By Matt Stone
The other day I was straining some pasta. My strainer, a fancy chinois that I have?had for about a decade now, lives up in?a small cabinet (from now on referred to as a CARBinet… Thanks Batty!)?above the microwave. I reached up there and opened the carbinet to grab it. As I took hold of the handle I saw, lurking behind it, my tin of Great Lakes Collagen Hydrolysate. I immediately thought, “I should start consuming more of that.”
Ladies and gents, this is the Wheaties Effect.
Ten days?ago I posted an eating disorder follow up with pictures of a ripped and beastly young guy who has physically recovered from his past overzealous and?misguided?health and body composition pursuits. In that post he mentions consuming wild quantities of gelatin and claims that was one of his keys to success.While I thought it sounded absolutely ridiculous at the time, it still managed to wiggle its way into my brain and affect me.
It made me think about how vulnerable our minds really are to’the whims of what other people are eating, the supplements they are taking, the therapies they are trying, the exercise routines they are implementing… All that stuff. Especially when that person seems to possess something you don’t, or appears to be having success that you are not.
There’s really no solution for this. Our human brains are wired to be impressionable, and to be 
affected by the information, images, and ideas they’re exposed to.That will never go away. But I thought it was worth taking a little time to help make us all a little mindful of how gullible and irrational we really are. I still suffer from great moments of irrationality when it comes to health just like anyone else. However, it has taken me over?25 years, dating back to about the time I bought my first pair of Sky Jordan shoes, to at least recognize it and not take it very seriously.
Wheaties and Sky Jordans have done little to make me superhuman.Taking?multivitamins and vegetarianism and walking great distances and?juice feasting and milk fasts and all-meat diets haven’t either. One thing they all had in common was starting out as?a na’ve dream about somehow being greater than I am.
The next time you hear someone talking about a new breakthrough or miracle, no matter how “bulletproof” and exciting it sounds, take a moment to think of a box of Wheaties.Better yet, picture me on a box of cereal. No it’s not Life cereal that made me such a cold-blooded gangsta. I was just born with it Holmes. But you’re still going to go buy some.
How has the Wheaties Effect gotten you lately? What has the Wheaties Effect mysteriously placed in your carbinets?
ffffirst.
First????? Spirulina – Yuk
yesssss.
you’re welcome ;)
Great Lakes gelatin is awesome though – it’s become my primary protein source (because it’s cheap) and it worked miracles on my digestive upset almost immediately, before I even started eating to promote better thyroid and metabolic function. just saying…..
I like it too. Not quite sure I need 100-150 grams of it daily a la Coldmember. The small amounts of it I was consuming were just fine. But I did wonder.
Coldmember got me thinking about gelatin too!
I think it actually works better in the good old fashioned form, however (a.k.a. making gelatinous soup). I’m just lazy and prefer to eat the sweet home made gummy candy (or Haribo if I’m passing through the grocery store….. ah alphabet letters!)
Now, the solution would be to be more in touch with our bodily signals, and give less credit to thoughts about things. Which I would say, is a very helpful strategy in general.
The tricky thing with its signals about food is that they scream far less loud when one is in a healthier state.
Interestingly enough, I feel the more accurately I eat to my body’s demands, the better I am deciphering the signals.
But that’s why we are all here, yes? Different folks, different strokes.
I did the same thing after reading that post ( eating disorder follow up ) , got my great lakes gelatine and had a drink . to be honest it tasted shit . If someone with muscles says it good then it must be good .
Thanks for posting this. After I read the eating disorder post I immediately felt like I was doing recovery all wrong and should be lifting weights and working out a lot (I hate exercise- still working on that one). I gained weight in recovery and it made me go back and think that maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that much, and I could look that good! But I’m almost positive I would’ve gained regardless. I was gaining during the ED so I think it was inevitable. I wouldn’t trade my healthy attitude towards food that I have now for macro and calorie counting ever.
Well, yes and no. I mean, it is important to distinguish between causation and association. There is nothing wrong with imitating successful people, if we are imitating something that made them successful. Wearing Air Jordans (because you think that’s what Michael Jordan wears and will make you a better player) probably won’t work. Trying to imitate his jump-shot, on the other hand, might work.
So I don’t think imitating Coldmember qualifies for the point you make. For some people whose symptoms and condition resembles the one he has, it makes absolute sense to imitate him. Of course it might not work for a given person. That’s the point to remember. Just because it works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for everybody.
