Skip to main content

It's not that Complicated!

Two Steps to Improved Health

Lately I see people overcomplicating their health: they ask (other people) about enemas, their HPA axis, vagus nerve, stool tests, arcane lab tests, data on calcium score reduction, what time to have their supplements, where to get exotic microbes they read about on Google Scholar, and so on. The problem with this is that 1) it's off the map and probably nobody knows the answer and 2) in most cases, they're neglecting some basic steps known to work. 

Most low-carb diets have two steps: 1) stop eating poison; 2) supplement what's missing. Dr. Davis's program has the additional step of getting rid of SIBO, but for that, he mostly recommends SIBO yogurt (homemade yogurt with 2-3 strains of bacteria missing in most people). 

With step 1 in mind, I whacked back the nuts, cheese and occasional junk food cheats freely available at work. And with step 2 in mind, I've continued taking more iodine and I've been eating more protein to build muscle from my workouts. I'm down two pounds from where I thought I was stuck before Thanksgiving. With more protein, less dairy, fewer carbs and nuts, adequate iodine, and strength training, my waist is shrinking. Who'd have guessed? Granted, that's more than cut carbs and take supplements, but all of this has either been known for generations or was something my intuition or experience told me. I didn't need to do anything complicated.

Exercise

Likewise, I'm lifting weights (or doing body weight exercises) for fitness. Nothing complicated. Strength training improves bone density and brain function; increased muscle mass improves insulin sensitivity. And this is anecdotal, but do you see many physically fit people who are neurotic or depressed?

Yogurt

It's the same with yogurt: simple methods are better. I've never seen anyone say, "I put my yogurt in the camper cooler with a heating pad and now it's all screwed up!" Here's my video on my method for making yogurt (which my sister-in-law called foolproof).

Grease Stains

Shout is no longer getting out the grease stains I get on my shirts (my new shirts!) from cooking bacon, burgers and sausage. Shout used to be great. I worked in an Italian restaurant long ago and Shout got out spaghetti sauce stains so well that you couldn't tell my white t-shirts ever had them. Now it won't get out tiny grease splatters. A Tide pen works better, and I'm trying Dawn dishwashing soap. 


Comments

... sorry about the grease stains you get on your shirts.
I always wear an apron. I find it helps.

All the best Jan
Lori Miller said…
I usually do, too, but sometimes I forget.


BTW, Dawn worked!
Pleased that Dawn worked :)

All the best Jan

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...

Collagen-filled Low Carb Burritos

Low-carb, grain-free Mexican food is hard to find, but it's easy to make your own at home. This recipe has an authentic ingredient: carne de lengua, or beef tongue. Don't be put off: beef tongue is tender, delicious, and full of collagen. Look for it directly from farmers in your area. To cook it, cut it in 1" to 1-1/2" slices and pressure cook for one hour. Enjoy the delicious broth as a bonus. Ingredients 1 slice cooked beef tongue, peeled and cut into small cubes 1 egg wrap (I use these  from Egglife) 1/4 cup cooked black or pinto beans Chili pepper Oregano Garlic (powdered or minced) Cumin Guacamole (with no emulsifiers) Salsa Shredded cheddar cheese Sour cream or homemade cream cheese  with no emulsifiers  Put the egg wrap on a plate and put the beef and beans down the middle of it. Sprinkle with the herbs and spices. Wrap, turn over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Spoon salsa over the burrito and sprinkle with cheese. Add guacamole and sour cream or homemade crea...

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too.  Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder . ...

In Defense of Fast Food

Another modern trend - healthy food should be expensive, not nutrients-dense and preferably exotic, or you would be eating like plebs who live on a dollar McD menu. --Galina L. I don't try to jump over seven-foot hurdles, I look for one-foot hurdles I can step over. --Warren Buffett, pleb who eats at McDonald's Despite all the talk about wild-caught v. farmed, grass-fed v. CAFO and the vilification of fast food, a lot of us plebs benefit simply from carbohydrate restriction. But even though diabetes and obesity are rampant, and carb restriction alone would help millions of people, the impression is out there that you need to eat in a very specific way, far beyond just watching the carbs. Following a low-carb diet is already a high hurdle for many people. If some people want or need to raise the bar for themselves, that's fine with me, but there's no need to turn low-carb into a hurdle that a lot of people can't jump over. Organic produce and grass-fed or p...