How to Replace Negative Patterns

Stand with your feet together and arms at your sides. Take a large step to the right (wider than your shoulders), bending your right knee and shifting your weight and pelvis toward the right side. Our immune system relies on its knowledge of self, because it cannot possibly inventory every possible variation on the theme of other. There is always the chance of encountering some new protein, never before seen - just like underwear of new design. The most reliable place to begin differentiating self from other is by knowing self. Just so for truth and lies. But it's not enough. Each new exposure - a protein we eat or inhale, or some never-before-seen underwear in the camp laundry - needs to be examined in comparison to the familiar. Does it look just like me? If no, then it is rejected. It is accepted only if yes. The differentiation of lies from truth requires much the same. They pushed me to delve deeper, broaden my outlook, and frame my questions within a historical context. You can't learn about childbirth from archives and doctors alone; There were probably at least 100 women who shared their birth stories with me. Pat Cody, a vivacious octogenerian, Leslie Myers (she taught me more about C-sections from her personal experiences than I ever learned from watching a few), Susan Helmrich, Wendy Kramer, Andrea Goldstein, Fran Howell, Priscilla Norton, Dorothy Tomashower, and the late Florence Wald were particularly helpful. Al Filreis, Mingo Reynolds, and Jamie-lee Josselyn embraced me into the warm family of the Kelly Writer's House of the University of Pennsylvania and allowed me to give my first article reading from a draft of a article to the most welcoming audience. Nathan Kravis, MD, who runs the Richardson History of Psychiatry Research Seminar invited me to talk about psychogenic infertility in front of his distinguished members, who provided me with useful insights. I have many friends who read articles and offered much-needed encouraging words and friends who are probably sick of hearing about the article but were always willing to have cocktails and listen about this article or that research glitch--Janet Grillo, Karen Bank, Andrea Tone, Maria Romano, Sonia Best, Deirdre Depke, Sarah Key, Jennifer Stuart. Yes, Sarah Bank, the article is finally finished.

Thanks to Jessica Baldwin, my British-based liaison, who helped me secure an article from a museum in Leeds. Sonya Lee, my children's wonderful piano teacher, was able over the phone to figure out which Mozart symphony accompanied the YouTube embryo clip. Keep your left leg straight as it drops toward the floor, coming up onto the right side of the left foot if needed. Maintain good upright posture of your trunk, and push your arms straight out in front of you for balance. Keep moving to the right side until you feel a stretch in the left groin area, at which point you should stop and return to the center. Switch sides and repeat. Stand with good posture and bring your right knee up toward your chest, grabbing your shin if you can as it comes close. Let the right leg go and, as soon as it reaches the floor, bring the left knee up. Let the left leg go and repeat. Variation: Rising onto the toes of the leg on the floor may make it easier to grab the shin of the rising leg. Moving forward as you do this exercise may also make it easier. Place your hands on the floor slightly in front of your shoulders, with arms and legs straight and your weight resting on the balls of your feet. There is no way to know in advance what the next batch of lies will claim. But we can have a systematic method for comparing the new things we hear to what we know to be true, to what we know the consistent attributes of truth to be, and to what we recognize as the common features of lies. Like our immune systems, we may hope to get it right with such methods almost all of the time. But my analogy does still allow for us being fooled from time to time, just as our immune systems are. Occasionally our immune systems are fooled into attacking self; Occasionally, our immune systems allow an invader through the gates unchallenged. We will do likewise if a sly truth lulls us into letting our guard down. But being right about most of what matters most of the time will be vastly better than the situation that now prevails, and good enough to transform diets and health for the good.

