Started in college, 2012. My senior year, and just one semester to go before graduation. I came home for Christmas break and to make a long, excruciating, horrible story shorter I randomly and for no particular reason had a panic attack that lasted for three days. I knew in my bones something was not right in my body. I knew that what had just happened to me wasn’t just “psychological”. I somehow knew even then that the brain can never be truly disconnected from the body, that you can’t cut your brain out of your skull and keep thinking and feeling without your guts and hands and everything else from the which the mind is in fact completely inseparable. 

The only solution the medical system was able to offer was an anti-depressant, which I had the good sense to refuse. Thus began an epic multi-year long quest that, to so many of us, is all too familiar. I tried low carb, paleo, mostly plant based, super food goji berry latest hit diet raw milk raw meat lots of beans maybe if I eat a lot of potatoes and butter I will get better etc., etc….so many very long, painful etceteras.  

I sorted and swam through loads of misinformation, tried to self-diagnose without the benefit of any diagnostic process whatsoever, and ended up finally getting some professional help and finding out I had Lyme Disease. 

Eventually I experienced a series of collapses in my mental emotional, and physical health. In the midst of one of these I had a strange craving for protein powders and realized my body was speaking to me. And so I began befriending animal products, reintroducing eggs and then moving on to turkey, beef, and lamb. 

Then the carnivore movement hit the world, and after two years on a ketogenic diet I went full carnivore during the summer of 2021. For a while I experienced significant improvement. Eventually, however, I began to lose my appetite along with too much muscle, fat, hair, and morale and realized my body was just plain rejecting the diet I had become so dependent on and identified with.

I embarked on a new adventure into pro-metabolc eating. Within six months my hair had regrown, my energy returned, and the OCD I had developed after going low carb all but disappeared. My sleep improved and my resiliency and sense of capability in life increased.

But even pro-metabolic has not been my entire answer. 

What I have realized, through musing, prayer, and much experimentation, is that nourishment is so much more than the next fad diet; it’s an all encompassing way of being with myself and the world around me. It’s integrity in my intake, and not just of food.

Integrity in my intake of beliefs; what beliefs do I feed myself? What kind of news, books, shows? Am I nourished by my relationships? Are they wholesome, nurturing, strengthening? Or are they toxic, dis-easing? What kind of light do I eat? Is it toxic processed fake light, or whole-food broad spectrum vintage straight from the source?

The devil’s in the details, and there are oh so many of them. But as I get the details of my intake in line with the what’s appropriate for my body, mind, and spirit, I find a corresponding increase in strength, health, resilience and the radical wellbeing of which my body has always been capable should I feed it the diet of goodness, truth, and beauty it deserves.