Things Continue to be Excellent

My brain power continues to be maximized on the whole food, plant based diet I have been following for almost 3.5 years now. My weight is down to a nearly all time low (in my adult memory). I feel fantastic. I won't have empirical data to support my subjective experience until after my annual physical, likely in July. But based on my strength during exercise, I expect the blood work will support my lived experience.

Many people doubt or distrust the whole food, plant based vegan diet for health promotion. There are two reasons for this. The first is mass confusion about nutrition in the mainstream media. Even though no scientific study as ever concluded that eating LESS fruits and vegetables is good for your health, there is still a cognitive dissonance about animal based foods and whether they are unhealthy. Animal foods are unhealthy (SOURCE), but the mainstream media, with its "fair and balanced" doctrine, perpetrates a belief that the science is still ambiguous about the harm animal foods do to the human body.

At baseline, the ideal diet for optimal health is the whole food, plant based diet (SOURCE). The introduction of any animal based foods - at all - increases the risk for chronic diseases. That's not to say people eating a whole food, plant based diet won't ever get a chronic disease. But it is to say that the risk is the lowest it can possibly be if you eat a whole food, plant based diet (SOURCE).

Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theories seem to be all the rage right now. So, I'll go ahead and add mine to the mix.

Nearly half of Americans are clinically and collctively psychotic and the American industrial food system is to blame.

That's it.

The Battle for Structure

We marriage and family therapists often have to engage in what we call a Battle for Structure with clients. It's kind of a pre-therapy intervention we do with clients to maximize their engagement with therapy - a way of non-verbally getting the client to take personal responsibility for engaging in therapy. If therapists lose this battle by being over accommodating or handholding the client, the client typically does not make progress or benefit from therapy. Once the Battle for Structure is won, the client can then engage in the Battle for Initiative, taking personal responsibility for their mental health and wellness (attending appointments, completing homework, applying therapeutic techniques and interventions).

If the Battle for Structure is not won by the therapist, it's almost pointless for therapy to continue because clients won't engage or move forward significantly. This may be one of the down sides of person-centered therapy (meeting the client where they are at), which overly accommodates and validates the client's point of view, such that they win the Battle for Structure, and thus do not take ownership of their growth. Instead, they expect the therapist to "cure" them, which is not how therapy works.