MY FIRST TWO WEEKS ON DR. WEIL'S HEALTH REGIMEN

By John Skow

At first glance, Dr. Andrew Weil's 8 Weeks to Optimum Health plan looks easy. Dr. Weil, reasonable fellow, says eat salmon, olive oil, garlic, soy sauce, ginger, broccoli. I like all that stuff. But Weil, dietary despot, also suggests eating tofu, which is organic styrofoam; drinking Japanese green tea, which tastes like water in which tadpoles have died; and popping 6,000 mg a day of vitamin C, which sours my giblets. I'll give these a miss. And, ouch, here it comes: "Moderate or eliminate intake of animal foods, booze, coffee and news."

Animal foods? Sure, I'll cut out those trashburgers. Booze? What, and risk a clear view of reality? O.K., O.K., I'll cut down, or maybe just switch to a better brand of gin. But coffee? Can't do it. I interviewed Weil a few years ago and found him bright, overflowing with ideas and not at all dogmatic. So when he suggested I might deal with my low-level migraine attacks by taking an herb called feverfew and by giving up coffee, I was willing to try. The feverfew worked--it dilates blood vessels--but the coffee thing didn't. As Weil had warned it might, my head went into a mutinous sulk until, after about 10 days, I made a pot of coffee and got back to work.

And what's this about no news? In the second week, which is where I am, Weil says to try "a one-day news fast." What, no reading, watching or listening to the misery that makes the world go round? It gets worse each week, building to a seven-day fast in Week Eight. He couldn't mean sports news too, could he? Not when it's basketball-playoff time. Can I watch the games and just skip the halftime blather?

Crunch time: I'm into the fifth day of the second week, which means that either tomorrow or Thursday, I've got to go cold turkey on ferry sinkings, militia uprisings and men biting dogs. But what about those jolly bits that the media throw in so you won't despair entirely? For instance, last week Reuters reported that a fellow in Toronto walked into a bank lobby carrying a live goose. Sounds like a joke ("Gimme a 20-year, fixed-rate mortgage, and one for my friend here"). But no; guy actually says, "Give me some money, or I'll kill this goose." So a lady gets money out of an atm and gives it to him. He gives her the goose. Would Weil, a decent, compassionate man, want me not to have read this mysterious parable? Not to have wondered what happened next? What did the lady do with the goose? Was she headed for work, and did she have the kind of boss who said, sure, sure, stick him in marketing? Or was she late for therapy, and did the shrink ask, "How long have you felt this way, Ms. Smith?"

Now, let's see. We're doing 15-minute walks every day, up from the usual 10 minutes. My wife and the dogs just went off for their walk, and I was going to go too, but I had to check my E-mail. Does E-mail count as news? Come to think of it, does USA Today count as news?

What else? Oh, right. Buy flowers, says the good doctor. Our house is full of plants already--hanging, squatting, dying--but they don't count. Has to be cut flowers, which my wife bought the first week, saying, "I thought you might forget." So this week (which, as I said, is nearly over), I definitely have to get flowers. But what kind? Guys aren't comfortable buying flowers because the women at the florist wear an expression that says, "You must have done something really disgusting, or you wouldn't be here when it's not Mother's Day." More anxiety; my stomach hurts.

That's good, I guess; no pain, no gain. But can I twitch through six more weeks of virtuous nibbling and meditation and moderate behavior? Will enlightenment and serenity finally make clear to me the meaning of "antioxidant"? One thing is sure: only the strong survive.

--By John Skow