Imitation and analogy are how we usually learn something new. Unfortunately they can also give rise to mindless dogma and orthodoxy. If we aren’t vigilant, everything can and will turn into Orthodoxy.
“If we aren’t vigilant, everything can and will turn into Orthodoxy.”
amen. I believe we are hard wired for very narrowed thinking. Dogma and black/white, good/evil thinking tend to prevail, so we have to actually make an effort to encourage our ability to recognize that and side step it before we screw up too bad. Easier said that done. It’s hard to step aside and take a different perspective and see the loops and ruts we’re stuck in… what we primed for, and are choosing to see and not see, and it’s generally to find that thing that is going to make everything better, or to vilify something to prove to ourselves that it’s opposite (which will make everything better of course) is something we can have faith in. Other people can often see how “off” we are much better than we can. We’re sort of like children with a guns. We have the power of intellect, but it’s almost more dangerous than it’s worth since we’re still basically a bunch of stick swinging, ravenous, humping apes with pants on and make up on. Look at the trouble it gets us into. Throw us a box of wheaties and we’re done for! We could be happily eating, humping and killing each other without worrying about what it all means, or how to achieve the ideal of maintaining youth until death, or aesthetic ideals that are very likely outside of our genetic potential. Throw in a poorly trained intellect (which has pretty weak potential to start with) and it’s just enough to makes us a danger to ourselves and others.
Great post Matt. It’s best we don’t forget that our fearless leader is a recovering health tweaker/ info junky that regularly flirts with his addiction to bring us the wisdom of experience.
Thanks Matt, so from that article I gather your not into multivitamins? I take a mega B for stress etc but I do have a lurking suspicion that I may not necessarily be doing myself any favours…..
I’m pretty neutral about multivites.
Shieeeettttt dawg Cap’n Crunch be my homeboy for life nomsayin’
So true! Whenever I read about how nutritious sweet potatoes are I have an itch to make them. When someone tells me how fun trail running is, I am more likely to lace up my shoes and run. It is usually a pretty subconscious thing, but recently I have been much more aware of it.
Oh good. I was starting to think it was just me. Of course, the decisions don’t end there. If you’ve recently been reading about HIIT you’ll run intervals on that trail run. If you’ve been reading about the Maffetone Method you’ll hardly break a sweat and actually end up hiking instead of running.
Yea, I think that’s just kind of the natural thing when you learn something new though. You delve into it, learn all about it, it’s new and awesome!! Then eventually it just becomes another little tool in the drawer and finally fits into perspective with everything else. Then another shiny new thing comes along :) Hopefully though, after several shiny new things you start to put them in perspective much faster than before ;)
I gotta have some wheaties now. I haven’t had them in YEARS and I want some so bad I cannot see straight. Thanks.
I totally recognise this! Both in myself (harder) and in my boyfriend (easy). That is the reason why I didn’t want to read much related to nutrition, weight loss, health etc. when I was trying to recover (from undereating and restricting a la paleo). It’s mentally exhausting to try not to jump any (maybe familiar) band wagon but to keep consistently doing something. Now that time has passed and I’m further in my process (in every way) it doesn’t affect me the same. Of course this is quite a ‘radical’ of an example, naturally that happens on a daily basis. But with recovery it came very apparent and includes doubting yourself which is mentally wearing.
But as for observing my boyfriend do it, it’s entertaining and amusing :D I can always tell when he’s been reading/listening/talking to someone and getting ideas about buying some sh*t (he likes his gadgets, supplements, apps etc.)! Also the more subtle cues are easier to spot in him… ;)
And then there was that recent post here trumpeting the vitamin de jour: vitamin K. Some people got excited about that in the comments section. Seems like there is always something new; a new protocol, super food, or vitamin that we just MUST embrace if we are to be healthy. After awhile, the new miracle loses its charm and then it’s on to something else to take its place. On and on it goes. Lot of money going down the drain. I fall for this often. I actually dug my vitamin K out from the dark corners of my cabinet, all charged up from the MUST have post. Then I remembered that I don’t digest vitamins very well and do much better with whole foods. So I tossed them in favor of butter :D
You’re right about the Wheaties Effect. We’re hard wired to be impressionable. It’s how we are born to learn. Most animals are this way. But these days, with so much information in your face (and much of it conflicting), it pays to step back and think about things a bit before jumping.
