Food. The starting point for physical and mental health.
Like all of you, my brothers, I am mostly here to grown and learn. But I have a thing or two to contribute, and cultivating physical and mental health are where I feel can make those contributions. As a 40-something who routinely gets placed as a 20-something by girls in their 20s--I can tell you this didn't happen by accident. It's a transformation I've been undertaking for years. I grew up in the Midwest in the 80s and 90s, effectively before the internet. When I was too big for a high-chair, my toddler ass sat on a stack of Yellowpages at the dinner table. In ignorance, my parents fed me the food that everyone ate. Froot Loops. Corn Flakes. Orange Juice with HFCS. Milk with hormones. French fries with trans fats. The result? I had respiratory problems almost year round. Coughing/hacking/sneezing/etc. all the way through college. I was growing b****-t*ts in puberty. I had constant chronic back pain. I had severe depression and anxiety, and ADHD. The second half of my life has been a steady reversal of all of that. I began eating berries, nuts, greens, and colorful vegetables. I started to focus on proteins, getting organic versions where I could. (More to come on all of that.) The result? I have almost no anxiety. I have almost no pain. I do not have any chronic pain--and that's with bone-spurring in my neck, and a history of cervicogenic migraines/tension headaches. I have not been on depression meds in years. The only Rx's I take are a topical for hair regrowth (almost at goal, so I might quit that) + one stimulant for ADHD. I have the body of an NFL cornerback half my age. I can out-bench press my college self. I do not get sick on even an annual basis. You can have this, too. I'm here to share it. There's plenty to unpack, but the starting point is dumping the industrial chemicals you're eating, and replacing them with one-ingredient foods. AKA whole foods. AKA "FOOD." Like you, I have people in my life who have always laughed and boasted about how they don't even want the last 20 years of their life. Those people are now in their 40's, and their diabetes is to the point that they either have cancer, or they have to eat restrictive diets that sound like hell. One of my friends went into kidney failure and has to eat nothing but baby food until he gets a transplant.