Our Bodies Are Finely Tuned Instruments

I took in about three hours of music from what I call the world’s greatest rock band, Pearl Jam, last Thursday in Philadelphia but also took in something else and wound up paying a steep price in the week following my 22nd show by Eddie Vedder and company.

Throughout the show, studded with lots of cuts from the Seattle, Washington, group’s landmark debut album, Ten, some among the 20,000 in attendance lighted up joints. I wound up breathing in marijuana smoke, and when I woke up groggy and hoarse on Friday morning, I could sense that my body was working hard to purge these toxins.

It’s not often that I get sick, and sometimes when I do, a feeling of dialed-down vitality lifts after just a few hours. My nausea seemed to have lifted by 9:30 Friday night, and I thought I was in the clear. But when I awoke Saturday, I knew my body was taking advantage of all the energy it had mustered for me to have a healing opportunity in the first place to clean house.

Hooray! I am grateful for this and all other healing opportunities because they tell me my body is responding to negative stimulus—be it food, smoke, stress or any number of other stimuli—appropriately and swiftly. Many the world over haven’t got the energy to eliminate toxins so rapidly. Their bodies are beset by improper food and beverage choices, pharmaceutical and recreational drug use, and the tacking on of more toxins such as marijuana smoke will be buried beneath the body’s to-do list, growing longer by the day.

Actually, some mostly raw fooders and otherwise healthy folks might not have fallen ill over breathing in some smoke either. And some of them might say they’d rather not be wholly raw if it means being too sensitive to smoke and other environmental toxins.

Not me, though. I cherish the crystal-clear communication I have with my body, which, like yours, is a finely tuned instrument demanding love and care, begging to be listened to and gloriously played. If something’s amiss, I want to know how it’s affecting me so I can remove myself from an environment and/or make informed decisions on whether to put myself in similar situations again. Despite my efforts to be as pure as possible, I’m not pristine. I eat store-bought fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, all of which are subject to chemical spraying—be it in the form of pesticides or chemtrails. I breathe vehicle exhaust and subtle fumes from painted walls wherever I go. I handle and even consume some food from plastic containers. I sit in place in front of a computer screen for several hours in a row. It’s a toxic world, and the odds of truly thriving, as we were designed, on this planet are stacked against us.

This is why I’m doing my best—leading a wholly low-fat raw food diet, practicing the Egoscue Method and meditating, among other lifestyle choices—to create supreme health so I may harness all the magic and power within me to live well and help change the world in a positive fashion. You think I’ve eaten more than 40,000 bananas since January 2012 for my health? Of course! 🙂

A raw fooder friend of mine frequently cites the canary-in-a-coal-mine story for his reason for not going all in, for not being wholly raw. “I don’t want to be too pure,” he says. “You get too sensitive.”

This is a choice we have to make. Personally, I didn’t get the results I desired on a mostly raw diet. Throughout 2011 and the earliest weeks of 2012, I ate an all-vegan, mostly low-fat raw diet, with the out-of-bounds food being a few salt-laden burritos a week for dinner. Several months in on this diet, in which 90 percent of my calories were raw, I simply didn’t feel well, suffering from brain fog. It was only when I went 100 percent did I feel the true raw lightning bolt strike inside me, filling me to the core with incredible, unstoppable energy. I commenced my Fruit-Powered work immediately.

When you stop and think about it, wouldn’t you rather have your body working at its peak potential if you came in contact with toxins? Forget about smoke at a rock show for a moment—how about some heavy-duty toxins in which your life is on the line at the very moment of contact? Beyond these occasional extreme times, wouldn’t you rather have the best shot at feeling your best?

You deserve to give yourself an opportunity to be wholly raw. You deserve to honor your body’s highest intentions. You deserve to be healthy and happy. And you deserve to have your light shine for all the world to see!

Wishing you success leading a raw food lifestyle and in all you do!