I’m glad you posted about this, though. After the vitamin K thing I was seriously thinking of unsubscribing. I’ve unsubscribed to all of the paleo fantasy and other “health” (haha) blogs that got me into so many health problems and I was hanging on to yours for a sense of normalcy. And the great jokes, of course.
I was irritated too after the Vit K guys – with all that kale and veggie talk, but especially after looking at their site and seeing they recommend calorie reduction for weight loss.
I do this. It usually stems from some quiet desperation to stop being what I imagine to be a sub-par version of myself. Read some reviews of a product online, make an impulse buy, stick with it for a week…then I forget all about it once I get onto more interesting things. The urge to discipline myself into taking some product or some specific exercise program that catches my interest isn’t usually strong unless I’m bored or down on some level. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…or put flax oil on it.
That said, sometimes getting yourself into a discipline or trying a new supplement or whatever can give you a feeling of doing something good for yourself- whether it really is or not- and can thereby provide you with the momentum needed to get out of a rut. Happens to me all the time. Like shit, what happened to that yoga routine I was slaving through and all those fucking detox teas I was taking? Oh yeah, after a few weeks of it I started feeling better so then I started enjoying myself and my life enough to not obsessively do yoga and drink detox teas. But they’ll be there when I get in a rut again, as is inevitable. Maybe next time it’ll be hiking and cold processed whey. Lymphatic massage and dark leafy greens. Martial arts and epsom salt baths. Whatever. It’s cool, I’m learning as I go along and am building a veritable medicine cabinet of protocols in my brain to select from when I feel like shit again!
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?or put flax oil on it.”
ha ha, nice one Julia
Dang, that reminds me that I really need an epsom salt bath (and to do some foam rolling)
With me, I take something for a while and feel great, then it runs out. I make a note to get some more, but only get around to it a long time later when I realize that I’ve over-stressed my body and neglected to support it with the right herbs & supplements. Then I have to do pretty much nothing for a week, sleep as much as possible and take adrenal support herbs to get my get-up-and-go back online. In fact, I’m right in the middle of one of those phases now, and am waiting on a couple key supplements to arrive. I think I’ll go take a nap now.
so these fads make us feel like we’re fickle or suggestible or impulsive but maybe there is something going on to do with cycles that may or may not be clear enough for us to be aware of? Perhaps it’s adrenal hormones masquerading as hope/ optimism/ energy for a few weeks before crashing. Or estrogen/progesterone ditto? It’s rational to keep doing something that seems to help and then dropping it when it incomprehensibly stops working, but it doesn’t really teach you anything. It’d be so much better to get to the bottom of the cycles. I wish I could! So far I do know that the same foods that work for me in a good. patch might disagree totally inr bad one.
Thank you for this post Matt. It helped me reaffirm my faith that you are not trying to sell 180 degree health with a shiny pair of six pack abs like so many other sites do. When I read the cold member post I couldn’t help but have flashbacks of Freelee running around in a mid riff shirt with an annoying amount of energy talking about how great eating twenty pounds of fruit a day is, or Mark Sisson with his ripped bod. Or anyone of the other knuckleheads out there that seem to be in a perpetual ripped body contest with each other. I even remember some of these people poking fun at you personally and showing pictures of your (gasp) protruding belly. I believe the comment was something like,” what the hell is Matt Stone doing over there, he is obviously doing something wrong because you can see his belly). And that my friends is the industry that is Internet health blogging, health is judged on the rippedness (I know that’s not a word) of your body. Never mind that listening to those assholes got a lot of us in trouble in the first place. In defense of Coldmember, he is a unique person with a unique set of needs. He was approaching things with a bodybuilder mentality. Lifting some weights is a good thing. Intense scheduled weight training, not so good if your not really into it and just trying to imitate someone else so that you can have their body. Same with the diet. Some gelatin is a good thing. I recommend everyone try to squeeze some into there diet. It provides certain amino acids that you just don’t get from meat alone. Choking down tons of Milk, O.j. , potatoes and gelatin, because some twenty five year old who has a penchant for bodybuilding does it and not enjoying it while your doing it is just plain ridiculous. That said Coldmember did provide an interesting path to his end result and some people on here may want to try their own version of that because that’s what they are into. Just like the the vitamin K guys had some interesting info in there article that made me think, because of my long history of Vitamin D supplementation and the damage that could do without some K to help . Needless to say though I didn’t go scouring the Internet for supplements immediately afterwards. I will however try to be a little more conscious of fitting in a few K related foods when it’s easy and feels good to eat them. So Matt keep the articles coming. I don’t mind the smorgasbord style of your site at all. And people lets not try to take anything here to god awful seriously. I do admit though I did take a couple of second looks at my Great Lakes gelatin after seeing the women ogling Coldmembers bod. Hey I’m only human right ; )
Jdubs, if it makes you feel any better, not all women are into the super-ripped look. I definitely am not! :)
Eating too many potatoes fried in coconut oil with “money spice” when I first found 180 :P
Yes! I was reading this health blog and it was just like you described, you know, the wheaties effect thing. The power of suggestion and all that, in full effect.
