There’s a fat man in my bed.

He spooned my wife last night, walked my dog this morning and now he’s wearing my underwear.

The first time I lost a large amount of weight was in 10th grade. I had been overweight since 5th grade and had endured the typical jabs, pokes and shame associated with being too big for one’s britches. I hated my body.

Yet by the time I was a high school sophomore, I had found my niche. I was a clown. I could make fun of myself and get the laugh, somehow squeezing myself into a state of external acceptance. John Belushi did it as the Samurai. John Candy did it in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Budhha looks pretty big in all those statues and always seems to be smiling. Is he laughing with us? Could he really be so enlightened as to think it is ok to be that big or was it that nervous giggle that I have known so well in my life?

Those first few races were straight comedy, too. Runners would be lining up for the 800 meter and have to step aside to let me through as I finally completed the previous 400 meter race. I pretended to be lighthearted and comedic as I made my way around the rubber streusel topping on that endless donut of a track. I’d sing songs, recite movie lines or just hyperventilate quietly to myself. I can do this.

I was there, forcing myself to be there, wherever there was. In the four months of the track season, I had “lost” all sorts of weight. I looked better, felt better and seemed better. It stuck for a while. Yes, I gained some weight back in college with all that drinking and the all-you-can-eat motif of college living. However, it wasn’t until I was in one of those long-term, committed relationships that the weight seemed to creep back in.

Living with a partner for the first time put me over the edge. I had to finish the pint of ice cream or they would. There was just enough of the leftovers for one person. Better finish it now. Or else…What was I worried about, really?!? Being without? Scarcity? Competition?

That was nothing compared to the amount of weight I gained after I became an entrepreneur and started my own company. Couple that with a few stressful relationships and poof! I was living large. Until I changed that.

It was supersized to downsized, up and down, over and over again. For years, I have been up between 30 and 50 pounds and then back down again to a nice cruising altitude. So here I am, once again, cruising at my “optimal” weight. And yet, there is still a fat man that looks into the mirror each morning. The consciousness of feeling self-conscious is hard to shake, especially one that has been present since I was 10 years old.

So, what does one do when my perception of SELF is inherently flawed? My ability to accurately see “me” as a body is deeply compromised by decades of shame, internal and external judgment, and the reality of boxes of clothes in my attic labeled “FAT BOX” or “SKINNY BOX.” How can I really see my self if my ability to see is so heavily influenced by my history? What kind of vision can I have if my lenses are so heavily scratched and carved through by years of obesity induced negative self-talk and self-loathing?

Like canyons of rock that are slowly but surely chiseled by years of relentless drops of thought, I am struck by the power and the beauty of persistent thinking. I am left to consider what years of loving, optimistic, nurturing and gentle self-talk looks like in contrast with the Grand Canyon of Shame. A flowering, lush garden, perhaps? A powerful, immense mountain range? Wild Jungles? Vast oceans?

Or maybe just me, the only me that ever lived, sitting at a greasy burger joint with a massive plate of food in front of me and a huge, French Fry induced grin on my face.

I was turned on to vegetarianism in college at my co-ed, co-operative living situation. There were 30 of us living at the “Peace House” and we took turns cooking communal meals each night, all veg. I liked the idea of communal living and with tensions brewing in Iraq (it was 1990) the thought of a group of students aligned around creating more love in the world was very appealing.

I grew up eating meat (chicken, beef, bacon, fish)  just about every day of the week and was super attached to it! The idea of a vegetarian diet was more romanticized than an easy switch. I found myself eating big, whole foods dinners at the co-op and while I no longer felt hungry, I still craved roasted flesh. I was programmed (like so many of us) to believe that a meal was not complete, couldn’t be satisfying, without some type of animal protein.  It was more than a little embarrassing but I sometimes found myself drive to Burger King after house meals to grab a cheeseburger. Yet, the “seed” was planted and I was already more open to non-carnivorous alternatives.

However, I still resisted the “full monty” until I went to the Middle East for a year after college. I was walking down a cobblestone street in the Old City of Jerusalem when a religious man in white stopped me and gently touched my arm. He peered deep into my eyes with his bright, blue Paul Newman’s and slowly shook his head with great concern.

