RE: How to live healthy? Part 5: What should I do?
What a wonderful article! I need to go back and read many of your older stuff because I am really interested in the topics you chose.
Unfortunately, two years my husband experienced a health decline perhaps due to sleep-deprivation, some stressful environment, some very stressful events and I guess genes maybe (if you ask him it's his wife at the bottom of it all :D). All of the sudden he got acute GERD and gastritis. He lost a lot of weight (he was skinny, now he is even skinnier) and has to choose his food very carefully.
Anyway, what I am saying is that we are trying to eat healthily and both of us are very interested in the subject.
Fingers away from meat, sugar, alcohol, and milk. Instead, eat as many plants as you can. At least if you want to enjoy your retirement.
Is it all meat or just the processed and the red meat? What about the keto diet? Some people claim that their health benefited a lot thanks to it.
Find stressors in your life and eliminate them!
Haha. We have done most of your list. We even moved to a more peaceful place next to nature :)
Incidentally, researchers are not completely sure what kind of sport is best for you [10]. In principle, endurance sports seem to be the best choice.
The research I did for my How to Cope with Stress series showed that sports could be both a stressor and a buffer to stress. On the other hand, some studies I read argue that moderate intensity everyday exercise is the most beneficial for general health (and the interleukin-2 cells in particular).
Women definitely more. (sleep)
I wonder why is that?
Once again, thanks for bringing this subject to us. I am looking forward to the next part!
I was gonna say it's the wife. Ah, poor intrAvert!
I had my own issues years back, and to a certain extent I still have them cos I inherited an autoimmune disease from my dad.
The only way in which I managed to improve symptoms are diet and exercise. But I'm still struggling with diet. I read many books but the info is conflicting. I'm (intellectually) struggling with grains (gluten) and dairy specifically. I def can't drink milk, or even kefir. But I seem to tolerate yogurt and cheeses just fine. My dad, again, was the same: never drank milk, ate yogurt and halloumi in droves. But could it be that yogurt and cheese still cause a reaction, but not very noticeable, so it escapes me? That's where you really have to listen to your body, but it's not easy.
I don't seem to have issues with gluten, but tons of negative stuff being said about it, and especially in connection with the gut and autoimmune diseases, make me worry. But most say grains are great. Including the current post which put them at the top of the most beneficial foods! You can see why I am (and I can see why your husband is) struggling.
I followed a keto diet for about a month. Didn't notice anything special. All my bloodwork was very good after it (and before it!) I did the Wahls protocol Paleo diet. I did the Whole30 (again, a sort of paleo) diet. I may be feeling better in some respects on it, but really just the same. I'm thinking of going the exact opposite way now and trying to minimize meat and eat many legumes and grains, more or less what the current post is prescribing.
Regarding guts specifically, you won't find a more scientific book on the topic than The Good Gut - but for that very reason they are often reticent when it comes to recommendations, you won't find many cure-alls here. But at least you'll know what science definitely knows, and what it doesn't.
Overall, the normal diet I'm following most of the time and which seems to work, is whatever's recommended in the Nutrition Concepts and Controversies book, in its 13th edition. I.e. what the bulk of nutritionists are taught in school.
You might wanna give nutritionfacts.org a go, but the guy is very plant-amen and meat-is-the-devil, and he even sounds like a preacher, so I don't know if he bends the science sometimes.
Haha, and you would be probably right :D
Thanks for the recommendations! I have read this one and I guess they discuss similar topics.
My husband is also struggling with grains and everything that is more solid. For now, he cannot eat whole-grain food which means less fiber but he is trying to compensate it with some vegetables. Now he is trying carefully with yogurt in an attempt to gain some probiotics :) The worst thing is that good food could probably help him recover, but he cannot eat many things because they hurt his esophagus and his stomach. So his diet is very restricted and he cannot take the essential supplies for his body to work properly. It is like a vicious cycle :/
On the other hand, I am a cheese person. I can eat cheese and vegetables for the rest of my life and will never miss anything else :D Imagine how delighted I was when I read in another @chappertron ' s article that it is actually pretty healthy to eat cheese and vegetables :) Yey!!! So now I eat even more cheese and more salad :D
Have you figured out which food suits you best with your health issues? And what kind of exercise do you do? (I bet you are secretly doing yoga, haha)
Keeping a diary is a good idea like @chappertron suggests. And I will definitely try some fasting when I stop breastfeeding because I can see the signs that my body is very exhausted now.
