When I was obese, I was sick.  All the time.  Seriously, I was at the doctor’s office a minimum of twice a month.  I was tired. I was dizzy. My knees hurt. My sinuses were infected. My lungs were clogged.  I had a hangnail.  I didn’t have Münchausen Syndrome really; however, I did use my health to get attention, if only from myself. Feeling poorly gave me an excuse not to exercise.  It gave me an excuse to lay around. It gave me an excuse.  Period.

I used my ailments like a get out of jail free card to avoid doing things I didn’t want to do.  Eventually, I was imprisoned in a body that didn’t function properly because I wasn’t taking care of it.  Ironic, yes? It was a hideous and ridiculous cycle!  I have no clue how I, a reasonably intelligent human being, didn’t see it.  I didn’t make the connection – probably because I just really didn’t want to.

I am regularly amazed at the things I don’t see just because I don’t want to. I literally cringed reading He’s Just Not That Into You.  There were things in the book that were obscenely obvious to any idiot; but, this idiot managed to miss them.  He didn’t call? He’s wasn’t struggling with his feelings for me – he didn’t have any.  Same thing with food.  That greasy slug feeling every time I ate pizza?  Hello! It was the pizza. That faint feeling about 90 minutes after eating a candy bar? Hello! Sugar spike and dip from the chocolate!  It’s not rocket science here.

Um…tell me again why it took 46 years for me to make the connection between dairy and chest congestion? Industrial strength rose-colored glasses, that’s why!

This week, I was involved in a speculative discussion about the causes of fibromyalgia, ADD, and other diseases that were exotic 30 years ago; but, common as ticks on a hound now.  One participant in the conversation asserted that it was our food.  Our food is the cause of all of these issues. This same person has fibromyalgia and a pretty serious commitment to Captain Crunch.  Again, ironic, yes?

There’s a solid way to find out: the scientific method.  Hey, it worked for me on the yogurt thing!  If we eat whole foods without dyes, preservatives, additives and whatever else is in the kitchen sink, and we see decreases in diseases, then, voila! Question answered and all of us have to remove our rose colored glasses.

In that case, the solution is simultaneously elegantly simple and torturously difficult.  Stop eating the garbage.  I changed my diet two years ago and I have not been to the doctor for illness not one time since.  Not once. Even if we don’t know that our food is poisoning us, we suspect it strongly.  What would we do if we strongly suspected that a coworker was poisoning our coffee? We’d stop drinking the coffee, that’s what!

So, why are all the drive-thru lines still long at lunchtime and the doctors’ waiting rooms still packed?