"Let yourself fall ill"

I came across this quote (where else) on the internet. Seems many of us (myself included) are enamored with philosophical quotes, thoughts and ideas about this life we are living together and the internet is full of fodder. When I first read this quote it didn't really strike me as meaning much so I sat there and considered what it meant and how it might apply to the fitness and nutrition goals of myself and others. 

Obesity has recently become classified as a disease. It being widely accepted as such is a completely different problem. It's common for people to make fat jokes and not just about others but a lot of times self deprecating jokes about their own weight. Obesity isn't something that people look at like they would someone who is overcome with a "recognized" disease. We wouldn't look at a person with (random example) multiple sclerosis with disgust or laughter. We wouldn't judge them and say "why don't they just try harder to not look like that".  It's this same unfair approach that's generally taken towards all sickness brought on by addiction. The majority of obesity is brought on by food addiction. There are definitely cases that are thyroid and metabolism problems but for the most part it's brought on by people losing their way and going down a path of making poor food choices. After years of these food choices it's easy to lose sight of what it is to simply eat proper healthy foods that enrich our existence instead of slowly kill us. The food becomes a thing of momentary comfort which perpetuates the problem and the cycle just continues... on and on and on. AKA addiction.

"If you desire healing, let yourself fall ill. Let yourself fall ill".....Food has played an addictive role in my own life. It never quite made it to the forefront of my addiction issues because before I was able to "let myself fall ill" alcohol was always my substance of blatant addictive behavior. It was easy to move forward and not let myself admit that any of these things were problems so long as I maintained what I felt was a convincing facade to the outside world. If I made sure to hit the gym daily in order to pack on muscle, the world would assume that I am a man of means and perfectly balanced.  If I can bench 400 lbs then surely I am fit for all that life can put in front of me. Sounds logical, right? Not at all. I know this now but it wasn't anything that I would have ever become available to learn had I not "let myself fall ill".  It was only when I admitted that I was completely clueless about how and what and why I was doing all of the things in my life that one area began to connect to the other as they repaired themselves. I learned that when I ate garbage the result was that I felt like garbage. And when I felt like garbage my default fix was to use alcohol as an analgesic to give a synthetic temporary feeling of calm and wellness. I needed to re-learn how to feed myself properly, exercise my ENTIRE body (just because you can't see your insides doesn't mean they're not there) and finally recognize ALL of the addictions that had somehow snuck in the backdoor over the years and completely hijacked my right to living a great life. 

In short... I needed to willfully surrender and cross over into an unknown territory. I had no evidence that any of this would work and I stood a good chance of disappointing myself and loved ones around me. Wouldn't it be so much easier to just skip it, go out for a cheeseburger, fries and about 10 beers?  Yes had been the answer for years. It was time to try answering that urge with a "no". I could write an entire book about the days that followed (and I may) but the idea is that when I decided to "let myself fall ill" in front of my immediate world I began to heal.

Eating plants, running, yoga, meditation, resistance training, etcetera are all such simple actions in theory. They just are. But what they have meant to me is a complete reversal of life. I felt like an inert substance before. I was living what I felt was a life of mediocrity at best. I had become spiritually and intellectually unavailable. I had become completely polluted and lost all lust for life.

Flash forward to today... To anyone who might have a look at a day in my life it would seem like nothing extraordinary... boring actually. To me it's far from that and that's what matters. How in the world could I come from a place where nothing seemed to please me to getting excited about eating a new kind of banana an old friend sent me in the mail all the way from California or a new way to bake a can of chickpeas to make a new kind of taco that I never thought could taste so great or to go for a run and look just like any other jogger on any other day but somehow in my mind feel like what I'm doing has profound meaning to me personally or just sit and look at my wife and realize that I'm so goddamn lucky that I met her and she actually married me and we will spend the rest of our lives together and even if that means 50 years or just one more day, it's fantastic. 

"Letting myself fall ill" has been life changing. It all started with letting it happen in front of myself and the world.  I hope that the personal contentment that I wrote about here is currently how you all are feeling in your own lives and if not I hope that you will allow it happen soon. Each one of us has a right to feel it.  As I wrote earlier.. obesity is a disease. Some of you may be at that point while others may not. That just shows an example of one's addiction  being more chronic than another's. It may just be that you only have 10, 20 pounds that you feel you need to shed. The most important takeaway here should simply be considering what you are putting in your body day in day out... no matter where you are aesthetically. Eliminating processed foods or refined sugars or alcohol or all three for starters is a great way to begin to feel just how good your body intends for you to feel. With a sane body comes a sane mind and with a sane mind comes a sane spirit. I truly believe that each one of us has addictions of one sort or another. As I said earlier, some people's addictions are just more chronic than others. Getting honest with yourself about what it is that you know you are doing that's holding you back from being the best version of yourself is a personal journey and one that I highly recommend. Until we do this it's really not possible to truly heal. We may have "a good run" of weight loss or proper diet but it is a half measure and not nearly what we are capable of. Give yourself that opportunity if you haven't and if you have... well then that's just awesome!