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Ok, so this is just a note to everyone on the Elimination Diet. If you’ve not have any trace of sugar, alcohol, wheat products, or caffeine in your diet for a month, and then because it’s your birthday you want to go out and splurge on all the things you’ve been missing, I have advice for you.

DON’T.

Last night we went out for my birthday and I had a combo pizza, a few beers and some chocolate cake when I got home. I swear my body is experiencing toxic shock this morning. I actually feel like I’ve been poisoned. I’m shaky. I’m tired. I had nightmares all last night and couldn’t sleep. I have the worst heartburn and my gut feels like a band of raving jungle savages are in there doing a war chant, and dancing over hot coals. Michelle was also complaining about an upset stomach last night. Unbelievable.

This really goes to show what certain foods will do to a body. I honestly thought that a lot of the stuff in the diet about wheat being bad for digestion, etc, etc was bull and just put in there for encouragement to stay on the diet, but I’m a believer now. I have felt so good for the past three weeks and I feel completely trashed today.

So today it’s back on the diet… for good.

Link: Dax Moy’s Elimination Diet

Well, I am 2 1/2 weeks into the Elimination Diet. What is the Elimination Diet you ask? Well, it’s basically a detox/food allergy diet. What I mean is that you basically cut out any foods that are considered “toxic” or commonly cause allergic reactions in people. This would include wheat products, dairy products, products containing alcohol,  sugar of any kind, caffeine, or are heavy in preservatives.

This sounds pretty harsh, but what it leaves are pure, natural foods. Anything that’s an animal or grows in the ground is basically fair game. And as restrictive as it sounds, there’s plenty of great dishes that can be made. I have not been hungry at all.

Another facet of the diet, and this really goes for all diets, is that you have to excersize and you eat smaller portions of food, 5 or 6 times a day. So you keep your body working. The other thing is, you gotta have willpower. If you cheat, you will fail. This is critical for any diet.

So how well does it work? Very well. I started the diet at 206lbs and set a goal of 195lbs. 15 days later, I’m sitting at 196lbs. These are pretty astounding results I think. I’ll hit my goal in the next few days. I’m going to take a day off for my birthday to have a beer and a pizza and then I’m back on. I still don’t have the shape I want, so I’m going to increase my weight lifting and continue on the diet until I get a better shoulder/waist ratio.

So if you’re looking for a great diet to kickstart your body back into shape, head over to Dax Moy’s website and sign up. It’s free and you’ll get the latest revision of his diet pamphlet with full instruction on how to do it.

Link: Dax Moy Website

Last February I turned 40, which is kind of a milestone age. You’re now too old to get away with stuff you did in your 30’s. It just looks dumb now. I mean it looked dumb then too, but you could pass it off as immaturity. Now there’s no hiding it. You’re 40, you should know better. But the good thing is that you’re still young enough to enjoy a vigorous life. It’s not all Hawaiian shirts, straw hats and socks with your sandals just yet.

So anyway, the only reason I bring this up is because I had my annual physical yesterday. Now, the bad part about hitting 40 is that you suddenly have a whole new barrage of tests they want to do on you at your annual physical. I’m not going to get into the gory details here, but let’s just say they require you to assume some postures that the majority of us would prefer not to assume in the company of another man. You’re also required to provide “stuff” that should never be exchanged between two people. I don’t care how professional the pretty young gal is at the lab, giving her the gift of yesterday’s bratwurst and sauerkraut in a vial is just plain uncomfortable.

The good news though is that I’m healthy as an ox! An ox with a bum wrist and failing eyesight, but a generally healthy ox none the less. That is unless my labs come back showing I have a failing liver or colon cancer. But hey, I prefer to keep a positive outlook! All kidding aside, I’ve lost 10lbs since my last visit which was in January and my heart rate has slowed considerably. Doc says it’s from all the running I’ve been doing. He was pretty stoked about it and so was I.

So here’s to a healthy 40! You certainly won’t see me in the moshpit at next week’s Sevendust show, but God’s given me another healthy year and plenty of adventures to seek out and experience!

Remember when you were young and you could do just about anything you wanted to and never feel any repercussions? When you could abuse your body and not have any aches and pains the next day? When you could eat Carl’s Jr, every single day and not gain an ounce? Those were the good old days man!

I’ve been kind of bowed up about my wrist issue. It’s finally starting to get better now that I’ve switched out my keyboard and mouse, bought some wrist pads, and adjusted my chair. But today I sat down and started coding and my eyes just started hurting. I’ve been getting headaches lately and today it just got to be too much. I have two 24″ monitors on my computer at work and I had to change the font on them to these big ol’ fonts so I could see without straining my eyes. Geeze.

It’s just kind of funny that over the course of 25 years of daily computer use, I’ve never had any problems until now when I am about to hit my 40th birthday. It’s almost like a magic number that your body senses as a signal to begin premature decomposition.

Ah well, I guess that’s life. But I’m still not going without a fight let me tell you. I guess its inevitable that I will someday be old. But I can delay looking old, and I certainly never have to act old! But I do know one thing; Regardless of what happens, I’m never going to do this:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119431190803983349.html