All these peeps were taking their temperatures every morning and if they were below a certain number, they were broken. And I’m not talking about a broken thermometer, bro, more like a broken metabolism!
And anyone not eating a certain amount of calories (world health organization minimum calorie amount or something like that) had an eating disorder.
Trying to lose weight? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Weight loss was Rated R. And in this case that doesn”t mean seeing a good movie, the R means RESTRICTION! And no one likes being on restriction.
Hahah …. Couldn’t help myself! Big love to the 180.
XD
Maca powder. BARF
I think this is why it’s so important to be in touch with your own body. I do a bunch of stuff that is not 180-friendly, but I know it works for me. The fact that this site is so open-minded is great in many ways, but it also means that it’s prone to people jumping on a bunch of new bandwagons as they come along.
omg first!!!
This reminded me of my advertising days when we were creating Wendy’s ads and Morningstar Farms, etc. You never sell the product, but what you will gain– happiness, health, good looks, fun… basically empty promises. I think its easy to get drawn into doing something that someone else does because you covet something they possess that you don’t, because you think it will bring something to your life that you feel is lacking. Maybe its nothing to do with the food or supplements? Maybe you can’t attract the right girl because you’re not that charming or you wear gym clothes all the time and look like an air head. We always want what we don’t have. I think that some of the health info on here is life changing– my family has a history of thyroid problems but no one has ever put it all together. I’m indebted to Matt for what I know about this now. But I’m not going to try to be like him or anyone else on here. I want to feel good so I can do other things with my time, instead of worry about what I look like or what the latest health craze is. Worrying about the number on the scale or if you can see a six-pack is unattractive. I think when you reach your 40’s, you realize that you’ve spent too much time worrying about the wrong things and obtaining the wrong things. Relationships with others is more important… that’s what always seems to be what centenarians talk about. They never say that they ate “x,y,z” supplements, worked out like a gym rat and had hard core abs. They talk about enjoying life and their families and friends. That’s something I want!
THIS!!!! Applies to so many things in our lives!
“I think when you reach your 40’s, you realize that you’ve spent too much time worrying about the wrong things and obtaining the wrong things.”
A tablespoon of gelatin at night really helps me sleeps!
Um…. this! This website and way of thinking about food… I only found out about it today.
i must admit i got out the gelatin too after that article! yes, i am suggestible i freely admit that!
i don’t see anything wrong with trying to heal yourself with a superfood such as gelatin if you a. desire that food and b. see a logical need for the food.
intuitively speaking i adore meat juices, soups, gravies etc. and i make them from scratch from broth weekly. yummy.
despite my home-cooking with broth, i sometimes get creaky in the joints (this 50-year-old homesteader, carrying heavy buckets of water to the chickens, loads of wood into the house, pitchforking up potatoes, bending at the waist to weed) (ha, i probably look much like the 25 year-old across the shoulders in the back!) hubby also gets creaky.
not only that hubby has some gut issues. so a little gelatin in our orange juice… seems logical.
at least until i get “the ick” on it. don’t know if this is a real thing, but sometimes i’ll take a supp or super food for a while and then just want to drop it like a hot potato.
I always thought we were supposed to get more gelatin in our diet. My basic conglomerated understanding from Matt Stone and other sources is as such: traditional cultures did not eat so much muscle meat. They used a lot more of the rest of the animal. This provides things like collagen and gelatin, which our bodies need.
I’m not really sure how to incorporate this into the diet seeing how rendering whole chickens and making broths is not my thing. When I read Coldmember’s recommendation I was like yeah, that makes sense and sounds a lot easier… maybe I should do that.
Anyone have stomach issues with Great Lakes Gelatin? I was going to use some as an easy morning protein as well as a way to to balance out years of Paleo overconsumption of muscle meat. I assume it should not “bind” you up since the stomach should break it down, but i have a few issues the first two times i used it. Might have been something else and i’m just creating a causitive effect.
