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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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It’s time for some dramatic change
— if I really want to live a long life

By David McElroy · June 11, 2018

When I spent all day in an emergency room last December — trying to figure out why I was hurting so badly — I had a lot of time to think about my health.

Even though the problem at the time — the damaged gallbladder which had to be removed — had nothing to do with my weight, the situation was still scary enough that it had me thinking about my mortality.

“If I haven’t done anything about my weight by a year from now,” I thought, “it’s eventually going to kill me.”

There was nothing magical about the one-year time frame, but something about it makes sense even now. I know I weigh too much. The excess weight causes problems. But the bigger issue is what all that sugar consumption is doing to my health — physical and mental — on the inside.

In the picture above, you can see the dramatic difference in my size when I’m taking care of myself and when I’m eating terribly. The one on the right was in 2008 or so. I had been dating someone and I was happy. When I’m happy, I feel no reason to eat to fill an internal void, so I quit abusing myself with food.

I don’t remember exactly when the photo on the left was taken, but that’s about the biggest I’ve been. I was about 210 pounds in the photo on the right. I was about 320 in the photo on the left. I’m between the two right now, but I have a long way to get to where I need to be — about 200 pounds.

I’m always aware of this crisis, so there’s nothing new about any of this. I’m not happy right now, so I’m not in a frame of mind in which it will just naturally happy. But I’m scared not to do something about it. I’ve always planned to live a very long life — and that’s not going to happen unless I get my health under control.

Although I hate the way I look when I’m overweight, it’s really the underlying health issues that are a bigger deal. I used to think that carrying excess fat was the only side effect of my emotional overeating, but I’ve come to understand that the fuel I consume is doing damage to my body in ways that are far more serious than looking fat. It’s the damage I can do to my internal systems that has me afraid of shortening my life.

I recently started listening to a podcast that breaks down a lot of the scientific research that explains why doctors and governments have given us such terribly mistaken dietary advice for years. I had learned a long time ago that a ketogenic diet — one which is low in carbs and high in fat — is the only thing that will allow me to be healthy.

When I first encountered the ideas of Dr. Robert Atkins back in the late ’80s, I thought he must be a quack. Everything he said went against the mainstream advice I’d gotten from doctors and our own government. But I tried my own version of his plan and found that it worked. (When I eat the way I know to eat, I maintain a healthy weight, as you can see in this photo from about eight years ago.) It’s only been in the last decade of so, though, that I’ve seen clear explanations backed in research that explain why it works — and why mainstream dietary advice is killing us.

The podcast I started listening to is produced by a clinic in Toronto specializing in treatments that feature ketogenic diets and fasting. I went back to the very first episodes of the podcast and started listening to patients tell their stories.

I could recognize much of my story in their stories. And I was further astounded to find them making connections to other medical conditions — such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) — from the damage we do to ourselves by having our insulin levels too high through a modern American diet. PCOS and diabetes are related in the endocrine system. Why had I never heard that before?

If you’re interested in what a ketogenic diet might be able to do for your health issues — if you have them — you might be interested in this podcast called the Obesity Code. Go all the way back to the very first episodes in their archives.

I don’t have a complete plan yet and I don’t know how I might need to modify my plan to take into account the changes I’ve seen because of my gallbladder removal. I just know that the less I eat, the better my entire digestive system feels, so I suspect it will work quite well.

I’ll admit that this would be easier if I were doing it with the help of someone I loved, but that’s not an option at the moment, so I’ll have to see whether I can find enough desire to take care of myself somewhere other than where I’ve found it in the past.

This isn’t going to be easy for me, but I have to find a way to take care of this problem — or else it’s going to kill me early. I’ve always planned to live a very long time — 120 years is my target — so I need to get myself into shape and into health.

Food has always been my comfort. It’s something like a consolation prize for not having the emotional things I need. I have to find a way to comfort myself and fill that longing for love — without finding it at the bottom of an ice cream carton. That’s an unhealthy place to be.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: health, ketogenic diet, low carb diet, weight loss

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As far as I know, there were no nuclear devices se As far as I know, there were no nuclear devices set off anywhere near Birmingham this evening, but this cloud formation looked very much like a mushroom cloud rising in the west as I went through downtown Birmingham on I-65 around 6:30 tonight. #nature #naturephotography #sky #clouds #birmingham #alabama
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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as though he’s on high alert and ready to run away from danger. His feral early years still dominate his internal programming. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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My favorite photos of Merlin tend to be those — My favorite photos of Merlin tend to be those — such as this one — in which he seems to be contemplating difficult issues. Feline philosophy or quantum physics or something else that he figures I wouldn’t understand. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2024 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama #caturday
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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