Health is a fickle mistress who charges by the hour and still judges your life choices.
I learned this the hard way last week when my new chiropractor—a woman whose job is to yank my spine and make it pop like an AMC Theater popcorn machine—cornered me over my beloved Coke Zero habit. Let me set the scene: There I was, facedown on a table, one cheek smushed into a vinyl headrest, my other cheeks popped up in a precarious position, drooling slightly, when she hit me with, “You know artificial sweeteners cause dementia, right?” Ma’am, I can’t even remember my Netflix password now. Let future me deal with the brain fog. Present me just wants to enjoy this QuikTrip fountain soda in peace and without the guilt trip.
This is the problem with modern wellness. You claw your way out of one health ditch only to discover the universe has installed a fresh trapdoor labeled “But wait, there’s worse!” I spoke about my weight loss journey several times in this space. Basically, I’ve managed to lose 160 pounds in 12 years. But more importantly, the last 50 in the last six months. My eating habits were…not great, one could say. I visited the drive-thru more times than P. Diddy’s manager visited the baby oil aisle at CVS. I dropped the habit. I rarely eat my beloved Doritos. I’ve cut back on stress eating. I even have eaten kale as recently as today. Yet here we are, acting like my can of aspartame-laced joy is a gateway drug to selling plasma on a street corner.
The health industry operates on a sliding scale of sanctimony. First, they want you to quit the “big” sins: deep-fried everything, chain-smoking confidence, tequila shots at 2 a.m. Fine. You comply. You trade Nachos for carrot sticks, swap merlot for melatonin. You’re basically a monk now, if monks did Peloton and Googled “is hummus carb-conscious?” But no. Suddenly, the goalposts grow legs. Now your morning Splenda is public enemy No. 1, and your chiropractor—a back cracker—is out here playing neurologist.
It’s like getting a B+ on a test and having the teacher say, “But why not A+++? Also, your pencil grip is problematic.” I’m sure my chiropractor friend is out there doing triathalons and consuming all of her fish oil. But most of the other people around me treat their bodies like a dumpster behind Denny’s.
Isn’t being able to walk a flight of stairs without an AED device enough? I don’t want an atta-boy, I just want you to not consistently make me feel terrible.
I’ve started to view health advice as a choose-your-own-adventure book where every path leads to death, just with different fonts. Drink more water! (But not from plastic bottles.) Get 10k steps! (But not on pavement, which is bad for your joints.) Sleep eight hours! (But only during certified circadian windows, you heathen.) It’s exhausting. I half-expect my dentist to confiscate my toothpaste someday because I smiled “too aggressively” at a cookie.
So here’s my proposal: Let’s rank vices on a “harm-to-joy” ratio. Coke Zero vs. existential dread? That’s going to be about a 1.5. A Diet Dew a day keeps the despair at bay. Eating the bloomin’ onion at Outback Steakhouse? Probably closer to a 5. And snorting cocaine off a stripper’s leg? Yeah, let’s call that a 9. The math checks out.
In conclusion, I’ll keep my zero-calorie crutch, thank you. When the dementia hits, at least I’ll forget the judgmental looks from my spine adjuster. And who knows? Maybe by then, science will have decided aspartame cures erectile dysfunction, or regrows hair, or cures gout or something. The rules’ll change again by Tuesday.
(Get more advice from Kamler on X, where he pontificates as @chriskamler)
