Bless Me, Body, For I Have Sinned

The other day, I curled up on my couch and watched Morgan Spurlock's famous McDonald's documentary, Supersize Me. Given my predilection for the Golden Arches, I'd been avoiding it for years and years, essentially doing the equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling "blah blah blah I can't hear you."  I simply didn't want to know the effects of eating McDonald's at each meal for 30 days straight, which is exactly what Spurlock did. I didn't want to know that one of my favorite indulgences was really, really bad for me.

Now that I'm into clean living, though, I decided I'd give it a shot. And as the final credits rolled, I realized that my pre-diagnosis diet had been bad news for years. I realized that my behavior -- especially my diet -- had probably played a pretty significant role in my getting the gift nobody wants to get: "the cancer." 

Before last year, when I joined Educogym and dropped 30 pounds, I had struggled with my weight for years. I gained that "Freshman 15" while I was at Duke, and then I lost it, and then I gained 20 pounds, and lost it, and gained another 15, then lost it, and so on. The school year was for working my butt off in classes, not making time for regular and intense exercise, and eating and drinking whatever made me feel good. This college diet of mine included a pretty consistent amount of McDonald's, Chick Fil-A, hot wings, hush puppies, Toll House cookies, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza, beer, wine, Jack Daniels, Everclear (ok, only freshman year at a few frat parties), Diet Coke, Zima (ok, only once), and sweet tea. It consisted of no vegetables to speak of, water only when I was dripping sweat after a pick-up basketball game, and only a few healthy meals a week.

My law school diet improved a bit, and my adult life diet was better than that, but still. Up until the moment I got sick last September, I had some pretty poor eating habits. I loved sugar. I still hit up McDonald's once every couple of weeks. I guzzled Diet Coke like it was going out of style. I improved my liquor selection to Johnny Walker Black and high-end wines but drank more than moderately at times. And I still hated veggies and scoffed at salad. In addition to my less than stellar eating habits, my law school and lawyer life were uber-stressful, jam-packed with obligations and deadlines and anxiety over proving myself in my classes and to my colleagues. I started to sleep less and worry more. In very busy times, exercise became totally non-existent. 

You get the picture. It wasn't pretty.

After watching Supersize Me, I realized that I'd been abusing my poor, tough body for years. I failed in treating my body like the temple that it is. I was so ignorant of the fact that, yes, the things I do every day will have an effect on my overall health, wellness, and lifespan. 

I tell people all the time that I'm glad that this whole cancer adventure happened to me at this time in my life. And it's so true. I'm young enough and strong enough to endure the chemo and the surgeries pretty well, to fight like hell, to keep up that youthful optimism, and to ultimately emerge victoriously from this hand-to-hand combat with this deadly disease. But I'm also grateful that I got my body's biggest, most dramatic wake-up call now because I would've continued being a jerk to myself into my 30s and 40s and 50s. I was wrong to harm my body, but those days are over...and not a moment too soon.

So forgive me, body. Continue to heal. Continue to thrive. From now on, I'm going to be the best owner ever.