Sometimes you just realize how much of a bubble you've ended up in. When you're in the health/diet/fitness world sometimes you are liable to forget that there are plenty of people who do nothing particularly special with their diet or exercise who are extremely attractive. When I moved from writing about food in light of diet to more general restaurant writing I was exposed to more of these people. Because a lot of them work in front of the house positions as servers or bartenders. I met people who have lifestyles and diets that would horrify most personal trainers and diet gurus.

Yesterday marked the first day in Chicago of cold autumn rain. And certainly not the last. Being an avid walker in all types of weather, that means I have to have footwear that can handle 

wet weather -- any kind of wet weather from hot rain to snow. Of course you can get rainboots anywhere, but traditional rainboots have some serious issues. 

A chronic and frustrating, but not deadly, disease like IBS is a perfect one for experimentation. However, I’d never considered alcohol as anything but a trigger. And that wasn’t really borne out of experiences, but a cultural bias against it. It was just unhealthy, right?

Increasingly I see a lot of articles deriding the “gluten free” fad. I wonder if people writing them have actually talked to people who are gluten-free despite not being diagnosed with celiac disease. I’ve talked to many of them. And almost always, behind their gluten-free diet is a story of the failure of our medical system.