“Brother, you’ve got to stop the dairy. You’re killing yourself!” And here I had figured my big problem was simply cutting out meat. Thus was my introduction into self-directed Macrobiotics. I started to run with the dangerous crowd of macrobiotic, Orthodox Jews. Who knew there was an even tinier sub-group of the sub-group?!? I found there were hundreds of  observant folks in Jerusalem who took their religious adherence to include a healthy, sustainable diet that is in sync with the rhythms of nature.

That year I learned a great deal about how my relationship to food is deeply connected to my emotional life, my socio-political world and even the metaphysical. When I returned to the States, I brought with me a new sense of my connection to food and an affinity for Tamari roasted pumpkin seeds.

Lots of friends and family did not (and many still don’t) understand the point of removing animal products from my diet. There were times when I argued and fought about it, provided supporting materials and links, and yet in the end, I find the most peaceful approach is simply smiling.

One of the things I have learned in my life is that whenever I feel the need to convince someone else about something, I am already on shaky ground within my own being. Whether it is politics, social justice, faith or even food, if I need to convince you that I’m right, I’m wrong. If someone is interested in what I feel or what I believe, they can ask for more information.

So, I smile at the comments, breathe deeply and continue to enjoy my seitan. As the savvy vegetarian suggests, I’m counting on the hundredth monkey effect in the hope that more and more people will just consider removing meat from their diet one day a week!

Macrobiotic actually means “big life” and it seemed consistent with my intention for the type of existence I wanted. Since my time in Jerusalem, now more than two decades, I have delved deeply both into Macrobiotic living as well as the  McDonald’s Life. I have been lean and fit for some time, as well as soft and obese. Periodically,  I am able to maintain a macrobiotic diet for one or two years, amassing an array of jars filled with seeds, seaweed, dried shitakes, and grains. In fact, I have never felt more alive, more energetic and more healthy than those periods on a primarily macrobiotic diet and lifestyle. I love the rigidty of it! I love knowing that there is a very limited array of foods I can eat. Like Temple Grandin and her cattle chute, I feel contained by it…

The problem has been that it can be so restrictive and extreme that I find myself eventually resenting it and craving chocolate cake, pizza ( I mean, a whole pizza) or even barbecued chicken. Yet, as it is once again a new year, I broke out the brown rice and seaweed in the hope that this is my year. Back to basics. Right?

A great resource for the macrobiotic  lifestyle is anything by Michio Kushi and Jessica Porter’s Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics.

Being a vegetarian isn’t considered as far “out there” as it used to be: according to a 2008 study from Vegetarian Times, 3.2 percent of Americans are vegetarian, .5 percent are vegan, and 10 percent say they follow a largely vegetarian-inclined diet. Whether you are interested in eating less meat and animal products (or cutting them out altogether) for ethical, health or environmental reasons, here are the basics of vegetarianism:
1. Vegetarian: This term basically describes a person who does not eat poultry, meat, seafood or fish.
2. Pescatarian/ Semi-Vegetarian: A person who eats dairy products, poultry (including eggs) and fish, but does not eat any other animal flesh or products.
3. Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarian: Someone who eats eggs and milk, but doesn’t eat any other animal products.
4. Ovo-Vegetarian: A person who eats eggs but no other animal products or flesh.
5. Lacto-Vegetarian: Someone who eats milk but no other animal products or flesh.
6. Vegan: Vegans do not knowingly eat or wear any animal flesh, products or by-products. Some vegans also don’t consume yeast or honey, and often opt not to wear clothing and accessories made from animals, although a recent piece I stumbled on suggests (rightfully) that it isn’t really feasible to be a vegan anymore in this day and age…I have been vegan for several years of my life and it is in many ways more challenging for me than being macrobiotic. Vegans don’t have an easy time eating out and I LOVE eating out.

If you are considering a change in your diet that excludes or limits animal products, be sure to take appropriate supplements that can supply essential vitamins, minerals and fats that are typically provided by animal-based sources.

