The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off-key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no, they can’t take that away from me
    ~ by the Gershwin brothers

In addition to being a full-on raw foodist, I also love to exercise. There hasn’t been free time to pursue much in the way of running/jogging these days but, at a minimum, I always make sure to do at least 100 pushups every night – in addition to some juggling and, usually, some hula hooping (well, except for weekends). I only track the pushups, though; in the past 24 weeks, I’ve knocked out 11,800 of them! And, guess what… I feel pretty good!

One of the things I’ve learned from this commitment is that, no matter how much I do not feel like doing the pushups (and, trust me, there are times when pushups are the last thing I want to do), I always feel better after I’ve finished them (and it really only takes a few minutes).

As I was doing them tonight, a pleasant thought crossed my mind. You see, I’d had an awful day at work on Thursday, one of the worst in years. My mind was preoccupied with highly acidic thoughts: Why are my bosses being such jerks? Why don’t they appreciate all I’ve done for them? What if they fire me? Things like that.

And then, as I concluded my set of 100 pushups, I suddenly became hyper-aware of how physically good I felt after doing the pushups. And, just to tie this story in with raw, that feeling is not a product of exercise alone; rather, it’s the combination of raw foods nutrition and exercise. I mean, when you take your health to this level, it’s kind of an amazing feeling.

It’s like, no matter how awful other things sometimes go in your life, at your core, you’re still almost giddily energetic, effervescent, and healthy feeling. This is very weird, but also kind of magical because being healthy is like having a built-in reminder of what’s important in life.

So, that pleasant thought I mentioned was this: Who cares if I get fired? Of all of the things others have power to take away from me, no one can take away my health. Yep, I just sat there and started humming that old Gershwin tune (which, granted, isn’t about health, but the general vibe of the chorus seemed fitting): “No, no, you can’t take that away from me!”

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