissatisfied Megan.

There are some half-solutions I could employ. I could force myself to start running again. I could start taking six fish oil capsules a day. I could militarize my work schedule.

Or I could go back to eating real food. Because that would make all the other things – running, working – easy.

I’ll show you the culprits, up close and personal. Pizza. Hot dog buns. Coca-cola. Ben & Jerry’s. General Tso’s chicken. Crab rangoon. You know what the problem is, don’t you? Social food. I’ve turned into a complete wimp in the face of social food. I’m afraid to be left out. In the last few months, I’ve been a huge wuss; I’m not woman enough to stand my ground and take care of myself if everyone else isn’t doing it too.

Shameful.

It’s astonishing to realize that I felt like this all the time before I started making lifestyle changes. How did I live like this? It’s driving me batty. Even more, how does anyone? Even if you set aside the arthritis pain—not everyone experiences that particular inflammatory side-effect—the rest is bullshit. It’s just not okay to feel this way. Ever. And the worst part is, the food just isn’t that good. Fresh, real food is so much tastier and effective than the crap I’ve been eating!

Isn’t it interesting that we’re willing to compromise the sanctity of our bodies for a little short-term satisfaction? It’s eerily like drug addiction. Just pay attention to the way you eat, sometime, and see if you notice some strange correlations. Why do you eat the things you do? Is it because it’s the best food you could be feeding yourself? Does it seem to have weird side effects? It’s an interesting line of inquiry, I’ll tell you that. It leads you to bizarre and amazing places.

As for me? I haz delicious, organic brown rice.

Watch while I eatz it.