ABSTRACT. I've been doing health related experiments my whole life. FMD is a continuation. The goal is to not die, not just out of a fear of death, but because I have dependents who need me to live well past 60 and to be healthy enough to work well past 60.
First major experiment - vegetarianism. A read a book that made a solid case about the environmental, ethical and health case for vegetarianism. I signed up as a vegetarian, aka cheesatarian, because I could find cheese & egg dishes my family made & restaurants served. I spend the next 20+ years eating too much dairy, bounded only by some low-fat protocols I followed.
Second major experiment - low fat. This was highly compatible with vegetarianism. It probably encouraged eating too many processed carbohydrates
Third major experiment - phasing out white flour and transfats.
Accidental experiment - eating lots of nuts- like buying them in 10lbs bags lots. Turns out that this is an common finding in studies that nut consumption prevents all sorts of disease.
On and off experiment - exercising. This was most intense when I had back pain and knee pain issues. Turns out the exercise with the best impact on longevity is lots of walking, which by chance matches up to what I've been doing for a long time.
Temporary experiment - "Alcohol in moderation prevents heart disease" 1/2 - 1/4 cup of wine about daily. On research that alcohol cleans out the arteries. Turns out this is true for people who eat high fat animal products. For people who already eat low fat & no animal products, the alcohol just increases rates of cancer along the whole digestive tract. So I've phase alcohol out again.
Brief reversal on low-fat protocols. I read a book that was pro-fat. My new opinion was that some fats were really bad (coconut & animal fats) but other fats are fine unless you are one of those people whose cholesterol
Fourth experiment - phasing out the milk and eggs. This mainly happened because I move in with my significant other who has been vegan most of her life and non-dairy her entire life.
Quantified self experiment. I start tracking with Withings weight. I now track weight, blood pressure, temperature, sometimes heart rate, sometimes sleep, sometimes steps per day.
More kids started to arrive. Up to now, I did my various experiments because they seemed the prudent thing to do. You needed be a health nut to not cross a highway on foot with your eyes closed. Once you read the research, it irrational to just ignore it. But now, I do a little math and realize I need to be in the workforce for the next 20-25 years, 40 if I want to want to see the grandkids. There is a non-zero chance I'm dead or no longer working. I sign up for life insurance. I start reviewing the top ten causes of death and try to get more rigorous about my health and life extension protocols. And by life extensions, I don't mean sleeping in a jade bed or eating arsenic. I mean, reading the prevention advice for the top ten causes of mortality.
Standard precautions. Vaccines make you life longer. Hand washing protocols to avoid bacterial infections make you life longer.They are never marketed as such. All precautions for the top 10 killers recommend maintain a low BMI, don't smoke, don't drink, avoid radiation, get vaccinated, wash hands, exercise don't stress the kidneys with salt, don't stress your pancreas with sugars and white flours, and eat "fiber and more fruits and veggies", which is code for vegetarianism in a world that currently eats 50% animal products by weight.
Emergency preparation - A major cause of death is that the people you hang out can't diagnose or treat stroke or heart attack in time to keep you from dying. Stroke especially depends on knowledgeable bystanders because if you are stroking out, you aren't cogent enough to self diagnose.
The experiment explosion- I found Dr. Gregor on Youtube.
- tea & coffee for various benefits (daily) I was sort of doing this already.
- berries (nearly daily, but probably weekly)
- apple a day. Turns out apple a day is the easiest protocol to follow, otherwise I often go for days with no particular fruit consumption.
- green tea to prevent cancer (nearly daily)
- cardamon for colds (periodic)
- cinnamon (daily, but stopped, I learned that daily cinnamon triggers all day tongue tingling)
- daily flax for heart & vessel health
- daily sesame for my arthritic knee, which has had problems since a roller skating injury when I was ten.
- cocoa for blood vessel health
- more leafy greens. I used to make no effort to eat lettuce or the like because it was a calorie-less filler. Turns out we eat greens for
- more cruciferous (broccoli, kale, etc). Another category I paid no attention to. I still don't get enough of these on a regular basis.
- more beans. I used to minimize these for their effect on farting. Turns out everything makes you fart and your microbiome is to blame.
- annual health checks. I read that annual health checks often lead to treating non-symptomatic issues & harms from the excess medical care (think invasive biopsies, long term pill subscriptions, etc). I try to use my health check up to see if my program is working.
Sixth (?) experiment - Fasting Mimicking diets. Fasting proponents claims to do lots of things. I only care about 2 of them. Fasting reboots your immune system, so in the time following fasting you should have fewer colds. I'd gotten to the point where I had a cold every month or every other month. The other thing I care about is the life extension effects. For this experiment to work tho, I have to do one to 12 fasts a year until age 60. I'm up to 3. At four a year, I got 57 more fasts to go! Some of the more sober reviews of why aging happens is that the immune system fails and cellular garbage accumulates until systems begin to fail well before our maximum age.
Yes. I know, we will all be dead before age 120, unless you are a tortoise.
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