Want to Eat Less Meat? I’m sure you’ve all seen the photos that Manhattan artist Sally Davies captured of the same McDonald’s Happy Meal photographed each day for 6 months without any visible change.

Whether you want to minimize your consumption of animal products or eliminate it altogether, there are hundreds of alternatives to fast food and even over-produced, genetically modified slow food. In their place? Completely satisfying alternatives, from beans and legumes to whole foods.

I’d be a big (fat) liar if I said that I eat a perfectly healthy diet every day and that I haven’t enjoyed any meat from time to time. In fact, it has been a tremendous challenge for me in the past two decades as I have learned so much about the food I eat and still make unhealthy decisions sometimes. I have to be one of the most well-informed overweight people in the world. However, the dialogue is in place and I tend not to stray for too long if I find myself on a bender.

For now, even choosing healthier alternatives a couple days a week not only makes me feel better, it is better for the planet.

I set out early this morning to walk the dogs and found the air crisp and cool, the sky clean and bright. The moist leaves sat clumped on the grass and naked in the street; they smelled like a bowl of soggy corn flakes that had been forgotten, abandoned for a cartoon or a pop tart. The smell, the cold, the clear light of the moment, all compiled, created a texture of memory that forced me out of the present moment, somewhere else.

Stanislov Grof, in his book The Holotropic Mind, discussed the concept of what I call memory clusters. Like an accordion of moments, events in our lives are grouped together at a particular point with similar frequencies, emotional levels and essentially, experiential textures.

For example, I lived in Santa Fe, NM for 9 years and the smell of roasting chili peppers along the road wherever I went during the months of Sept/Oct is indelibly inscribed in my consciousness. I also, however, associate the smell with intensity, prosperity, and sensuality due to a number of events that “seemed” to occur in autumn while I lived there, specifically some new relationships, work successes and the purchase of real estate.As a teen, I ran cross-country each fall and have numerous memories of padding half naked through wet leaves, through the crisp morning air, up and down the hills of Bear Mountain State Park. I felt free, alive, and determined.

This morning’s combination of leaves, smells and crisp fall air brought me right back to the autumn of 1987, a month before my 17th birthday. I managed my way up to Williamstown, MA for a long week-end where I hung out and interviewed at my number one college choice, Williams College. At the time, it was considered the hardest liberal arts school to get into and I planned to apply Early Decision. I wanted to go there so badly I could taste it. My week-end of beer, girls and rugby made it even more clear. In fact, in the middle of a crashed dorm room party that my rugby host smuggled me into, one of the students raised his plastic cup of beer and definitively announced: “Man, you’ve GOT to come here. You’re awesome.”

Can you believe the ego inflation I experienced as I threw on my new, thick, sweatshirt and headed home to NY, a giant purple “W” caressing/protecting/blocking my heart? At the top of my game, the apex of my world, I rolled down the windows of my old blue Nissan and let the cold, matted air redden my cheeks as I worked off the hangover, speeding down the Taconic Parkway so fast it made the windshield vibrate…

Several months later I received a “wait list” letter and while I was rattled by the delay of my destiny ride back to Williamstown, I had every expectation of being fully accepted in the spring.

Spring arrived, and with it, the stack of college envelopes. “As you might have heard, this has been a record setting year here for Williams College. We regret to inform you…”

It was the first major disappointment from the outside world I experienced, but it felt like the end of the world at the time. I had pictured my life as an adult beginning with a Williams College experience. I had not planned an alternative vision from which to weave my life story. I felt more than defeated, I felt wrong. As if there was a glitch in the Matrix and somehow the world just didn’t work the same anymore.

There is a different memory cluster associated with the demolition of my 17 year old’s expectation that I’d go to Williams. Thank God, really. There is something so profoundly perfect and beautiful and eternally hopeful about the Autumn Leaves Cluster. It is the moment when life feels right; when people think I’m wonderful and the timing of things work. It is the moment of transcendent hope that I am able to access when I need inner strength and support in order to accomplish or succeed. And like an accordion, I rely on the power and intention of dozens of similar events, feelings and experiences.

