I used to suffer from clinical depression, and part of that I believe is because I used food as a coping mechanism to deal with inescapable stress and other pressures of toxic hyper-capitalist society (basically like anyone else with a substance abuse problem, except my substance was pizza).

Eating pizza every day, makes you fat. Being fat, makes life harder in general, you weigh more, are constantly fatigued, doing simple actions requires more effort, and dating is well - I mean, it’s tougher.

Add the depression on top of that and it’s like those jokes: “Sick, fat, lonely and tired.” A recipe for disaster.

I began working out, but the word is wrong. I began training. I didn’t follow the same policies and procedures of the lethally infirm/sick society that made me sick in the first place, but I went and struck it out on my own.

I went to the outskirts of the city, to No Man’s Land, and I cycled in the mid afternoon summer’s heat, 4-5 hours at a time.

I know what you’re thinking, “where does someone find the time to cycle 4-5 hours a day while holding down a job for 8 hours as well” and the answer is, your instinctual response to this tells you everything you need to know about how our society is organized and how we approach diet, exercise, and living in general.

I didn’t “work out”. I didn’t “exercise” to look good. I didn’t meticulously drive 3 miles to an air conditioned gym to run 3 miles in place on a fucking rolling machine.

I crawled through the gaping maw of hell and emerged the other side, intact. Alive, and without the depression around my ankles.

So yeah, it helped. :)