Rock Stars Don’t Do Keto
On full expression, fitting in, and why the ‘healthy’ option isn’t always the alive one.
Here’s something worth noticing.
Most of the legendary rock stars are still performing well into their seventies and eighties. Mick Jagger. Keith Richards. Ozzy Osbourne. These people didn’t exactly follow the wellness playbook. Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll was the menu. Not a superfood smoothie in sight.
Meanwhile, a growing number of people who meticulously follow every health trend — gluten-free, ketogenic, vegan, biohacking, cold plunges at 5am — find themselves increasingly intolerant, allergic, anxious, and strangely… not that alive.
This isn’t a case for trashing your body. That would miss the point entirely.
The point is about something we tend to overlook because it doesn’t fit into a protocol or a plan.
Full expression.
Those rock stars loved what they were doing. Unapologetically. With their whole being. They weren’t adjusting to what they thought they needed to be in order to fit in. They weren’t optimizing themselves into a version that was palatable, appropriate, or safe. They were on fire. Not because of the substances — but because of the aliveness that comes when a human being is in full expression. When nothing is held back. When the energy of who you are isn’t diverted into managing how you come across.
Now bring that into your Monday morning. How much energy do you spend managing? The right tone for the meeting. The right image on the team call. The carefully worded email that takes forty minutes because you’re editing the life out of it. The measured response to your partner when what you want to say is something rawer, truer, less polished. The smile you put on when someone asks how your weekend was, because “I spent most of it staring at the ceiling wondering what I’m doing with my life” isn’t an acceptable Monday answer.
Meanwhile, the raw, sometimes messy aliveness gets pushed underground. Day after day. Week after week. Until the container is so well managed that there’s barely anything left inside it.
And then we wonder why we’re tired. We blame the job. The pace. The world. Or our diet. All worthwhile to look at and adjust, but the drain isn’t only external. It’s the slow, quiet, socially acceptable act of dimming ourselves down. Not in one dramatic surrender. In a thousand small ones. The opinion you didn’t share. The laughter you held back. The passion you buried because it didn’t match the company culture.
Where in your life are you suppressing expression to stay safe? Where are you fitting in at the cost of being alive? Where did you stop doing the thing that made you feel like you, because someone — or some invisible standard — told you it wasn’t appropriate?
Health isn’t only about what you eat. It’s also about what’s eating you. The rock stars didn’t have a secret. They had permission. Self-given. To be fully what they were. Loud, flawed, excessive, brilliant — and unmistakably alive.
You don’t need their lifestyle. But you might need that self-given permission.