I think it’s our biological imperative to make us want to fit into the tribe. So if the fashion of the day is Rubenesque or Anorexic, many women are going for that look. Same with men: ripped, or Mad Men… (not exactly opposites- but all I could come up with).
That’s why ad agencies make tons of money- selling “sexy” to those who want it, but don’t feel like they have it.
The healthiest people who live the longest are: those who have community, love (even in the agape sense), and don’t spend time focused on the YOUniverse of themselves. They find a larger purpose than looking inwards.
Is it easy to ignore the newest miracle diet? Probably, if you’ve never started on the slippery slope to dieting, and don’t have these issues, you can ignore it. But once you are dissatisfied with your body, and believe that you need to change it, you’re going to notice these ads, posts, recommendations, and anything else that you think will help you achieve Nirvana by changing your body.
And then you find, despite a perfect body, there’s always something else that needs to change to achieve REAL Nirvana…
I’m not saying that aging gives you the wisdom to get over it; but it helps many people, when they realize that there’s less time to do the important work- and that important purpose in life is not about fighting gravity.
just saying….
i just wanted to say that i take care of a 98 year-old woman who i have known my whole life. she does not fit your description at all. she is a loner, she has always been self centered, and she is not really a nice person.
she had a very good, old world start. she had very little stress in her life, and she has always gotten everything she wanted including eating whatever she desired. her husband died at 63, but she has lived on for 35 more years. he was a loving, warm, outgoing person…
only the good die young!
I don’t like using always or never, but….. there are almost ALWAYS exceptions to any rules. : )
“The healthiest people who live the longest are…”
I was wondering if you just made that up Lianda.
???
i think the fact that there is an old saw: “only the good die young” means other people besides me have noticed this!
another lifelong aquaintance lived to be 93, as a male pretty darn good. he wasn’t really that much into good works. he was kind of cranky. he did give blood. (and thereby lowered his iron?) and he wasn’t half as loving as the old guy i knew who died at 63. oh, and he hated salad and loved red wine.
when growing up, one of my friend’s mom died young. i was surprised she wasn’t sainted. she was that good.
i really don’t know about your premise whether it is true or not. i know– i’ve seen the articles too– but maybe they are just lazy writing?
doing good works gives you health benefits, i’ll give you that. but being self-sacrificing can also be stressful.
Well, there you have it! STRESS. Psychopaths and sociopaths don’t stress about what they are doing! They enjoy manipulating and hurting others!
The statistics do bear out- happier people live longer.. But if they’re stressed about helping others, all bets are off!
The point wasn’t that all centenarians are good people… it was that many of them, when questioned, do not give a long laundry list of fanatical health practices. And many do things that we tend to be scared of! (Though I’m not tempting fate on something like smoking… that bit my stepfather in the butt very badly) I’m just saying that there is no answer to what makes someone live a long life. And I’ve noticed many happy older people have good relationships with people in their lives, which is really common sense. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow… we should try to balance being healthy with enjoyment too.
yes, i think it is like this:
volunteer a few times a year at the soup kitchen= health benefit.
quit job and run soup kitchen 365 days a year and live on cot in back=health detriment
I guess you never heard of Mother Teresa.
87 is pretty old! i will say that nuns, preists, monks etc don’t exactly have the same stresses as other lay people, (hey, you can just start with the females don’t give birth which is a huge drain) but it may not go over that well in the case of mother theresa.
i personally don’t know any people who were truly self-sacrificing who lived that long.
like the 98 year-old’s husband who worked 10 hour days, six days a week to take care of his family and died at 63.
i think that generally the truly self-sacrificing leave it all on the field and don’t live that long–much like marathon runners. some of them die at twenty for their country, for example.
the very old people i have known have had an aspect of self-preservationism.
another example–i knew a woman that lived to 93. she was a sweet and un-complaining, moderately hard working, poor woman (who loved ice cream). if you needed help she would always say a rosary for you. no one ever died saying a rosary.
My grandma’s 93. I remember going to her husband’s wake in 1992 — he was in his 70’s. She’s been living alone ever since then.
Still works one day a week at the library, still drives. She had both knees replaced and was out of the hospital and walking again in two weeks.
