Woodard Wednesday: Bulletproof coffee

A real conversation overheard:

Man: can I also trouble you for 4 packets of butter?
Barista: butter?  Did you say BUTTER?
Man: yes please, butter.
Barista: are you going to put it in your coffee?
Man: yes indeed! It's amazing.  So delicious and super healthy.
Barista: ..... (eyebrows rise slowly with a hint of asymmetry)
Man: ..... (smiles like an idiot and gives a cheerful nod)
Barista: ok then.  It's your heart attack

Ok, so I overheard this conversation because I was part of it.  I am no longer known publicly as the guy with a lot of tattoos.  I am quickly transitioning to the guy who puts butter in his coffee.

I'm comfortable with that.  Eventually I aspire to be the guy who puts butter on his tattoos, but that's for another blog.

So, why am I putting butter in my coffee?  Because it IS actually healthy.

I grew up in the 80's where we knew that fat was a bad thing for you and made you unhealthy.  Anything with fat would, well, make you fat.  The reasoning was sound.  I remember being super happy to discover that angel food cake was fat free.  You could literally eat as much as you liked and not get fat.  It was a genius plan.  What could go wrong?

I got fat.

Even better, we (meaning myself and Fabio) would spray this weird yellow stuff on our toast and exclaim about how happy we were that it wasn't real butter.  We delighted that this fat-free butter substitute was chemically designed to taste kind of like butter.  Never mind that it was full of carcinogens and God knows what.  It was tasty, and fat free!  Nailed it.

So what's the problem with a low fat diet?  Other than being super boring, it is not healthy.

I have been on The BulletProof Diet now for approaching a year and have to admit that this is the healthiest I have ever been.

Side note: I am not endorsed by BulletProof Diet or Dave Aspery and receive no monetary gain by writing this blog (although I am happy to change that...Dave?  Daaaaaaave?)

Side note number two: I am not intending to re-write this guys book.  He beat me to it and does a pretty swell job.

But can I just make this point: eating healthy fat is awfully good for you for several reasons, but here is my favorite.

Have you ever eaten brains?  Have you ever asked yourself why zombies go for the brains first?  It's because zombies have a highly refined palate and know that brains are the foie gras of the human.  What's the similarity between brains and goose liver from geese that are intentionally made obese?  Fat.

You heard that right.  Geese are fat too, just like me as a kid.  But you also heard that brains, and for that matter the majority of the nervous system, is made of fat.

Now, might I pose this question: if what you eat is intentionally low in fat, how does your nervous system grow and repair itself if it is made of fat?

This is your brain.  This is your brain on a low fat diet.  Any questions?

As for gaining weight while on a diet super high in fat: nope.  Sorry to disappoint, but I find it much easier to maintain a healthy weight on this diet than any other previously attempted.  And yes, I've tried them ALL.

It's worth checking out.  I am not saying you should put butter in your coffee if you think it's gross.  But if you think butter is gross, we probably can't be friends.  It's like saying bacon is gross.  Animal lover or not, some things are just delicious.

Happy to have a discussion on this.  What do you think of the Bulletproof Diet?

Woodard Wednesday: I'm scared to write this

What are you afraid to do?

Ok, I'll go first.  I am afraid of everything.  I'm also afraid of nothing.  I'm glad we had this talk and I could be so insightful.

Let me explain.  I have some scary things going on in my life right now.  Let's focus on those so I can work myself into a martini-for-lunch-needing-frenzy.  Here's a list: living alone and being single, watching my baby-boy (Mick) getting old, taking steps to open a new clinic with a team of people depending on me to succeed, and the completely rational fear of a rogue tree branch falling on my head in Central Park during a run ensuring certain death.  It happens; I've heard stories...

me as a cute baby, except it isn't me at all.  totally could have been though so I don't like your judgement

The first point of living along and being single.  The last time I was single, Facebook hadn't been invented.  How's that for some perspective?  Back in my day (yes I just said that) you would go to a loud bar and order overpriced drinks, stewing in your misery and hoping to find someone who's misery resonated with yours.  It was poetry.  How did you know if their misery matched yours?  You would go over and say something sexy, yet mysterious like, "where did you buy those pants?  I like them but find that corduroy chafes me like sandpaper."  It was simple, beautiful, and markedly awkward.

Things have changed.  Now, I have learned, you go to a loud bar and order overpriced drinks, stew in your misery hoping to find another miserable being.  But do you talk to them?  Oh no!  That's bordering harassment!  Now, you log in to any number of social apps on your phone and communicate with the people digitally.  Did you catch that?  You are sitting in the same bar, like 10 feet away, but you communicate through an app.  Holy hell, I am getting so freakin' old.

