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Re-Writing My Legacy Code

In the world of computer programming, "Legacy Code" is the stuff nightmares are made of. It’s the old, messy, undocumented programming sitting at the core of a system. It’s often full of bugs, it crashes constantly, but nobody wants to touch it because they are terrified the whole thing will break.

We all run on legacy code. We usually call it "family history," but it’s the same thing: a set of default settings hardcoded into us by the people who came before us.


My source code has some critical bugs. My father left when I was young. That event didn't just leave an emotional gap; it installed a corrupted operating system for handling stress. I inherited a default setting for obesity, for hiding from conflict, and for using food to numb out difficult emotions.

For 40 years, I let that buggy code run in the background. I executed the same loops: get stressed, eat to soothe, isolate, repeat.

Hardware vs. Software

We used to think our DNA was like a Read-Only file—that if your family was heavy or diabetic, you were destined to be the same. You were stuck with your hardware.

But that isn't true.

While we can't change the hardware (our genetics), we have total control over the software (our lifestyle). Science shows us that our daily choices—what we eat, how we move, how we sleep—act like switches. They can turn "bad" genes off and "good" genes on.

To understand this, we need to talk about Epigenetics. While your DNA sequence (the hardware) remains constant, the expression of those genes (the software) is highly mutable. Through processes like DNA methylation and histone modification, chemical tags attach to your DNA and tell it whether to switch a gene "on" or "off."

Your lifestyle—your diet, your sleep, your stress levels—acts as the "keyboard" for these commands.

  • Inflammatory Diet: High sugar and processed fats can cause hypomethylation of pro-inflammatory genes, essentially leaving the "inflammation switch" stuck in the ON position.

  • Visceral Fat: As discussed in my previous post, this tissue actively alters the expression of genes related to insulin sensitivity and lipid metabolism.

By living the same way my ancestors did, I was ensuring I would die the same way they did. I was compounding the Technical Debt of my lineage.

The Great Refactor

This "Reboot" - this lifestyle - I am undertaking - the keto, the fasting, the training - is not a "diet". It is a full-scale Code Refactor.

In programming, refactoring means cleaning up the messy code to make the system run cleaner, faster, and more efficiently.

  • Debugging the Diet: By cutting out sugar, I am deleting the lines of code that kept me inflamed and sluggish.

  • Rewriting the Routine: Every time I choose a walk over a snack, or fasting over feasting, I am overwriting a "bad sector" on my hard drive.

I am proving that the system is not fixed. It can be upgraded.

The User Acceptance Test

In software development, "User Acceptance Testing" (UAT) is the final phase where you verify that the system actually works for the person who has to use it.

For a long time, I treated my health like a background process I could ignore. But now, I realize there is only one "User" who has to operate within this system every single day: Me.

There is no client breathing down my neck. There is no external auditor checking my work. That actually makes this harder, because it requires a level of integrity that goes beyond obligation. It requires self-respect.


I am refactoring this code because I have to live in this chassis. If I leave the bugs in the system—the inflammation, the habits, the "legacy" excuses—I am the one who pays the price when the system crashes. I am the one who has to deal with the proverbial "Blue Screen of Death" in a hospital room.

I cannot change the fact that my start-up code was glitchy. I cannot change the bugs I inherited. But I have admin access now. I have the ability to rewrite the script.

This isn't about impressing anyone else. It’s about proving to myself that the system is not read-only. I am debugging this line by line, not for a legacy I leave behind, but for the life I am living right now.

The crash loops end with me.

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Location: Halifax Regional Municipality, NS, Canada

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