diet – Observations and Misunderstandings

I started reading a book on the stomach call Gut by Giulia Enders about six months ago. I mentioned it when I was writing about stomach cleanses back in December and recently again. It’s an incredibly interesting and easily accessible book which I will write about properly once I’m finished but considering I jump in and out of it when I feel that may just be a while away yet. The reason I mention it is because I am trying to build up my microbiome gut flora, or fauna, I can’t remember, and she discusses this is quite a lot of detail. In late February just as this virus kicked off I bought a pile of vitamin C and multivitamin tablets online, as well as some probiotic capsules. While it’s impossible to tell for sure, I instinctively feel that these tablets have been doing something, the vitamins I’m unsure but I have a gut feeling – sorry – that the probiotics have done something. I feel good in a whole way that that includes mood and all round energy. It is always risky linking that with one particular thing and is likely an accumulation of factors like diet, not sleeping too much and probably multiple other things. I am cautiously optimistic though.

There is something though that I’m not quite comfortable with. When I gave up eating meat for eighteen months many years ago, I gradually stopped craving lamb or beef when needing protein or iron and started craving lentils and spinach instead. I remember distinctly recognising the change. For me my mind had stopped associating the required and desired minerals with one type of food and now it recognised it in another. It makes perfect sense that we would crave particular foods that provide particular nutrients when we need them. This may be a leap and is merely an as yet unevolved idea, but if we’re taking multivitamins with each meal, they recommend three times a day and I take roughly twice sometimes less, then surely the mind will not be able to recognise what food provides what nutrition. If each pill provides a third of your daily intake of iron and you eat it with a jam sandwich, does the mind start to associate jam sandwiches with iron. Is there a danger that we’ll stop eating the necessary balanced and healthy diet as we lose our instinctive ability to choose which foods to eat as and when our body requires it. Although if we’re getting all our nutrition anyway does it really matter. This could be a half cooked idea and may in reality have an affect at the base level only. I am unsure though, it is only an idea. I shall meditate on it some more.

Happy New Year, it’s another year and another decade. The imagery of 2020 alone should get people excited. I’m also a day late but I wanted to talk about something else yesterday and prefer doing things my own way anyway. I hope people are more excited about the prospect of a new year than the horror of a new year – are we excited to leave the grim realities of 2019 behind us or terrified of their continuation. It’s been a good year so far politically as Scott from Marketing has been berated and run out of town for his disdain for and inactivity helping victims of the bushfires in Australia. Still no link with or acknowledgment that climate change may be connected or even a real thing as his bosses in the mining industry instructed him. There was a great moment in the video where he tries to shake hands with a woman who refuses so he grabs her hand and shakes it as the cameras start snapping away. We live in a truly corrupt world. I’m looking forward to Boris from Events similarly being run out of town somewhere over here in the next six to twelve months.

My plan for today was to talk about New Year Resolutions but as you can see from above I’ve already digressed and used up half my word count in the process. I had a small rant the other day about this particular topic and while I stand by it, I also stand by the fact this is a grey area and many people find credible benefits from such actions. It’s just a shame there’s so many others out there inspiring vomit instead.

I suspect I will have four resolutions this year. I’m not sure if that is too many or not enough as this is my first time and a new experience. None of them are that ground breaking either but then I’m not unique and I imagine if you break down all resolutions they’re all roughly the same thing.

Firstly like everyone else who feels like shit after Christmas I’m going to get fit. I have been putting it off for a while as I’m still nursing an old jiu jitsu injury. Sounds heroic until I admit I hurt my shoulder doing a forward roll in the warm up of the one class I attended. I will go back to this and also do some yoga. I love telling people I am yoga teacher because I once did a month long training course in India but all that makes me is a cliche. It does mean I am capable of practising on my own though so have little excuse for not especially when I understand it’s benefits. It’s the mornings I struggle with but apparently that gets easier with practise. Perhaps I can use some of the discipline required to do this each day. I’m only thirty-four and feel sore, more than I should at this age.

This links in with resolution number two which is to sort my diet out. I was discussing with a cousin over Christmas about joint pains and she was suggesting that cutting gluten out has reduced these pains in people she knows. I’m not suggesting I’m going to dive into some kind of gluten intolerance hysteria but it does show how important diet can be for overall physical health. How energised we feel, physical recovery, overall health – diet plays a role in all of this, just as exercise does of course. There is no golden rule for all with diet, something people always seem to miss the point of, but it is important to discover what really works for us.

One thing that sometimes prevents me from making the most of my time is that like many people the world over I’m suffering from addictions. In regards diet, certainly consumption of sugar needs addressing but for resolution number three it is time I addressed the procrastinating opportunities social media and constant access to online nonsense through my phone has. In mornings I don’t often do yoga or get started properly with my day because I spend an hour checking out whats going on in the world of football – a soap opera for men – and I apologise for the gender stereotyping but it’s a stereotype for a reason. Phones allow for procrastination and we waste so much time in the day as a result. There have been times in the past that I have intentionally gone the full day without using technology, and by evening I have run out of things to do I have been so busy. Like giving up smoking I will use the approach that when I immediately think of going online for no other reason than habit and addiction, I will give it five minutes and then if I still want to I will. It works with cigarettes, why not with other addictions too.

And finally I resolve to make something decent out of this blog. I doubt I’ve done over sixty posts yet which means I have over three hundred to go. It is daunting but also shows how much opportunity for learning and practise is still ahead. Doing this every day will always give opportunity for fluff days in which I have little time or am hungover but to make the most of it means I really need to be strict and mentally disciplined, try new things and push myself. Today I read an interesting article in the Guardian by Max Rushden on Bobby Madley, just as I had written yesterday about him. It was better researched and partly as a result better written. It was interesting to see and very useful to be able to compare the two, there are always opportunities to learn if we’re willing. I also want to step back to some of my original intentions such as answering philosophical questions from my Philosophy Now magazines which I haven’t even attempted, poetry or something similarly creative which I haven’t even contemplated and I just thought yesterday that maybe I should try a book review, so theres one of those coming when I finish my current book on how to utilise fear. These things are not always possible when limiting yourself to a small word count of four to five hundred, and while that has it’s benefits there is always scope for flexibility. Seeing as this piece is over one thousand words, and the only one over six hundred so far I am clearly happy to break my own rules.

It is clear to say that there was nothing really groundbreaking in any of my resolutions, but then there never are with these kinds of things. I also had to rush through them without any real details but it gives you the gist and the point as previously mentioned is to allow people the opportunity to realise there are many others out there struggling with the same things. Hopefully to know we are not alone gives a certain strength of resolve. I also just realised that resolutions means to find new solutions and resolve to find new ways to solve – in this case how we approach and live our lives. We are forever attempting to solve the riddle of life – these new solutions for a new year.

Tag: diet

A Gut Feeling