Her mom died when she was 3 or so years old, then her dad married someone and there were apparently a lot of problems that came from that, so when she was 10 years old she moved out to go live with her aunt and uncle on a farm. I’m pretty sure her aunt was Lithuanian and had a couple kids that didn’t speak any English and they would always blame everything on her. She worked and ate like a man. She said that she was really embarrassed about how she’d smell sometimes because when you’re making sausages the stink from the intestines stays on your hands no matter how much you wash them.
Every time I talk to her she’s sharp as a tack. She hasn’t slowed down at all. She’s more quick witted and has a better sense of humor than most people I know who are a half or quarter of her age. I wish everyone could meet her. People at the library never believe her when she tells them how old she is.
My other grandpa died last year in his early 90’s and that was after a 2 year period of going completely downhill into severe dementia (he didn’t know who anyone was, was hallucinating about things from when he was in WWII, speaking in word salads, etc.). He was one of the nicest people I’ve ever known in my life and up until those last two years he never had any health problems. I did notice signs that he was slipping away before things went completely downhill, but for the most part he was physically and mentally very healthy for probably 98% of his life.
Why? Who knows. Matt’s article on Stress vs. The Stress Response is very good and probably the closest thing I’ve read to answering that question.
I was born premature and C-section with one kidney, Horner’s Syndrome, thumb hypoplasia on my left hand, scoliosis and the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, spent the first few days of my life in an incubator at the hospital, and was abused and emotionally neglected growing up. The rest of my life has generally been filled with extreme amounts of stress on a regular basis.
I’ve found a lot of things that help though, like reading about nutrition on sites like this, meditation and EFT. I’ve had a very hard life, but I’m still really young and I try to have hope that my life can get better. I can literally feel a shift in my energy levels as soon as I take on that mindset.
And at the same time, I try to imagine that I might die today, and that I have to come to terms with the life I’ve lived. I don’t want to keep avoiding opportunities or give up on the dream of having a normal life where I can support myself and have a girlfriend and intimacy and interaction with friends on a regular basis…
…but at the same time, even where I am now, I’ve made immeasurable amounts of progress considering where I started. And I feel really good about that. So when I think of the idea that I might die today, I try to think about what I’ve learned in my life. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is the importance of loving and accepting myself, and not even considering actually having an enjoyable life, simply realizing that I *deserve* to have an enjoyable life — that it’s okay for me to feel good and that it’s okay for me to want to be alive.
I had a dream the morning my grandpa died, before anyone told me anything — and I hadn’t heard anything about him in a month or two. It was brief. All he said was, “Enjoy your life. It’s the only one you’ve got.” Then a few minutes after I woke up my dad walked in and told me my grandpa had died at home.
No one knows when anyone’s going to die, but as for me, I think it’s worth every effort to learn about how to increase everyone’s quality of life for however long they’re going to be on earth. That’s why I’m such a big fan of the importance of nutrition research and blogs with authors like Matt and the other contributing authors here, as well as things like psychology and spirituality.
i read your story with great interest. good luck to you jib!
i think many people are very unwell these days! here’s an old saw for you: “in the land of the blind, the one eye’d man is king”.
my best guess is: you are going to be way better off than lots of others.
Jib,
I always enjoy your posts because I usually learn something in each one. I can sense an overall lifting of spirit lately. I am probably at least twice your age, but the things I’m learning from you and am applying in my life have been gamechangers.
Also, I just wanted to add that I’m a professional book editor, and I get paid to edit professional writers whose writing doesn’t compare to yours. Your posts are really well-written and captivating. I would encourage you to perhaps channel your healing into some sort of journal, if not for other people, but perhaps for your future self to see how far you’ve come.
Take good care,
Lanie
I have a blog, which I think of as a giant disorganized mess, but which was also inspired by the work of an author from the 1800’s that I found back when I was in high school. He never intended to have any of his work published, but someone published it. My inspiration came from how much his writing helped me, and the thought that there was no way that he could’ve known that over 150 years in the future someone like me would find solace in his writing.
Part of me thinks I’m just too scatterbrained and disorganized to actually write a book. But another part of me likes writing about my experiences and thoughts as they come to me and in near complete obscurity while still making them publicly available, because it makes it a lot easier for me to be authentic. Reading anyone else’s writing that reflected the deep and private feelings I was having helped me a lot, and I think that encouraged me to start writing the way I do now.
All I’m doing is expressing my feelings and thoughts, and I forget a lot of times that other people might find value in that — especially considering how most of my life I’ve felt like I don’t have a right to express my feelings and thoughts and tend to undervalue myself.
