Eat, Sleep, Seek, Stride

Eat, Sleep, Seek, and Stride: An Autobiographical Wellness Guide is based on a keynote address the author delivered at a Women’s Health Conference in Sacramento in May 2015, entitled Eat Fat, Seek the Dark, and Stride.

I chose this provocative title because I wanted to get the audience’s attention and to reverse their assumptions. I was not inviting them to chug a gallon of cooking oil or join Darth Vader on the Dark Side. Rather, I was asking them — as I ask you— to look at wellness from a different perspective. I want to shake up your paradigms and get you to look at food, exercise, and your place in the world with fresh eyes. It is time for us — for a whole new generation —to become re-focused and open to a new dialog about food, exercise, preserving our earth, and what makes living worthwhile. In so doing, we will become healthier and happier.

The basic tenets of a wellness practice are not complicated. When you practice wellness, you:

While the concept of wellness is simple, a wellness practice is not always easy. It requires a modification of existing habits and patterns. It requires change.

I’ve identified three main reasons for the resistance to wellness. I call these influences the “Three Ps”: People, Pyramids, and Policies.

Most of this book addresses the “People” part of the equation. We will look at the impediments to our personal mastery of wellness practices and what we can do to overcome them.

We are living in ways that assault our essential nature and Mother Nature. We are tired, overworked, and under-loved. We are not being nourished on a primary level, and so we have become lethargic and sedentary or have turned to food, drink, and electronic devices to satisfy our unmet desires.

The food pyramid has provided nationally sanctioned dietary guidelines for two generations. In Eat, Sleep, Seek & Stride, you will learn that these guidelines were based on unsubstantiated science and special interests. In fact, the original food pyramid may have inadvertently triggered the obesity epidemic and agricultural priorities that are not in our best interest. Fat is not the enemy and the food pyramid is not your friend.

Policies have determined what and how farmers grow, and what foods are most and least available to the American people. Policies have supported a food manufacturing industry that has addicted us to high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats. If, like me, you are a yo-yo dieter who has reverted to rich, sugary foods time and time again, you will be heartened to know that this is not your fault. Food scientists have created extremely flavorful, highly-addictive foods that have hijacked our taste buds into preferring these artificial and addictive victuals.

Simultaneously, we are witnessing the proliferation of crops that are bred for portability, size, and disease resistance instead of flavor. This sometimes leaves them tasteless.

“The food we should be eating is getting more bland and the food we should not be eating is getting more flavorful!” says Mark Schatzker author of The Dorito Effect; the Surprising new truth about Food and Flavor.

There is a way out of this cycle. This book will show you that way.

Sometimes all it takes is the acquisition of knowledge to become empowered. Other times, it takes an active intervention. This book contains interactive exercises to enliven your experience. If you are interested in assessing, addressing, and attacking your health limitations, you will want to do these exercises!

When you practice wellness, you will have more energy and joy, your life will become easier, and you will enjoy a quality drug-free, pain-free life till the end of your days.

If you are not able to work through this book on your own, find a friend, or bring a few friends together. “In union there is strength.” (Aesop)

There may come a point when you want to reach out to me. If so, here’s my e-mail address: email address

“You may not be responsible for being down, but you must be responsible for getting up.”

Jesse Jackson