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Your body is a business in which you hold 100% equity. Your head calls the shots. It has seven holes in it. Two for light. Two for sound. Two for scent. But your seventh hole—your mouth— that’s the loading dock. Did you back up the dumpster last night?

I’m at Ruth’s Chris. “Would you like to share the wedge?”

As a recovering mindless eater, the wedge was my go-to. I loved the wedge. What’s not to love? A perfectly cut half head of iceberg lettuce presented to me on the plate, the leaves shining with freshness, making me feel instantly healthy, virtuous and justified to indulge myself in the sludge of blue cheese and bacon bits.

• Brain says: “Healthy!”

• Taste buds say: “Tasty!”

• Results? Everybody leaves a winner!

Today, the wedge creates wedges.

“Since we have four of you ladies, I’ll bring two wedges on four plates,” the server says, assuming the sale.

No longer a mindless amateur, I politely but mindfully say, “Split it three ways.”

Little bit awkward in here. It had to be done. But, why?

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It’s November 9, 2022. I nearly lost my beloved, longtime business partner for good. Happily, it turns out God had other plans for Shady (and for me). Shady explains the situation this way:

“One minute I’m choking down my free fried chicken sandwich on National Fried Chicken Sandwich Day. Next I’m flatlining naked on a gurney shitting myself for the same ER audience I’m going to see Tuesday at Trader Joe’s!”

Shady claims God sent him back on a mission to “deliver his disciples from the evils of salt, sugar and saturated fat.”

I’ve never said this before in public. I believe Shady.

I have an MBA in finance. We know our bodies are binary. We are just a bunch of ones and zeroes. Why can’t food be binary? Let’s say you receive one life point for a carrot. Now let’s say you get three death points for carrot cake. Your score is minus two. This is how Shady chooses to live his second life. (Click here to see Shady’s Piehole Score)

Shady didn’t die because he was stupid. He died because he was a mindless, gluttonous amateur. But, I’m not judging. To the contrary, I conducted a thorough forensic audit on what I put in my mouth.

I am shocked! I hope you are sitting down or even laying down, just not on a gurney.

Get this — my wonderful wedge salad has been secretly adding death to my bloodstream and it looks like this.

Everything lines up in the photo. The wedge is narrowing the lining of my arteries. The wedge is literally creating a wedge.

Shady had a 100% blockage when he had his widow maker heart attack. They bring Shady’s future widow in to say goodbye. So much equipment. A dozen medical professionals locked in on her husband of 45 years. Julie kisses Shady gently on the cheek, whispering, “This is going to be like a $10,000 copay.”

Julie denies it. Shady is emphatic. This time, I believe Julie. If you can’t trust a lawyer, who can you trust?

Your body is amazing the abuse it will tolerate. Shady had two stents put in the main artery to his heart. Don’t know about you but when I hear main artery I think 405 and Storrow Drive and Jersey Turnpike. I don’t think pasta.

Turns out, the main artery is the diameter of spaghetti. The rest are smaller than that.

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Today Shady is 100% healthy. He lost 40 pounds, going from extra large to medium, and, as previously noted, his intake is a matter of public record. All of that and he is the rare patient who has been deprescribed (but for a daily baby aspirin to ensure the blood keeps flowing through his stents.

Inspired by Shady, I want my arteries to look like the graphic on the right. Is it too late?

It is not too late. It is also not too easy. But, now that I am mindful, I can play psychological tricks on myself.

• Method No. 1

  • Every time I am attacked by a craving for junk food, I dial back the pictures in my mind right away, what am I doing to my blood stream? Adding death to it or keep it clean? The picture literally stops me in my tracks. Junk food magically loses its allure.

• Method No. 2

  • Everybody dies. A few of us, like Shady, die more than once. I ask myself: “Self—how do you want to die?

    • A miserable slow death from years of self-inflicting junk food to my blood stream?

    • Or a fast death from old age still vibrant to the day before?

  • Do I want to put my family through the misery of taking care of me and seeing me deteriorate in the end?

  • How do I want the quality of my life to be when I reach 70 years old, sitting on a wheel chair aching with pain all over my body or still active in what I love to do?

• Method No. 3

  • The Shiny & Shady System.

    • The reason Shady and I became partners is that we are both system designers. Shady’s system got rid of my cravings, including wedge salad. I no longer drink my caramel macchiato, which I came to learn was like a Big Mac in a mug. I no longer eat Pepperidge Farm buttery shortbread cookies.

I am cynical now. I ask questions like, “Where exactly is this cookie farm?!” I’ve heard of pick you own berries, pick your own pumpkins or apples or nose. Never heard pick your own cookies! Not even once!

Now that I’ve given up all eating — just kidding — now that I am a mindful pro, my head is clear, no more mid-afternoon food comas. Headaches are gone.

Meanwhile, back at Ruth’s Chris, the cognitive dissonance settles and our server politely gives us a minute. I explain the legend of Shady O’Leery, together with my personal transformation from mindless amateur to mindful pro.

The upshot is that instead of half a wedge, we started with four garden salads on four plates with balsamic on the side. The best news is that one of my friends recently joined our cadre of Piehole Pro beta testers.

The moral of the story is you can have a wedge but still have a whole!

Audit your intake!!!

And, whatever you do, for the love of God, always remember Shady’s fateful words, “That’s not Jack in the box. It’s you in the box!”

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