So, while I never made it back to Williams College, I found my way into many other streams of thought and consciousness. I constructed even more interesting, provocative, transcendent scenarios to play out in my 40 years… Some of which are still in motion. What do you think/smell/feel/remember/imagine right now?

When I was a senior in high school, almost a quarter century ago, my father and I visited some of the best east coast universities this country has to offer as I narrowed down my pool of targets. As my dad surveyed the ivy buildings, manicured lawns and glossy marketing materials, I read the social vibe of each school, studied frat boys’ party week-end T-shirts, noted which student unions hosted fast food chains, and having just recently been deflowered, compiled a list of which schools had the prettiest girls.

I was almost seventeen and while I found the requisite student volunteer led campus tour to be a necessary part of the decision making process, my father saw these tours as real data collection opportunities. “How many first year students receive financial aid?” “What’s the percentage of matriculating students who are in-state applicants?” “How many professors have tenure?” All perfectly intelligent things to ask for a man about to pay for a private college education for his first born son.

Yet, it was always the same question he posed on every tour that made me feel uneasy, even a bit embarrassed. “How many books are in the library?” he would ask with all seriousness.

This school had a million; this one half a mil but boasted a huge archive. Another focused more on their inter-library network that allowed for a “staggering” five million books at my beck and call. I cringed each time because never in a million years could I imagine needing a million books. It had been only a year before when the two of us visited used car lots to find the right ‘first clunker’ and my dad was visibly irritated as he checked under the hood, studied gas mileage claims and accident reports while I sat in the driver seat testing the sub-woofers.

I wanted four wheels because I wanted freedom and a place to listen to really loud music. I wanted to go to college because I wanted freedom and a place to listen to really loud music while kissing girls.

This was before the age of the Internet that so many of us take for granted today. I remember the university bookstore salesman pitching the $3300 Apple Macintosh SE personal computer to my parents as the only way the modern student can keep up with the challenges of campus life. “There’s even an ivy league school up north where they require each incoming student to have a computer and they all digitally transfer their term papers to professors!” That first computer was an expensive word processor and fancy game console; my first Mac had 94% less capability than my IPhone 3GS.

Things change quickly. Within a few months at college I realized I wasn’t the fraternity type, didn’t want to be an investment banker and I actually cared about things besides girls and music.

Last month I attended a presentation given by the Vice President of Google on the future of the Internet. Aside from her astounding extrapolations she discussed one of the most crucial issues facing civilization today. Who owns the Internet? The question of who owns information, whether data can be proprietary, and whether the wealthy of the world can pay for faster, more complete information is something that has been troubling me for some time.

My father understood something about information that I am only just beginning to comprehend. In the past, the number of books in a library meant something because it was somehow connected to class, privilege, and on some level, knowledge.

Since the proliferation of the Internet, however, everyone has had access to books, magazines, photos, films, and just about everything really. Kids at a dusty desktop in Botswana have gobbled up the same level of access as kids in suburban Copenhagen. Relatively free, relatively accessible, relatively connected. The number of books in that Botswana library didn’t matter nearly as much as it did only a decade before.

What we did with that information, all of us, around the world, was fair game. In fact, each one of us had the raw material, INFORMATION, to convert into knowledge, POWER.

The fact that our little planet has been speeding so quickly into the future has had much to do with this democratization of information. The fact that universities care more about their mainframes today than their library circulations has leveled the playing field considerably, and we have all gained as a result.

The notion that access to high speed Internet is a luxury rather than a human right is the type of thinking that steered Europe into the Dark Ages a millenium ago. The belief that some people are more entitled to information than others is a dangerous slope that we must be sensitive to today, not tomorrow or somewhere down the road.

The day the Bible was mass produced was the beginning of the end to the “type” of control organized religion had over the masses. Limiting freedom of information and in turn, the doorway to knowledge, is a manipulation of technology that must be quickly exposed for what it is. Freedom means a lot more to me today than it did when I got my first set of wheels.