A couple weeks ago on Halloween evening I ordered some chicken and creamed spinach to be delivered for dinner. About seven months ago I returned to nutritional and fitness discipline. The eating regime I follow is called “The Plant Paradox”. It’s all about gut health. I’ve shed 60 pounds of fat and have never felt better.


One of the claims Plant Paradox makes is that eating this way would significantly improve your brain acuity. That’s not why I went on it. I just wanted to drop a bunch of weight. Which I have. Additionally, a new crispness and sharpness of mind showed-up one day as an extra bonus! Our daughter Hannah turned me on to the program. Here’s the link to the book if you’re interested.


Anyway, the first step is to get off sugar. Sugar is the number one cause of cancer and depression. Other than that, sugar is awesome. The reference to the “paradox” is that some plants are not healthy for you. In any case, I have been off sugar for going on 200 days now. It twas not easy. But well worth it.


Then I innocently ordered dinner on Halloween. Door Dash delivered promptly, per usual, dropping the bag off at my front door. As you know, we have to limit our human contact these days. I grabbed the bag off the ground, and inside was a cute little Halloween-themed coffee cup pictured here. Inside the cup were these three little treats, also pictured. A lovely gesture, no? NOPE! Not for me it wasn’t.


When I first took the cup out of the bag, I thought, “Oh, that was nice”. Or was it?


Then I placed the three pieces on my kitchen counter and saw one of them was my former favorite candy, a Twizzler, and thought, “I could have just this one after dinner for dessert”. And my mouth watered a little. Then I got pissed!I imagined myself eating the other two pieces, too, and starting the ball rolling to a disastrous holiday season. That’s how “backsliding” always starts, with just one dessert, one drink, one smoke. And then we’re off to the races.


If your fitness and weight level is where you want it. If you can have a cupcake here and there without getting all sugar addicted. If you can have a cigarette or cigar when you’re out socializing with friends and then not pick up one for months. If you don’t have an addictive personality. Then, this blog is NOT for YOU!


I have been coaching about the dangers of the “holiday season” for years. I just did a whole Sex in the Pews episode about it. We have a whole history of ancient feudal systems’ aristocracy keeping the serfdom “in their place” through allowing them to gorge themselves during the last month of the year and putting it all on credit to keep them indebted to the powers that be for the rest of the year. This way pre-dates Christ and Christmas! Sound familiar, though? We’re still engaged in this vicious cycle! And it all started again two weeks ago on Halloween.


If you’re finding yourself already drifting into the “sugar and spending holiday haze” (which you know you will regret come January), call a timeout!


It’s not too late. Don’t get sucked in to one more holiday season stupor. Stop its momentum right now. Drink a glass of water. Go for a walk. Order The Plant Paradox. Do something positive for yourself, right now! Drop down and do one pushup, right now!

Obviously, the person who left me the ghost cup of candy wasn’t thinking they may be contributing to fucking up my entire progress. But that would have been the practical result if I hadn’t called a timeout, realized what was afoot and what I was being tempted with before depositing “the cup of death” and its contents into the trash.


As I said, this blog may not be for you. But if it is, or for someone you know, Please take action NOW.

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