Poison - Death Wish Diet Food

Even before I began cycling, I knew that my eating habits had to change.  Although I have been a vegetarian for nearly 20 yrs, it didn’t stop me from filling the supposed empty spaces with all manner of goodies.  In fact, I actually told myself that it didn’t matter what I looked like as long as I remained vegetarian.  The beginning of my “food conversion” came with the documentary, “Supersize Me.”  The problem was, I didn’t and don’t eat fast food and haven’t for a long time so I was able to view it from my armchair and not feel too convicted.  It grossed me out, but from a distance.

Soon after I saw another documentary titled, “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.”  This time I squirmed in my seat.  Eileen and I bought a Juicer and started to walk.  Cycling was not far away.  I knew that I was in trouble and action soon followed.

What got me really and truly finally focused on my food intake was the investment I had in mileage.  Once I felt that burn in the thighs and the hurt in my ass, the reality of my physical condition slapped me hard and full on in the face.  I immediately knew I did not want to “undo” any good I might have just done, so I started to pay close attention to what I was eating.  Suddenly I was looking at the world through different eyes.  The eyes that once bought food that “looked good” were no longer in charge.  The belly that wanted warm and cozy more than good and healthy was no longer driving the bus.

Every time I got on the bike, especially at first, my knees drove into the fat of my overhanging paunch.  It was perhaps the most uncomfortable thing I have ever experienced.  I thought about it every time I ate.  It was like each rotation at the bottom bracket was a punch to the gut, one I deserved, for what I had done to myself.  Mile after mile I grimaced and took it, tears and all, and swore not to give up. 

Now, many miles later, it’s a different experience.  My belly has not disappeared, but damn it, it’s getting there.  The miles of self inflicted torture are far behind and I can focus on being a real cyclist, with all the goals and rewards that come with it.

Tonight, I found myself at Wal-mart.  The cool, expensive new steering gear I just installed in my Bronco is leaking and I needed some power steering fluid to tide me by until another “new” one arrives.  I parked in the parking lot on my way home from a great yoga class and hustled in to get what I needed.  Remember those “new eyes” I’ve been looking through?  Tonight I was reminded about something I’ve been thinking about in the last few months.  It seems so obvious to me, I really don’t know how I missed it.

We are poisoning ourselves,  seriously!  When I say we, I mean all of us, everywhere.  We are voluntarily killing ourselves with utter and absolute dangerous poison.  The shit I used to eat would kill a wild animal.  Even the regular old grocery store is loaded with processed products that can only be described as “death wish diet” food.  (I just thought of that so that one’s mine!!!!)  Pizza Rolls…I loved Pizza Rolls.  You couldn’t get me to put one of those nasty little grease bombs in my mouth now if you held and gun to my head.  I must have been out of my mind. I pretty much stayed away from soda, but even the thought of it now causes me to feel weak in the knees. 

I'm no expert on nutrition.  If I was, I would never have become the monstrously fat prick I once was.  If I had any inkling at all, that I would have to pedal my blubbery existence over 5000 miles to burn off even half of it, I would never have eaten all that I did.  The idea of a frozen cheese pizza or a frozen burrito now makes me experience real feelings of personal regret.  I'm worried about food now on a whole new level.  I don’t know near enough about nutrition and food to outright blame what we eat on the horrible diseases and physical issues that plague our nation…..but I suspect.  Tonight in Wal-mart I saw a rather stereotypical woman in one of those zippy cart things.  Now before you consider me an insensitive asshole, I do recognize that there are legitimate medical reasons for needing one of those, and I admit that I don’t know the woman I saw tonight, nor could I pick her out of a line-up of zippy cart pilots if my life depended on it.  That said, this is what I saw standing behind her waiting to get past her in the isle I was on.  There she was, the zippy cart straining along like a termite towing a telephone pole, basket and all full of soda, chips, candy frozen crap and all manner of TV food.  I thought to myself, “lady…you must be trying to kill yourself.”  She had taken more junk food off the shelves than I, at my worst, could even begin to imagine eating.  “Death Wish Diet Food.”  I hope it wasn’t all for her.  I hope she was hosting a birthday party at a 17^th century orphanage. I hope…… 

There are three types of people who I never want to be.  The “just saved” at a mega church Christian who suddenly wants everyone to love Jesus just like they do, the 30 year smoker who just quit and now wants to spend his free time up in every other smokers business, and the newly found health nut, out to save the world from their fat, useless and wicked ways.  However, I fear I may be hovering close to the line on the last one.  Unlike the first, the change in me is real, tangible and measureable.  The enemy is real, tangible and measureable.  I do not want to poison myself any longer, and I can honestly say, I don’t want you to either.

 My news and personal discovery is nothing new.  I have seen most of the documentaries on Netflix now and have managed to “nut myself up” pretty good.  I admit that I have some confusion about what is truly bad for you, or good for you, or the benefits of ‘organic’ foods verses the benefits of food engineered by science.  Honestly…I don’t know who to trust, but I do know this.  I don’t have to eat things that are clearly designed to get me wanting more.  I don’t have to eat food to change my attitude or how I feel.  I don’t have to eat to fight nighttime boredom.  I don’t have to eat junk.  I don’t need three sandwiches when one will do.  I can eat a salad without feeling like I'm missing out on something.  I don’t have to buy food at stores where my health is not a primary concern.  I did notice tonight that the healthy, for the most part, do not hang out at Wal-mart.  Stepping into a store like that is like suddenly shifting one’s life into slow motion.  You can hurry in, but you can’t hurry around.  The store, like an unhealthy body, has arteries that a literally clogged with slow moving, weary looking blobs of fat that wander from isle to isle in an ever slower moving search for the plastic and the useless.  I might not go back….unless I need power steering fluid late at night again…or something of a convenient nature.  The Death Wish Food Diet.  I no longer want to be on it.  I have someone to live for now, besides myself, and I don’t want her to be miserable with a man to sick to love her like she deserves.

I want to finish by apologizing.  Not to you the reader, and not to anyone else I know, but to me.  I'm truly sorry for things I made me eat, and the volume in which I ate it.  I honestly didn’t know the path I was on and were it would lead me if continued to follow it, until I was already well on down the road.  I won’t do it again.  I apologize.