Women talk a lot about the menopause lately, which is good, I guess. However, I am noticing a distinct pathologising of a biological process which doesn’t need to be much more than ‘now you can’t naturally have a baby’. And ‘hurrah, no more periods to deal with!’ I went into menopause when I was 39 or 40, so I’ve been menopausal for nigh on a decade. After the initial shock of mortality, I can’t say I have experienced any particular issues as a part of menopause. Aside from the cessation of my periods, I have never had any of the symptoms listed on the NHS page for menopause. (Or, to be more specific, I’ve never had them as a consequence of menopause.) I suppose the biggest symptom I have had, is a general feeling of gratitude to be rid of something which was always superfluous to requirements: I have never needed
On this week’s edition of Tank’s Continuing Dietary Adventures, I have good news to report. I mentioned back in September that I had started a strict ketogenic diet, as my HbA1c result still had not improved. I made the switch to keto on August 21st and by 1st September, my long-term (i.e. over a year) achilles tendinpathy had resolved itself. I can now run, jump, do the boingy-boingy exercise, and so forth, with no issues whatsoever. Unexpected win one for the ketogenic diet! (I haven’t actually had my blood glucose tested again, but I assume that’s fine now.) Another unexpected positive result relates to my neutrophils (a type of white blood cell). These have been on a downward spiral since at least 2015 when they were 1.8; by August 2023, they were down to 1.25 (the reference range is: 2 – 7.5 x 10^9/L). I just had them retested and they
I got some blood tests taken again to see if I had managed to improve my fasting glucose and HbA1c since my last test. Despite not having eaten a single grain of wheat, rice, oats, rye, amaranth, etc. for about nine months, neither metric had improved. I was still at the top end of a healthy range and was advised by the (private) doctor interpreting the results that I might be on my way to developing diabetes. The GP at my surgery just told me that I should lose weight and exercise more, which shows you how useless the NHS is, since I work out 4 times a week and am 171cm tall and weigh 54kg FFS. Anyway, this made me decide to follow a ketogenic diet: high fat, low carb, moderate protein. I am back on cronometer weighing my every ingredient which is annoying as hell, but is helping as I
I enjoy experimenting with my diet, as my umpteen posts on the subject illustrate. I learnt the term ‘bio-hacking’ recently, and I suppose I am low level doing that in my quest to feel the best I can feel. What I like the most, is seeing the variety of ways my body responds to different foods, positive and negative. I wish more people would do it: figuring out the best clean diet for yourself, plus adequate exercise, is simple preventative healthcare. The more you read about nutrition, the more you realise how shaky the foundations of this field are. For starters, most nutritional studies are observational studies, rather than interventional ones. This means that they rely on people self-reporting what they eat, and also cannot properly account for other factors in a person’s life which may be impacting on the results. So when they say ‘eat your leafy greens’, they aren’t
Despite my earlier commitment to stick with the carnivore diet for a full three months, I reluctantly started adding plants back in to my diet a few weeks ago. I got a spot/zit, and as that is a novel experience for me (I rarely get them, not even when I was a teen), I behaved like I was twelve and picked it. This resulted in a strange hypertrophic scar which persisted for a couple of weeks, something I have never experienced before. This suggested to me that I was deficient in something, likely the vitamins E and/or C. So, I reluctantly started adding in some plants to my diet. I genuinely felt incredible eating only animal-based foods. To recap, my mood was significantly improved (to the point that people asked me if I was high, to which I replied: HIGH ON MEAT!), my tendonitis, joint stiffness, and muscle tension went away