I’ve done a 180! Or a 360, depending on how you look at it. For those who follow my weekly newsletters this is old-ish news, but I feel the need to update the blog-space with this vital info, especially because I’ve penned two “philosophy of food” posts here already, and since diet and lifestyle go hand in hand, my switch (back) to veganism will have a great deal of bearing on the future direction of CSC. Like most of humanity I had been living in various states of defense and denial about my body and my health (I’m sure that on some necessary level I still am, but for reasons I’ll explain below, I do feel I’ve overcome some of my worst defenses in this arena). I was a profound proponent of ominivorism and “fridge tetris.” From a purely “what our bodies can do” standpoint, I still understand that our bodies are indeed able to process a wide variety of foodstuffs. And I still adhere to a version of fridge tetris — don’t let things go to waste, eat what will rot first, don’t overbuy perishable foods, etc. — albeit with a whole new outlook on what exactly “lives” in my fridge, freezer, and cupboards.
First I want to admit that getting into the health and nutrition spheres on the interwebs or really in any sort of media is dangerous! Everyone is an “expert,” and there is an overload of information about what is best — keto, intermittent fasting, eat for your blood type, high protein, etc. — and what to avoid — soy, cholesterol, fats, salt, sugar, to name a few. As a philosopher I am more than well aware that what counts as “science” is a hotly debated issue. I have my own views on empiricism and the scientific method, which I cannot go into in the space of this post, but which I often dive into in newsletters. For the purposes of this post I’m going to lean heavily on personal anecdote because CSC is my business, and this is my story. And so here we go.
I became a vegetarian in 1996 after reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in highschool. That book made me conscious of the dangers and grossities of animal processing factories, and honestly I just became scared of eating human fingers and rat poison in my hamburgers. In 1998, at the age of 18, I went vegan for the first time and stayed vegan until 2003, aged 23. I was insanely skinny — so much so that it hurt to sit down — and really took a never healing broken wrist to even get back up to 135 lbs. I had dropped as low as 120 and looked like a herione addict. I was eating tons of food, but it was mostly just vegetables and water, which I now know has like zero calories, so despite the bulk of my intake, I was probably averaging 600 calories a day for quite some time. Not good. Then I started partying in San Francisco and late night pizza ended my vegan days. Cheese eventually lead to eating a little bit of everything else and then into full blown omnivorism for almost the next 20 years (I’m turning 42 in a few weeks).
The trip to Chile (see previous post) was a turning point for me. I was drinking beer or wine every day throughout the winter of 2022 and all through the trip to Chile. I always have eaten plenty of vegetables, but I was increasingly eating more meat and dairy. I had also been dealing with some really frustrating low back and hip pain for the better part of 2021 on through 2022. Yoga helped, but it wasn’t doing the whole job. I had also been in health insurance limbo after achieving my PhD (no more cushy gradschool Aetna plan), and finally secured some personal health care (ugh what a rip off for the sole proprietor) in February 2022. It was a busy, busy winter surf trip season (kinda went on a bender), and so by the time I was done with Chile in May I knew I had to start prioritzing my health. I lined up a bunch of doctors visits for an overdue yearly physical and some physical therapy to dive into what was going on with my hips and back. On top of this I knew that my pants felt like they were fitting a little tighter, and I could see a small paunch in my lower belly in my SoloShot video reviews. I was still fitter than an average American, but that’s not a very high bar. I knew I didn’t feel right or look my best (or up to my potential), and I certainly knew that non-optimal things were going on in my body. Pain is just a signal that something is out of whack.
When I went to my new PCP (primary care physician) I weighed 153 lbs and was diagnosed with super high cholesterol — the reading was around 270 total. She also noticed that I travel too much not to have travel vaccines, so she scheduled a follow up visit for 10 days later to get a new read on my cholesterol and to start my Hep A and B vax doses. She said, “I’d really like to see that number below 200,” and handed me a sheet about low cholesterol foods. I remembered that when I was vegan I basically didn’t have any cholesterol and said to myself, “Hey let’s just try it for 10 days and see what happens to that number when I go back.” So that’s what I did. I ate vegan for 10 days, went back to the doctor, and bam! Was down to 150lbs, and cholesterol score went down to 175. In. 10. Days. That got me thinking that I should just stay vegan, but how to do it and not end up like I did before? Or how about the other worries? Isn’t it all just carbs? Don’t I have to avoid soy so that I don’t get fat from “estrogen”? And then, is diet enough? I really should start strengthening my core to protect my lower back.
I started searching for #veganfitness on Instagram. In another first, this was my first time ever searching a hashtag on Insta! Loads of shit came up. Frutarian muscle builders. Anorexic women with 1 million followers (JUST NO). Then I found this guy Fritz Horstmann (@fritz_nutrition)’s posts and they spoke to me. He had these "Stuck Vegan” vs “Fit Vegan” split screen posts where the food on the left of the “Stuck Vegan” was the stuff I was beginning to eat to lower my cholesterol. I certainly wanted to avoid becoming a “Stuck Vegan”! Plus he has some very candid and heartwarming posts about his own journey to fitness. It’s truly incredible to see his transformation from a doughy young dude to a shredded, mature man after he sought help from nutrition and fitness coaches. To be fair, Fritz started off at a much doughier place than I was at when I began my journey. Surfing does give one a relatively decent physique to begin with if you just do it all of the time. Inactivity was certainly never my issue. But as much as I thought I had diet and fitness wired, I was way off the mark. Way off. And that showed up in the fact that I wasn’t at my optimal fitness or weight and also in my low back and hip pain. I literally couldn’t do an upward dog without searing pain across my lower back.
So I got on ye olde interwebs, found Fritz’s official website, and signed up for a free consult. 24 hours later I was on a call with a woman named Franzi who absolutely kicked the teeth out of my defenses. She asked, “Where do you see yourself in a year?” I thought for a minute about my lifestyle, how I do what I want for a living, and how I’m pretty happy and said, “Well I guess maybe the same is ok . . .” And she replied, “There is no the same. You’re either improving or getting worse. Time won’t stop for you.” That struck home. She was right. A flood of true desires allowed themselves to be conscious to me at that moment: Yes, I wanted a 6 pack abs. Yes, I wanted to get rid of my back pain. Yes, I wanted my pants to fit more loosely or even to be wearing different sized pants. No, I did not want to see a paunch in my soloshot tapes. No, I didn’t want my drinking to spawn into a full blown problem. And why? Not because I need to look attractive to potential mates. I am very happy with my love life. Not because I need to make money as a social media influencer (although yes, I’ll take the extra cash if that happens). And not because I’m trying to achieve some way off ideal body that has been sold to me through the media. Why then? Because I did not feel right, and I knew I was capable of looking better, feeling better, and being EVEN MORE satisfied with my choices in life and how my physical being reflects those choices. Pretty simple when you get down to it, but a very hard thing to accept on the face of it. Then Franzi asked if I would commit financially and mentally to the coaching. I’d have to stop drinking for 3 months and stay strictly vegan. The price tag resembles my products. At that moment I went through what a lot of people who are deciding to pay me go through. The commitment to pressing “buy” on an investment in your life skills through coaching is a daunting one. I said, “Yes,” gave her my credit card info, and immediately felt relief. I took the first step. I acknowledged that I can’t get to where I want to be on my own and that I need to pay someone to help me out.
