Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

circadian rhythm). She asked me if I knew whether Paul McCartney’s new wife was vegetarian. (I didn’t.) She signed the e-mails all the same way, “Your eccentric aunt Marti.”

One day in late October she wrote me that she had made a decision: No second round of chemo. She never wrote, “I have chosen to die,” but that’s what I read. I showed the e-mail to Julie, who read it holding my hand tight, her chin crinkling.

I hated Marti’s decision, but understood it. Even if the second round of chemo succeeded, there was still only a 10 percent chance she’d survive five more years.

She said she would give alternative therapies a try. And man, did Marti know from alternative therapies. She moved to Connecticut (nearer a holistic doctor) and juiced and supplemented with abandon. She bought a machine that gave her mild electric (and allegedly cancer-fighting) shocks. A friend of hers from California gave her “healing didgeridoo therapy,” where the vibrations of the ancient aboriginal instrument played over Marti’s body were supposed to help drive out the bad cells.

To my surprise, her alternative therapy seemed to be working. Her white blood cell count dropped steeply. She was feeling stronger than ever, full of optimism and plans for future books about animal rights.

I was all set to visit her on a Thursday in November, but cancelled at the last minute because I had a cold and didn’t want to infect her. She e-mailed me to try oregano and garlic. “Enemas would probably knock the cold out right away, but I suspect that you don’t want to go there.” She suspected right.

The next day my father called again. Marti had fallen in the bathroom and hit her head. Within hours, she had died at the age of sixty-three.

We took her ashes to the cemetery and buried them next to my grandfather’s still-unmarked grave. There was some concern that Marti would want to be out in nature, not under a toxin-filled cemetery lawn, so half of the ashes were spread near her sister’s house in Vermont.

Over vegan tomato salad, my family told stories about Marti. About how she was the most compassionate person we knew, a lover of animals who made us say “soy cheese” when we took family photos until she decided the soy industry was corrupt, a woman so concerned with suffering she wouldn’t keep houseplants because she felt guilty about constraining the roots in a flower pot.

It’s only been two weeks since she died, and I wish I could say I have gained profound wisdom from this absurdist plot turn.

We don’t even know the basics, such as what caused the leukemia. It could have been inherited. Could have been environmental. Marti thought the latter—she believed that despite her toxin alertness, some poisons had seeped into her bone marrow.

For the first week, I spent most of my time thinking about the cynical but compelling Jim Fixx argument. No matter what you do, no matter how often you exercise, or eat organic cauliflower, or wear helmets, you still could die tomorrow. Or today. Or right after you read this sentence. So why bother?

But in the past few days, I’ve forced myself instead to embrace Marti’s optimism, even if it was delusional at times, especially at the end. This was a woman who was so optimistic she believed that we could change the world, stay healthy, and be kind to all animals (including humans, who she liked to remind me are animals, too). In the name of Marti’s optimism, I’ll keep eating my plant-heavy diet and continue walking on my treadmill desk, though probably I’ll pass on didgeridoo therapy and coffee enemas.

Marti was one of my favorite people in the world, and I spill some raw almond milk in her honor.

Appendix A

Guerrilla Exercise

How to turn the world into your gym

Six Tips for Normal People

1. Resist the siren song of the People Mover at airports.

2. Squat down to the level of kids when you talk to them.

3. Park in the farthest corner of the parking lot.

4. Embrace stairs, avoid elevators.

5. Fidget. Or, as scientists call it, engage in Incidental Physical Activity. Even tapping your leg can help cardiovascular fitness.

6. If you are walking in New York, cross the street by walking through the subway station, forcing you to go down and up the stairs (bonus: no waiting for red lights).

Seven Tips for the Obsessed

1. Run errands. As in run them. If you’re running to any work appointments, I recommend keeping a stick of deodorant and a new shirt in your bag.

2. Have meetings like you’re a character in The West Wing, walking and talking quickly through the office corridors.

3. Have lunch while squatting.

4. Adjust the TV by actually getting up and pressing buttons on the console.

5. Wear a weight vest all day (be prepared for suicide-bomber jokes).

6. Push the stroller and/or grocery shopping cart with the brakes on.

7. Use your children as barbells.

Appendix B

How to Eat Less

The art and science of portion control

Four Tips for Regular People

1. Get small plates. I use my sons’ Nemo and dinosaur plates.

2. Practice Chewdaism. Hard-core chewers recommend as many as fifty chews per mouthful. I strive for fifteen or twenty.

3. Turn off the TV. Studies show that we eat up to 71 percent more when we’re watching TV.

4. Put the fork down in between bites

Six Tips for the Obsessed

1. Bring your own tiny fork wherever you go. Or better yet, chopsticks.

2. Repackage your pantry food (e.g., cookies, dried fruit, candy) into small Ziploc bags, so a portion is barely larger than the dime bags that pot dealers used back in the innocent eighties.

3. Write a hundred-dollar check to the KKK. Or any other equally noxious group. Then make a deal with yourself or your friend: If you eat another Ho Ho, you will have to send that check off.

4. Look at yourself. Research shows we eat less when we eat in front of a mirror.

5. Respect your elder. Digitally age a photo of