Why am I afraid of this?  How could I not be?  I'm basing my search for potentially finding my new mate on the merit of my phone auto-correcting my spelling.  The potential love of my life might block me because I mention that I am "getting over being sick" but actually reads "getting over being a ...."  You see why this causes anxiety?

I'm also afraid to see Mick, my super-pup, getting older.  He's a yellow lab and coming up on his 12th birthday.  For you non-dog people, that's like 247 in human years.  It's natural and a part of life, but twice a day I give him more pills than taken by someone who watches Dr. Oz.  He's been with me since he was 9 months old after being abandoned in a dog run in Brooklyn.  Knowing he is in the final bit of his life freaks me out.

And finally, building out a new clinic with a team of some of the best humans on the face of the earth: scary as hell.  If it was just me in this business and I failed, no problem.  I can dust myself off and return to a life of professional nose-picking spa services.  There's good money in that and work, work that I prided myself in for many years through college.

But having a team adds a whole new layer of hair-losing/hair-graying stress.  If I fail, what happens to them?  If I somehow miss my mark of perfection, surely their lives are ruined and no hope exists for them.  Reasonable assumption, I think.

Side note: if you are reading this and are on said team, please roofie yourself now so you forget what you just read.  Gentle suggestion, but powerful.

That's a scary list, and I haven't even started to tell you about that itchy rash.

So, why would I have started this post by saying that I am also not afraid of anything?  The answer is clear...

I am delusional.  Proudly so.

I might be single forever, or I might not.  Mick will move on to his next journey, perhaps today, perhaps in several years.  Symbio PT will succeed, or it won't.

Regardless what happens with these points, along with the myriad of other fear generators, I will still be me.  I will wake up tomorrow morning, or I wont.  I will still have this precise moment to live fully and experience the miracle that is my every breath.

I will not be afraid that said miraculous breath is tarnished with the aroma of day old coffee.  I will reach boldly for that breath mint and marvel at the profound simplicity of my life!

But here is my biggest fear, and this shit is real.  I am terrified of the following image: me on my death bed many many years from now, surrounded by those I love in my final moments in this reality, and realizing only in that moment that I lived a life unfulfilled because I was too scared to confidently attempt my dreams.  Knowing then, when the time for action has passed, that I missed my opportunity to possibly achieve greatness because I once decided it was safer, less scary, more reasonable to chose one path versus another.

That scares me more deeply than anything else I can conjure up.  Living a life of safety and comfort, because I am afraid, is a life wasted.  I decline that option, thank you.

My dream, the image that makes my eyes well with tears as I write this, is me on that same bed with all the same people, laughing to the point of pain at all the times I tried something and absolutely, without question, completely messed it all up.  Made a total ass of myself.  Totally crashed and burned.

I have come to realize that a full life is not one of safety that is governed by fear, but rather a life of adventure and trial.  A list of experiences, successful or otherwise, that made me face my fear and decide to cower or stand tall.

2015 was a year of transitions, an opportunity to realize that new realities existed.  2016 is a year to confidently march myself into that new reality.  To show the world that I will either succeed or have a hilarious story to tell.

I look forward to telling you that story someday...

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert

I can't drink WHAT?

Oh sweet burning nectar of the gods, why hast thou forsaken me?

People, I’ve got a problem.  I’m about to tell you what it is, but I need you to prepare yourself…it’s rather upsetting.

There is a running theory, backed by some moderately strong-leveled evidence that I may be allergic to, of all things, coffee.

Any Buddhists out there?  Perhaps you can tell me what I did in a past life to be dealt this stinging karmic blow?  Was I cruel to coffee farmers?  Was I a thief of all things caffeinated?  Was I Hitler?

It would seem that in this unfortunate turn of events, my body has decided to revolt in the form of reverting back to the painful teenage years of embarrassing breakouts of pimply unpleasantness.  With extensive efforts to figure out why this was happening, it was determined that coffee/caffeine might be the offending culprit.

It just so happens that my first race of the season is 4 weeks from this Sunday at which time I usually try to get off the juice to decrease my tolerance for the magical drug.  That way when I down a Red Bull during the race, I literally grow wings.

So that’s where I’m at.  Today was the last “cup” of coffee, but as you can see from the picture above, that was hardly worth calling a cup.  This coming from the guy who used to down 2-3 venti monsters daily just to get by.

Anyone heard of this?  Coffee allergy?  Where are my naturopaths out there???