Health Addict

  Hi. I'm Shane, and I'm a health addict.

  Wouldn't that be funny to hear someone say in a support group? I don't but then I am one, so... And it really wouldn't surprise me to find out they have such a thing for people like me.

  For the record, I'm in recovery; have been over the past few years. I've grown stronger in every way and my psychological attitude regarding what health means to me has been refined and is much more in harmony with the rest of me.
  For a long time, or a few years at least, I got a little lost once I started heading down the "healthy" road. I had no tour guides, no real guidance period. As with all things, I jumped right in head first. And it hurt. A lot. My obsessive-compulsive tendencies came out full bore and I contribute my sudden acquisition of eczema to my increased stress levels during this time, something I still struggle with from time to time. The eczema, and the stress.

  My question is: what do you eat? It seems everyone has an opinion but not one single person is completely correct. Still, they just can't seem to get on board with each other and I know I'm not the only person it confuses the shit out of. It took me a lot of hard experimentation to find what I knew, or at least understood all along: to eat simply is best.
  Regardless of what "diet" you subscribe to, whether you're vegan, vegetarian, lacto-ovo, paleo, raw.. whatever, I think we can all agree that the best food is the most natural food, and not in the marketing definition of "All-Natural"; it's been proven that such terms mean absolutely nothing, and do not guarantee the purity of the product.
  For some things, we're at the whim of a (hopefully) reputable and trustworthy company who possesses the same values as we do, which is healthy, natural food the way nature intended. Genetically Modified Organisms are real. Preservatives are real. Pink Slime is real. And none of it is good. For us, or the planet.

  I eat meat, always have, always will. My family hunts, and my father harvests, dresses, butchers and processes the deer himself from start to finish; the very definition of clean meat. Yes, it's red but I'll take my chances just by knowing where it comes from and whose hands it passes through. However, no plan is fool-proof and the fact that said deer eat corn from fields whose crops likely come from Monsanto seed that has been Genetically Modified is a hard lesson in futility, but not surrender.
 
  You can't control everything, and despite all our best efforts, our world is polluted. There's better options out there but the one and only way to ensure you're getting the best possible product is to buy the best possible product and make everything else yourself. Yeah, I know. It's the 21st century. People are busy with school and a full-time job and kids and a mortgage so who has time to cook? i really can't answer that, though I wish I could. I know what works for me but you have to find what works for you.

  As for me, I'll continue to search the depths and report back here with my findings.

8.12.13 5:45 a.m.

  A morning spent with all the usual drudgery: alarm at 4:30, waking to turn that off, grabbing my phone and laying back down after I set the timer for 15 minutes, then awakening again to re-set it. It goes on like this all morning, usually until around 5:30, when I finally roll out of bed. Most mornings it works for me, others I can never seem to get ahead.
  I'm really not a morning person, suspect I never will be but I think it has to do more with the fact that my body is just not always ready to wake up so early; I make it wake up that early, so that I can do what I want and need to do in the mornings before work. Then, waking up early leads to the inevitable afternoon crash, which leads sometimes to a nap which leads to not being tired at the designated bed-time. It's a vicious cycle. Couple that with my insane desire to practice yoga this early and you have a recipe for failure, or at least grumpiness.
 
  But grumpiness is not what yoga is about; it's really counter-productive, actually. So now I'm starting to ease up off myself a little for not being totally ok with killing myself to get up super early and practice pre-sunrise yoga like all the sages of yesteryear. Maybe it just doesn't work for me. This morning gave me some insight into all this:  I woke the same as I always do, at 4:30. Proceeded with the alarm symphony but only set one this time, and woke up, for good, at quarter to five, nearly 45 minutes ahead of schedule.
  I got up, sat there for a bit and did some neck rolls, got my lungs used to me controlling their breathing patterns again and did some other stretches that felt necessary. Tied my hair back, cleaned the sleep from my eyes and went to the kitchen for the rest of my routine: hot water pot set to boil, let the pup out, get lunch and breakfast ready, feed the pup, make tea, shower, leave.
  Well, I had 15 extra minutes doing all this, so I decided to write. This might not seem like a big deal but it is immense, believe me. The morning is my favorite and most reflective time, and just being awake in it, alone, with only my thoughts and stillness, it is the perfect atmosphere for meditation, be it formal or informal. This morning I chose the informal route, and just considered the peace I felt within me and the rest of the slumbering world around me and soaked all that up. This is what it's all about, really. Postures, breathing, all that is just a means to an end. I got right to the core of it this morning, and I didn't even try to, and that's the key.
  The practice isn't lost on me, though; I'll come home and do my practice as usual but these 15 minutes I took to go into myself will set the tone and carry with me throughout the day today. I feel refreshed, and awake. I feel alive. Time to join the rest of humanity.

  Good Morning.