Thanks a lot for your comment and the encouragement. I appreciate it more than I can say. And sorry if I went into TMI territory — I can’t help myself. Trust me, I’ve tried xD
Thanks for reading and for the kind words, I appreciate it :)
I think it is human have to tendency to believe that if we mimic someone else, then we will also be more like them. We also have the countering “I don’t care, I’m not doing that tendency”. I guess the trick is to use them intelligently, disregarding peer pressure, “It must be ok if ‘everyone’ is doing it.”
An example of one of my “I don’t care, I’m not doing that” tendendcies was when I saw someone about an alternative treatment. After the treatment, it was strongly suggested that I would benefit from herbs that had been prepared for me. It was the first I had heard of it and I politely declined. Pressure was put on me and I declined taking the packet, stating that I knew that I knew myself and thus I knew that no matter how well intentioned, I would not take them. The woman was offended, but too bad. She should not have put pressure on me and I will not sacrifice my relaxing tea time. Besides, unknown herbs may react badly with me, so I think that I was right in this instance.
Sorry about my sticky keyboard.
I take:
-3-8 tablespoons (18-48g) of collagen hydrolysate daily
-thyroid glandular
-the fat soluble vitamins A, D3 (in the winter), E and K2
-L-methylfolate, methylcobalamin and P-5-P (started after being diagnosed with a compound heterozygous mutation of the MTHFR gene — C677T and A1298C)
-rhodiola rosea (after reading about seraphos — another adaptogen — being used in combination with a saliva cortisol test to treat PTSD, as well as a double blind study showing that rhodiola significantly reduced serum levels of cortisol in participants)*
-Ionic mineral drops and small amounts of magnesium glycinate
-Epsom salt + baking soda baths (2 cups Epsom salts, 1 cup baking soda, 1/2 tsp vitamin C to neutralize any chlorine/chloramine) at least a few times a week, more if I’m particularly stressed out
Some lifestyle changes include squatting in the bathroom, nasal breathing and proper oral posture, taping my mouth with durable cloth medical tape at night to make sure it stays closed, sleeping on the floor, switching to magnesium oil from fluoridated toothpaste, using soap-free shower gels and showering a lot less (and actually smelling more neutral than I used to), getting some good cookware (bit the bullet and got a Silit frying pan, and am really happy I did), quitting porn, and meditating and exercising on a regular basis.
*http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19016404
The Wheaties Effect is definitely real, but people can also have an irrationally extreme skepticism of supplements and lifestyle and dietary changes. They really can have tremendous benefits. I notice a mainstream bias against supplements and dietary changes and people thinking it’s all bullshit, which is just at the opposite end of the spectrum as the Wheaties Effect.
As usual, discretion, patience, and realistic expectations come out in first place.
I always say the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
I think the difference between The Wheaties Effect and listening to your body lies in “should” vs. “want”. You saw the gelatin and thought, “i should eat more of that”. If, instead, your first thought at seeing the gelatin was “oooh, I really want some of that”, then maybe your bay really needs it.
*body* not bay.
I am the biggest sucker when it comes to the Wheaties Effect (although I’m getting better). Just this week I saw an interview with Miranda Kerr where she was singing the praises of Noni Juice. I went so far as to search for it online, with the intention of buying some. Then I saw the price tag, which snapped me right out of my state of gullibility.
If the price of noni doesn’t get you, the horrendous taste certainly will.
Excuse me – the NEW thing is industrial food, not the old -new, new old thing….whatever?!! I now believe simply: eat like your great-grandmother did.
I didn’t know where to share this, so i am going to do it here.
It is a refutation of what paleo people say about ancestral diet, and particularly the almighty spartans. People tend to think spartans gorged themselves on meat and “black broth”, whereas in reality their nutrition was based primarily on carbs.
That being said, the original diet of greek athletes was based on carbs too although it is true that it became a meat diet later.
But what i think is relevant is what Dr Galen said about the diet of greek athlete.
Galen (ca. 180 AD) accused athletes of his day of “always gorging themselved on flesh and blood”.
According to him an all meat diet leads to the thickening of the skin, the reduction of the inner heat produced by the body, and eventually to the death of the athlete.
I may interpret it with a biased view, but it seems to me that he was observing that what we can call today a “Paleo” diet was shutting down the metabolism.
Pretty funny it had been noticed such a long time ago.