Haha, I hope your feminist mind is open to breastfeeding and you didn't take this as TMI :P
My attitude toward breastfeeding is: "Depends who's breastfeeding" :D
There are other ways to take probiotics. For example if he eats salads, he can add naturally fermented apple cider vinegar (regular vinegars are sometimes sterile). He could also just take probiotics in pill form (the Good Gut authors basically recommend buying random probiotics and trying them on for size! but they need to be safe, obviously, but that's not an issue in Europe - in the US they're unregulated). Also fermented sauerkraut and gherkins etc., but availability depends on where you live. And just eating lots and lots of veggies (and legumes). I regularly make a salad where I just cut up 1 cucumber, 1 tomato, 2 lettuce leaves, 2 spinach leaves, 1 big leaf of swiss chard, a couple of rocket leaves (all these with stem), 2 tbsp apple cider, 4 tbsp olive oil, salt. You can vary what exactly you put in it, and the quantities, but the overall feel is like a fresh Greek salad without the feta.
You probly already know all that, but saying it just in case!
The Good Gut companion cookbook (written by a woman who is a bonafide science journalist) has 'phase 1' meals for those who have digestive issues. But I'm in the process of reading it now, and I haven't tried any recipes, so I don't know.
Btw if you - um - cannot find some of the books online (it looks like they aren't being seeded), there's a place I can recommend where they can be downloaded :D
Does he take a multivitamin btw? It can work wonders sometimes.
The exercise I do is lifting! I have a gym rack at home, as I quit real gyms after about 3 months, can't stand them. ... I don't trust cardio much. Lifting builds muscle, that muscle requires upkeep 24/7, so the heart works to supply it, and so it benefits even without cardio. Cardio is a bit overrated. You eat a doughnut and you gain everything back. It's also time-wasting, whereas with lifting is intense, almost like a burpee (which is probably bad for most people's knees). If you follow a good program like Starting Strength, you can do everything safely. You can also do lower weights with more repetitions, throughout the day.
A good bodyweight program is You are your own gym, no equipment necessary. Movement can sometimes help digestive issues.
I haven't found exactly what works for me, other than following the general dietary prescriptions, as laid out for example here. I have lowered my anti-inflammatory pills significantly since I started taking them, and it was all diet and exercise. All I know for sure is that more than half a cup of milk causes me digestive disturbances. Other than that I just try to eat healthy, but I haven't really noticed something like "if I eat x, then I suffer y", at least not to the point of certainty. I'm still on the road of discovery myself.
But definitely no yoga. Avoid at all costs :D
Hey again,
yes, the interplay of nutrients with organs, the microbiome, and the autoimmune system is really hard to figure out. Often they influencing each other with a delayed response which makes it hard to know what was the initial trigger.
I also had some problems, and I still have them, but I found the cause by writing a diary. I wrote everything I ate and my reaction into my diary. Eventually, I found the foods and cooked defined meals to verify my observations.
I'm doing a lot of sports, try to eat as healthy as I can and when everything fails I just do some fasting and I'm fine again.
Please take into consideration that I'm no physician, I'm just a lab rat. But the approach with the diary and the occasional reset via fasting really helped me to challenge my problems.
Of course, I still have some bad habits but the more you are aware of them the better for your health.
Good luck and merry X-mas again
Regards
Chapper
P.S.: Thanks for the book recommendations. I will have a glance ;-)
Yes, no diet is good for everyone, so we each need to be a lab rat to some extent. It's still hard without a guide. I looked into elimination diets that allow you to introduce foods later and see whether something bothers you, but it looked too hard and somewhat dangerous. How do you do your fasting exactly?
Hey it's quite simple.
I just stop eating after lunch until the next breakfast. Then I eat normal and on the next day I start over again by stopping after lunch. Helps perfect and you don't starve or have severe side effects as with hardcore fasting!
Do it at least three times a week and make sure that you have one day in between with sufficient nutrient supply
But not at X-Mas time
There are too many tasty things around
Don't miss them
😂🍗
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