After being involved with the industry
of health and fitness for almost 6 years and living a life filled
with the knowledge of nutrition and how to live a healthy life, it
seems that I have thrown caution to the wind and dove in head first
into the see of sugar, fat, and extreme nutritional decadence.
Only about a fraction of 1% of all who
read this know me at all. Some of the very few of you who do know me
have known me only sporadically over the last 66 years, and you are
related to me. There are a handful who have known me for about 20
years, but you only know a tiny part of who I am and what I have been
through to bring me where I am today.
On the whole, life has been
exceptionally kind to me. I, however, have not been kind to the
life that GOD gave me so many years ago. I squandered the time and
resources HE so graciously bestowed upon me. While, I was never an
official addict, the
temptations and allure of drugs and alcohol was always around,
lurking in the background, plying me with the thoughts of bliss, if
only for a moment.
Alcohol
could not hold me. The hangovers were simply horrid and the problem,
whatever it was, lingered and no amount of inebriation could make it
stop. Drugs, ah yes, drugs. Drugs could only make it acceptable or
was it bearable? Drugs, no matter how alluring, were a dependency I
neither wanted nor could afford. A psychiatrist once asked me if I
hallucinated. I said that I did. He then asked me what drugs I took
to facilitate my hallucinations. I said, “None. I do quite well
on my own.” My wise mouth turned my label from smart-ass
to paranoid schizophrenia. He was, after all, an internationally
known shrink.
Boredom in group
therapy is never good for anyone who is not truly mentally ill.
Every session began with the same question, the same answers and it
was not only boring, it was insulting to think that all these people
were seeing this charlatan so they could get better, yet none, seemed
to be getting any better. None that is, but me. It was after weeks
of this perceived nonsense, that my blazing fast wit decided to
abolish the tedium of monotonous, monotone of, “Tell everyone your
name and tell everyone how you are today.”
When
it came to me, it just burst forth like rockets on the Fourth of
July. “I'm fine and Pam is, too.” He looked above his bulging
belly, grabbed his notepad and pen with fervor and asked, “What do
you mean?” Now, you have to understand, my mind was already on
something else, such as whether or not the rather homely woman with
the bright red lipstick and rather odd eye placement was going to
further regale us with more antics of her and her Persian
lover. She appeared delighted
in blushing while she told how he met her and swept her off her feet.
I suspected it was a rather vivid imagination that created him, but
was never quite sure because of the detail she gave us each week.
But even those episodes appeared as reruns after a season.
But I
digress. After wasting valuable
time on my foolish response and appearing as though I were about to
pull a Sybil, I decided to just tell him the truth. It is funny, but
the truth rarely works in therapy, especially if the shrink is
looking for a hidden truth. Before becoming labeled some sort of
sociopath or being encouraged to extend my stay in the hospital, I
decided to get through the remainder of the sessions
without incident.
When I was very
young (still in high school), I considered Psychiatry as an
occupation. I went to the public library and read books on the
subject. That is, until I got to the one that told me I needed to
forget everything I ever learned from observation of people. It was
that knowledge gained from observing people that had kept me out of
trouble. My attitude toward the occupation was reinforced by the
observations made during my stay in the psycho ward. My observations
were far too simplistic. Why did people do what they did? Because,
with the exception of the ones with a physically debilitating mental
disorder (brain tumor, chemical imbalance, etc) they could do it and
get away with it. They were not going to be held accountable in this
life and most did not believe in eternal consequences. Really, if
there is no GOD and we came from the primordial slime, “What
difference does it make, really?” Seems I heard that same phrase
just recently form a female politician.
Right about now,
you're wondering what any of this has to do with diet. We feed
ourselves through all our senses. We watch and feed our soul through
our eyes. We read and feed our soul through our thoughts. We feed
our souls on whatever experiences we have throughout the day. Many
days, we bankrupt our time, spending it foolishly on worldly pursuits
as though we can reclaim the time that we squandered.
The sugar and fat
that we consume is not really the problem. What is the problem is
our view of it. What is your perception of your intake? Do you eat
to live? Or, do you live to eat? Is that sugary, fat-filled
delicacy just that? Or, is it an hourly consumption that you cannot
live without? Is it a pseudo addiction that you have convinced your
body, you cannot be without.
What do you want to
be when you grow up? Me? I just want to be a healthier, more
willing child of GOD, a more obedient servant to HIS Will, not mine.
The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Will you eat another
doughnut and watch another episode of whatever? Or, will you choose
a filling salad and watch another episode of Ravi
Zacharias? The diet is whatever you
choose to feed yourself.
Shalom! Pray for
the PEACE of Jerusalem!
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