stepping off the merry-go-round

If until recently you have had the good fortune to live on a tropical island, on which grew groves of mangoes, pineapples and coconuts? Where wild rice flourished and streams of naturally alkalized water flowed freely; or you spent your youth in a remote village in the deepest darkest Peru. Eating indigenous foods and swinging happily from trees on lush vines. Than perhaps this article is not for you.
For all the rest of us, do stop looking longingly back at the previous sentences. Most of us grew up in a civilized society where we did not have to forage for our food and unfortunately because of it we have no connection to our food and very little understanding of our body’s relationship to it. For most of us who slept through health class and showed up to biology only to be able to reconstruct a chicken carcass, we are all a bit surprised when our bodies appear to be rebelling against us and one day we wake up with the sure knowledge that something is definitely not right.
The first indication may have been the ten or twenty pounds that had begun following us around no matter how persistently we attempted to out run or ditch it. Some how it always knew where to find us. Maybe for you it was fatigue that required 18 shots of espresso and two or three cans of red bull to drag you through the day. For some it may have been the familial relationship you felt with every jar of antacids you encountered. At some point you began to realize that you where not the same old you.
The old you was spry and full of hope for the future. The new and not so improved you has no spring in the step and nasty little lines around the mouth. Clearly something has gone awry in your carefully laid plans. Well, my friend, to put it simply, Life has happened.
Now, stop that weeping! I know that until now you felt alone amongst the billions of other consumers in line with their own mugs at starbucks all waiting for a fix. You tried to hide the lines beneath a $120.00 line preventing and repairing foundation made from ingredients that you assumed where real, despite your inability to pronounce any of them. Well, the convenient truth is you are not alone. You are however in luck. It would seem that if you have been drawn to read this far, that you are more than ready to step off the merry-go-round and enter the looking glass. There is hope for change, but as the saying goes, change begins with you.
Do you remember that peanut butter and jelly sandwich on lovely fluffy white bread that you ate every other day for lunch in your formative years? Maybe you recall the hamburger and fries you had for lunch yesterday? Please, don’t make excuses, we’ve all been there. A soda in one hand and a protein bar in the other, trying desperately to satisfy some unknown balance that will achieve the glorious end of…well we are not sure what the glorious end is, but that is completely besides the point.
I say together we must pursue a new route. a more conscience route. It is high time we take responsibility for our health and well being and stand up to the unseen forces of nutritional darkness and say, we are not going to take it anymore! Right after this last triple shot mocha latte.