Sunday passed slowly and quickly. That is how rest days are for me. I was not busy doing a lot of physical activity, so I feel bored in a way, but I was busy catching up on other things such as my social life, family goings on, current events (a huge hobby of mine, obviously), etc. Rest days are nice in a way and feel like they end too soon, but on the other hand they can make me restless if I take too many of them.
My main focus today: eating more McDonald’s and chilling out.
Really only one thing was on my mind all day: wondering how my blood test results will turn out. I wrote about that a bit yesterday so I won’t go over it all again here, but those results are going to really tell me a lot about how actually bad this McDonald’s diet is or isn’t. It will also give me a lot more information about what is going on within my own body. So far I really feel just fine and normal. I have plenty of energy going into my workouts, I’m not having trouble sleeping, I don’t feel like I’m oozing fat and oil, I don’t feel bad at all, actually. Even the sexual dysfunction that Morgan Spurlock mentioned in his experiment has absolutely not turned up in my own experience — if anything I am more energetic now than before I started this experiment. An increased libido is a normal effect of observing a strong exercise routine for me. All of this points to me seeming to be unaffected by this highly unusual McDonald’s diet.
Even I didn’t think that I would be this unaffected.
I had assumed that I would at least feel fatigued, hit low-energy points througout the day and especially during workouts. I figured that I would feel fat or weird or something. I didn’t know what to expect but I certainly wasn’t expecting this overwhelmingly normal sense of wellbeing. I thought this would be more of a challenge, really. So far the only effect has been to give me an overwhelming desire to eat anything as long as it is not from McDonald’s. I am absolutely sick of this food at this point. It doesn’t taste bad, it doesn’t feel bad, its just the same thing every day. I love sushi, but I’m sure I would get sick of it if I had to eat only that for a month straight also. There’s just no variety. This is a highly unnatural diet from an emotional perspective, even if it isn’t screwing my body up in ways that everybody had predicted.
And that is why I’m thinking so much about the blood test results that I will see in two days. My body feeling normal all the time is puzzling me and I’m very curious about what the blood tests will show. Either way they turn out they will raise a lot of questions based on what my body measurements turned out to be… but if the reason I feel normal is because I actually am still normal, what does that mean and who can explain it to me?
And if that is the case then why is there such a huge hype and over-abundance of public campaigns about diet and organic foods and contrived, absolutely unnatural diet programs and weird foods that were only thought of in the last ten years when really the campaigns should be focusing on exercise and listening to your body? Why isn’t there an overwhelming public awareness campaign about the benefits of competitive sports throughout all phases of life? Just because there has to be a loser?
Are we that weak as a society that we’re afraid of putting our kids on a team that might suck and hurt their feelings? Are we such weak parents that we’d rather leave our kids alone and not hear their complaining that we never forceably tear them from the computer or TV screen and make their fatasses get out and compete in an athletic event? Are we such weak communities that we cannot demonstrate to our kids by our own common examples that participating in sport can be a far more rewarding mental, social and even strategic gaming experience than playing World of Warcraft?
I just took a swing at video games, TV, parenting, and many other things that are signs of a passively entertained and totally not actively engaged society. I am no stranger to video games. I love them. I would love to start a video game company, actually, and have even completed several design documents for game proposals I would like to fund and eventually publish if the timing and money was ever right. But I can tell you from experience that there is a time and place for games on a TV screen and games that I play with my own body for real. Becoming immersed in a gaming experience is enjoyable, but whenever I let myself get out of hand with gaming I always come away feeling empty, like I’ve just thrown away some of my time. On the other hand a slightly drunken WoW Arena LAN party, ExciteBot rally or HALO kill-a-thon is a hell of a time — for one night or one day, but not for a week at a time. As a daily experience going out and boxing or wrestling or playing football is much more rewarding and tends to make me a lot more friends who feel much more deeply connected to me on and off the field than any video game session or guild experience ever has.
These are really important aspects of life that we seem to have thrown away and chosen to ignore. You learn so much more about someone when you’re tied up with them on the mat than when you’re talking with them on WoW chat or vent while you try to tackle the latest instance. The artificiality of the experience registers with everyone involved and makes it somehow less important than when you’re testing your skill or strength against someone who is really alive, really there and really lives a few doors down from you.