Shitting Like Tim Ferriss
The gut-wrenching dangers of hero-worship
According to Michael Greger, I’m going to die soon.
To be fair, when I was all aboard the Greger hype train, I felt great! I weighed less, I slept better, and I was always horny. My bowel movements were glorious! Three words:
Above the waterline!
And then I ran into a minor, slightly consequential hiccup. I dropped dead. Gee, thanks, Michael.
I suffered a cardiac arrest in the middle of the night while dreaming about playing tennis with Yoda (no joke!). While I was crushing the Jedi-master on the court, my heart was crushing my fat-starved life out of me.
Being the gungho totally-one-way-or-the-other, either everything or nothing, type of guy I am, I turned it around completely.
Enter Tim Ferriss and the Mental Ward
So, if depleting my body of all animal products and saturated fat caused me to shake hands with God, Shiva, and the gang, then surely doing the exact opposite would work, right?
Wrong.
(Quick side note: I didn’t see Elvis there. Meaning, he’s either still alive or in the “other place.” Or, maybe the other place is the same as being alive? I digress.)
I read all the books and articles that I could find to improve my mind, body, and soul. I was all in, baby! Again.
Among my pile of books, I had copies of James Clear’s Atomic Habits and Tim Ferriss’s books about getting a 4-hour body and a 4-hour workweek. At this point, I’d settle for any habit, atomic or not. Whatever I could do to improve!
Do you know what happens when you try to tackle 27 daily habits back-to-back? You go crazy. Legit.
It was 11 p.m. on Saturday, and I was calling the Veterans Crisis Line (if anyone needs it: 800–273–8255). The lady on the phone was nice; the cops that showed up, not so much. Maybe it had to do with me being a former Marine and being 6'2" that they decided to cuff me and cart me out.
Don’t worry, I’ll write about the whole experience later (ex: “7 Life Lessons I Learned While Locked Up in the Loney Bin”).
Long story short: a week after living in a locked-up hospital ward with bolted-down furniture and “Medicine time” nurses, I realized something: I was taking things too far. I needed balance. I needed self-compassion.
So, what about shitting like Tim Ferriss?
I didn’t say I popped out of the hospital like Lucky Lou-Who, skipping through fields of daisies and sugar plums.
I still had piles of books waiting for me at home. That 4-hour body could be mine in 365-daily payments of insanity.
I tried to tamp things down, really, I did. I cut my list of 27 daily habits down to 14. Okay, that’s a lie. But it was less than 27, satisfied?
As I was kneeling at the shrine of Ferriss, I loaded my gullet with steak, fat, and more steak. Apparently, I did something wrong. Perhaps it was deciding to skip the Officially Licenced Ferriss Keto-Flush PillsⓇ. Or, maybe it was choosing not to take that 40-pound ice bath.
Either way, the shit was NOT about to hit the fan. Or anything else.
After 30 minutes of excruciating labor, my now-bloody ass gave birth to two little poop pebbles. That cow I’d earlier eaten was mooing ferociously inside my pained stomach. No amount of grunting, pushing, and squatty-potty-ing could get that hunk of meat out of me.
The ah-ha moment; I don’t have to die
I seem to bounce from one cult to the next. Whether it is Altucher, Robbins, or the stool-binding Ferriss, something always lures me in.
For Buddha’s sake, where is the evangelist of balance? As Rodney King said, “can’t we all get along?” Obviously, he was referring to vegans versus carnivores, and the 4-hour workers versus the 80-hour stress bombs.
Perhaps if Greger and Ferris had a baby (that’s possible, right?), they would birth the best version of me: well-rounded, self-compassionate, and even-keeled.
For now, I think I’ll go check out this thing called P90X. I’ve heard good things.