Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Revenge of the Trillion Samurai

  J   apan crushed me. It took everything I'd worked for for almost a quarter of a year and turned it  upside down and inside out.

Me, who's been ranting and raving about sugar demons and gluten fasts, me, who's been prebioting and probioting and vitamining and fightamining, me, reduced to eating four cakes a day for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a night-night treat, but not neglecting a sugared "Kwasson" or a "Fruits Bar" in between. All that punctuated with four or five lattes, six teas and bottomless glasses of fuzzy water, pasta or pizza for dinner and what you have is a very, very angry Biome.

The Trillions were up in tiny arms, waving their ciliae and pilli and filaments and flagella and other maddened microbial mechanisms of movement in vehement protest.

My Trillions decided not to give me the hint by making me nauseous, as they knew I might retaliate by downing a particularly disturbing morsel of sushi, so in order to punish me they conscripted their  Japanese brethren, who gave me honourable gallstones as a housewarming present.

The gall!

Upon returning to Montreal, it was not possible to just resume my previous diet straightaway. In fact, I had become so conditioned to the sweet routine in Japan that I have found it almost impossible to dump the sweet stuff, even trying to imitate the drink they made me at one of my favourite café haunts: Honey-lemon sparkling water.

I've been chowing down on the glutenous junk as well: croissants for breakfast (not whole wheat, because I can't find them!) and even regular durum-wheat pasta, because Brigitte doesn't particularly like the whole wheat version.

And the third gut-biome test I sent in, in July, has not come through yet, so I only have those two first tests to go on. The day I got back from Japan I took a sample and sent it in, and I'll be very interested to see what THAT honourable result will be.

But it's definitely time to be ruthless and return to The Diet, in all its tree-hugging, granola-crunching, Save The Whales glory.

But this time, a little more is at stake. Gather round, my merry band of conspirators, because i have some news for you: this will not all be in vain.

Because now there is disturbing proof of what all those doomsaying dieticians and chart-waving scientists have been telling us for decades now: if we pursue healthy lifestyles, we live longer. 

No, not the couple of years you'd expect.. Not even the ten years you might grudgingly concede.

No, if you pursued a healthy lifestyle—whatever that might be—you could expect to add seventeen-point-nine years to your life.

That means croaking at age 88 instead of kicking the bucket at 70. Seventeen years is your reward for all those cakes uneaten, those glasses of single malt undrunk, all those florets of broccoli and cassoulet de wheatgrass sprouts

That is not an unsignificant number, and if you will excuse the choice of words, it's extremely sobering.

And let's not forget, that's seventeen years not being sick, presumably being in the prime of exuberant health, able to take cruises to Reïytvïkken or Tromsø or get in those extra games of shuffleboard at the Residence when all around you are glued to The Price Is Right. I mean, Shady Pines, here I fucking come, dudes!

So when I finally cast off these sugary shackles and re-enter the world of slow, deliberate, Biome-friendly food, it will be in the knowledge that it is for a good cause, that there will be a tangible reward, and that the Trillions will be able to continue having children, and grandchildren, and great grand-children, and great great grandchildren, and great great great grandchildren, and great great great great grandchildren, and great great great great great grandchildren, and great great great great great grandchildren, and great great great great great great grandchildren, and great great great great great great great grandchildren,

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