The great thing about the SAD (Standard American Diet) is that most any not-totally-insane restrictive diet will be significantly better. It hardly even matters which you choose, it will be better. When you start with terrible, even "bad" is an improvement!
A major eye opener for me after the last couple of years has been how crazy our diets really tend to be and how easy it is to just stop it. Like, I used to battle internally about if I ate well enough that day to eat [insert garbage here]. Like that's ever a conversation worth having with yourself, or it would ever make sense to want the garbage in the first place. But I figured I was eating whole foods (usually, I guess, maybe?), eating meat from "good" and "ethical" sources, eating what I thought was a lot of vegetables.
And yet the science shows that people who eat like I did are dying earlier than they need to and suffering from diseases people didn't typically get up until recently. And I found myself gradually gaining weight despite not noticing a change in my caloric intake.
I'm not sure exactly what caused me to snap out of it (there were several factors), but in any case, I'm glad I did. And you're right – eating well is trivial if you're starting anywhere near the SAD. With a bit of motivation you can level up tremendously with minimal effort.
If I could support my family as well in trades I might have considered staying — I loved working the giant industrial CNC machine and began to love learning to set it up and create CAD drawings for it. I probably would have enjoyed a career headed in that direction, but I could have ended up earning around 1/3 of what I do now… At best.
Your comment reminded me of going with my dad to a place that had a huge laser-cutting machine when I was young. They were awesome!
Something that blew my mind recently is that I left joinery with a job earning about 65k CAD per year (around 2008). I recently met a guy getting his red seal and he earns about 62k CAD. He hopes to hit 80k within a few years of getting his seal by making lateral moves and bargaining better, but isn't certain it's even possible. This is insane to me. Not only has the value of his work decreased, but even with better credentials than I had he's earning less. This is the completely wrong direction for things to go!
I was also shocked to find that he spends about 36% of his pre-tax income on rent, and when I was earning 65k I was spending about 8% of my pre-tax income on rent. I lived an hour away and shared rent with a room mate in a small house, whereas he lives alone in a small apartment in our expensive city. But wow. What a striking difference; it almost seems impossible to get ahead despite that he's educated, competent, and working hard at improving himself. I feel like that needs to change or we won't see kids move into the trades and, you know, hold up our society here!
Also I totally agree about giant laser cutters. I can't get enough of CNC machines of all sorts. I really, really want to build one some day.
And we actually pay tech workers well.
World is a savage place and everyone will try to keep you down. There are lucky few that are surrounded by a support group that cares and safety nets at every corner.
But the one person from a poor household, who never went far in life. No matter how bright, will have noone to put them back upright again. Its pure evil and very unamerican and anti-meritocratic. Its also a thing, thats very common in european societys with rigid class structures, like Britain.
They sort you in, just for your dialect and your place of birth. And look what it got them..
> Cause academic families will not fear such a slap
It's also that, to an academic family, a high school counselor won't even register as a "person of authority". It's a pretty low skill position, and they will likely assume they have more knowledge than the counselor regarding college (which wouldn't be a bad assumption).
> Its also a thing, thats very common in european societys with rigid class structures, like Britain.
It's something that has been echoed to my by brits here in the Valley. They described coming to America as freeing, which confused me at first because I know the BBC and British medias generally aren't so positive on America. Guess the brain flow doesn't lie.
I left the room very confused and upset. Went in with ambition and excitement about my future and left feeling like I must be a complete idiot.
I remember her saying “Let’s focus on being realistic. You aren’t actually going to do this. You won’t accomplish any of this”.
Like you I was diagnosed with ADD, though long after this. I was inattentive, but succeeding wildly in technology classes and even went to some programming and animation “competitions” which I managed to win. She still told me to set my sights low and aim for trades or something.
For what it’s worth I managed to trick everyone else into letting me become a programmer and I did well despite the advice. It still haunts me to think that kids are getting slapped in the self esteem with advice from people like that; people who are supposed to give them objective, constructive, actionable advice in order to begin setting up their academic and professional futures.
I’d add though that unlike you, my diet more or less went the opposite direction and I feel much better too. I went completely plant-based with an emphasis on whole foods and as far as I can tell my entire body works better. I’m not saying you’re wrong because I absolutely believe you and agree that we were probably just extremely unhealthy before. Maybe any healthier diet would have sufficed. But yeah, this thing seems extremely variable from person to person. Plant based with heaps of carbs might annihilate your brain, but a bowl of barley with steamed tofu, broccoli, carrots, and peanut sauce is like heavenly brain food for me.
Exercise was the other missing link. The more I exercise the better I feel. I’m like a dog that needs to be taken or runs and swims. When my owner forgets I turn into a needy, whining, anxious, lethargic little beast of a human.