Home > Work > Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection
1 " The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one. "
― A.J. Jacobs , Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection
2 " I know that you should eat a lot of the Indian spice turmeric, as it fights cancer. Also that you should avoid the Indian spice turmeric, as it might contain dangerous levels of lead. One or the other. "
3 " A 2002 Oxford study showed counting sheep actually delays the onset of sleep. It's just too dull to stop us from worrying about jobs and spouses "
4 " The strange fact that out of millions of people in the world, your mother and father met and decided to get married to each other. And out of the millions of sperm, that the one with your genes was the one that made it to the egg and fertilised the egg. I'll never forget it. "
5 " I'm hungry enough that I started to salivate at the sight of lettuce. I repeat: lettuce. "
6 " I did get a colonic, but I've decided not write about it at length. I didn't find it helpful or enlightening. I can tell you want it felt like, though: It felt like someone shooting water up your butt. "
7 " The MRI has a repertoire of noises that resemble, in no particular order: a game-show buzzer for a wrong answer, urgent knocking, a modem from 1992, a grizzly-bear growl, and a man with a raspy voice shouting what sounds like "mother cooler! "
8 " ...Med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It's not until the second year that they learn the cures. "
9 " To properly engage in magical thinking, I find you have to think of every possible ghastly scenario. That's the only way you outsmart fate. "
10 " My immune system has always been overly welcoming of germs. It's far too polite, the biological equivalent of a southern hostess inviting y'all nice microbes to stay awhile and have some artichoke dip. "
11 " Incidentally, I spent some time on the Purell website, where you can find a list of ninety-nine places germs lurk (in-flight magazines, movie tickets, gas-pump keypads, hotel room a/c controls, and on and on). It's hilarious and terrifying. The only place they don't mention is the Purell dispensers themselves. You know they're coated with germs. It's one of health's cruelest catch-22s. "
12 " I figured the government wouldn't let poison flow from the taps. But in general, I'm too trusting of the government. I'm the polar opposite of the Tea Partiers. I have no problem with a nanny state. But in this case, the nanny state has been chatting on the cell phone and ignoring the baby as it plays with matches. "
13 " On the other hand, if you're too delusionally optimistic, you'll be unbearable. You'll refuse to save money or make backup plans. You'll invade foreign countries and expect to be greeted as liberators. Like everything else in health, you need balance. "
14 " After decimating several vegetables, I decide juicing is my favorite form of food preparation. There's something perversely appealing about subjecting an innocent plant to that much violence. "
15 " So, if weight loss is your goal, and you have impressive self-control, raw food is something to consider. "
16 " Studies show that the more you pay attention to your body’s statistics, the greater the chance you’ll adopt a healthy lifestyle. This idea underpins the Quantified Self movement, in which adherents track everything from caloric output to selenium levels. The mere act of weighing yourself daily makes it more likely you’ll shed pounds, according to a University of Minnesota study. Keeping a food journal makes you eat fewer fatty foods, according to another study. And pedometers make you walk more. "
17 " If ever I was going to listen to a string of swearwords sitting next to a ninety-four-year-old, I'm glad that ninety-four-year-old was my grandfather. Not that he swears a lot. It's just that he can take it. And, he is currently laughing so hard that his eyes are watery. "
18 " I'm not a big scatology fan, unlike my sons, who can amuse themselves for an entire afternoon by repeating the phrase 'crocodile fart.' So I'll spare you from an overabundance of detail in this chapter. This chapter will be somewhat soft focus, like the TV camera in a Barbra Streisand interview. "
19 " How do you gag the voice in your head that says, 'You don't have to go to the gym today. There's always tomorrow. C'mon, my friend, it's just one plate of curly fries. Yes, just for you!' (My inner voice reminds me of a particularly aggressive rug salesman at a Turkish bazaar.) "
20 " Cigarettes' cost far outweigh any resulting trimness, just as asphyxiation outweighs the benefits of stretching out the spine when you hang yourself from a shower curtain rod. "