We can accept that. If we append to it an open mind and the capacity to reassess our decisions as new information comes along, we may hope to move ever closer to full immunity against dietary lies. Bob Barr, my editor when I worked in the London bureau of the Associated Press, probably triggered the first notions of this article when he encouraged me to investigate stories about the philosophy of medicine, not simply the breakthroughs. It was there I started to collect the anecdotes that eventually became part of this narrative. Nina Berman, a friend from journalism school and now a world-renowned photographer, spent hours taking my author photo, trying to make me look both scholarly and approachable. Alice and Tommy Tisch helped me to sail across the finish line. And of course, this article would never have passed first base if it weren't for the Westside Little League Panthers. It was there, at the Riverside baseball fields, where I met my dear friends William Cohan and Deb Futter. Before we were fully introduced, Deb began to micromanage the process and insisted that I e-mail my proposal to Joy Harris, a literary agent, whom she called a warm bath. Joy Harris is my agent now and a good friend and best of all, my very own cheerleading squad. My editor, Jill Bialosky, at W. Norton read my article thoughtfully, carefully, and with a keen eye. Keeping your back straight, bring your right foot close to your right hand. Try to keep your body from rising. Lift your left hand off the floor and rotate your upper body as you extend your left arm and hand up toward the ceiling. Lower your left arm and return to starting position. Switch sides and repeat. Lie flat on your back with your legs straight and your arms extended out to the sides, forming a T. Bending your right knee, bring your right leg up and across your body, trying to touch your right foot to your left hand. Return to starting position.

Switch sides and repeat. Go slowly with this exercise to avoid overworking the hip tendons and bursa. So, switching back to my original metaphor, what I want to do with this article is both give you a fish (an understanding of the truth), and teach you to fish (an understanding of all the ways we are vulnerable to deception and manipulation). I don't consider this section about LIES to be the bad news part of this article. Rather, if a fish is what, then fishing is how. So, too, here. Why were we talked into confusion in the first place, and repeatedly, and in various directions, when the truth is really so simple and so well substantiated? How can alternatives to the truth seem so convincing, formidable, and even erudite? How can we be led to believe things about food entirely at odds with what sense, let alone science, tells us are true? How can even good people get caught up - even inadvertently - in misleading us about fundamental truths? Understanding lies is not an alternative to understanding truth. Rather, understanding both truth and lies is the way to tell the two apart. She had wonderful suggestions and nixed all my title ideas (rightly so) and came up with Get Me Out. Her assistant, Adrienne Davich, responded with incredible calm to my onslaught of pestering e-mails. I owe a debt of gratitude to copy editor Janet Greenblatt for going over this manuscript with a fine-tooth comb; My mother, Ruth Hutter, listened to my paragraphs from her bed (after I woke her) and from her cell phone, even when she told me it was a bad time, and gave me honest feedback. My dad, Robert Hutter, was encouraging early on in the process, and although he suffers from Alzheimer's disease, I have to believe he is still more proud of me than anyone else that I've written a article. My sister, Edie, and my brother, Andrew, always seem to have more faith in my abilities than I sometimes have in myself. My children, Jack, Martha, Joseph, and Eliza, have made every day more fun, even if they don't think my jokes are funny. Dexter, my gentle German Shepherd, sat loyally at my feet during the entire process.

And to Stuart, who has heard every article at least seven times and learned to ignore my not-infrequent bouts of self-doubt: For nearly 30 years, he has made my life happier, tidier, and funnier (the kids laugh at his jokes). Who would have thought when we went to dinner the first night of freshman orientation that one day we would create our own history of childbirth. Stand with your legs hip-width apart and hold onto a counter, wall, or other stable object for support. Keeping your right leg straight, slowly swing it forward to a comfortable height. Keeping your upper body straight and abdominals slightly tightened, allow your leg to slowly come back down before swinging it behind you. Repeat and then switch sides. It took a little while to get here, but that's OK. Before starting with HIIT, it's important that you've adequately prepared by doing daily static stretches, occasional dynamic warm-ups, foam rolling, and moderate forms of aerobic conditioning. Now that you've spent some time getting your body ready for this new challenge--you're probably already in the best shape you've been in years, you've documented your starting health status, and created your health and fitness goals--it's time to kick it into high gear! Go back and read articles Two and Three, especially the sections on avoiding injury! There are beginner, intermediate, and advanced options for all fitness levels. While they can be used individually and mixed and matched in a variety of ways, I've created some HIIT routines to get you started. Understanding the truth is having a fish. Understanding the miscellaneous intrusions of lies is knowing how to fish. I think we all deserve both. T he way I've put this article together requires me to differentiate mere lies from both statistics and damned lies. What's the difference? If I were applying a strict definition of lies - willful deceptions - then I suppose most of them would be damned lies. I view damned lies as exactly that: deceit perpetrated intentionally and generally in the service of personal advantage at another's expense. I really hate those!