Food change

Had always known and followed the conventional food style of Tamil Nadu since my birth. It includes three meals a day, which is the typical breakfast, lunch and dinner routine. Breakfast includes something like Idli or Chapathi or Dosa or sometimes boiled rice with a measly amount of side dish/curry. Lunch is usually lots of rice and so is the dinner. Meat was usually served only during the weekends or festival days. Oil and fat were indiscriminately considered unhealthy. Due to its excessive presence, my boredom and hate for rice grew each day. Following the above routine with confusion around what a balanced diet is, I kept on living my life until 2018, when I accidentally discovered a YouTube video that talked about how ketones could improve brain functions. I would have brushed it off as any other video but the prospect of having an active mind to further improve my creative freedom was tempting. That’s when I found the world of food style which includes fat, proteins and a lot of veggies. In Tamil Nadu, afaik, the word ‘diet’ equals weight loss and body shredding. The funny thing is that the word diet doesn’t mean anything close to weight loss. It just represents a course of food eaten by people. By that definition, even the conventional foods we eat in Tamil Nadu are a kind of diet. So when I say that the above-discovered food style, which is prevalently known as the ‘Ketogenic diet’, people might consider it as a weight loss technique and brush it off as not suitable for daily life.

NOTE: This blog is just a self-reminder for myself. Use it at your own risk.

Mind you, changing food style is an extremely risky move, especially when one also influences their family members like I did. It was around that time we heard some news about how the ‘Keto diet’ (another name for the ‘Ketogenic diet’) took the lives of a few celebrities who died due to kidney problems. Still, the more I read about it and the more I came to know about ‘Intermittent fasting’, which is usually combined with the Keto diet, the benefits seem to be enormous. However, I got these all from the YouTube videos posted by a doctor called Dr. Eric Berg with the ‘Doctor of Chiropractic degree’ (Check that out!).

Nonetheless, we saw some common mild problems often affecting us like sleepy-laziness, easy-to-catch colds, unaccessed fats, joint pains, headaches, body aches, improper sleeping/wakeup, digestion issues and stuff like that, especially my parents (It is similar to that mild unchecked vibration and rusting bolts in our motorbike that we simply ignore. Should we?). We knew (intuition/gut feeling/looking around) that the current food/lifestyle was heading somewhere not good for us so we jumped ship. A big problem with jumping ships is reading and doing a lot of research. We had to drink a lot of lemon juice to take care of the kidney (electrolytes can go down a little faster in this diet and we have to drink a decent amount of water and stuff. Please do your research).

Suddenly the long-standing enmity between us and fat vanished, and now it was replaced by a caution against all types of high carbohydrate food (discount the fibers) such as milk, white sugar (that stuff was addictive), flour (almond flour is ok I guess), rice, potato and fruits. That was a nightmare for us at first as we kind of eliminated the majority of our food ingredients. So we turned our sights towards coconut oil (oh, and there is a whole list of oil we had to avoid, including non-cold pressed stuff), meat (non-GMO pasture-raised - I wonder where we can find such meat and eggs!), eggs, cabbage, cereals and pulses, etc. It was a major shift as it happened to us only once in our lifetime. My mom added apple cider vinegar (ACV) to the mix, which saved her from the insufferable knee, leg and other joint pains that she had to endure for more than 2 years (after a stupid fever). Avoiding toor dal and drinking a spoonful of ACV mixed with a warm cup of water a day did wonders for her. What impressed me was that she found it all by herself. Since then, ACV has been an important food ingredient in our lives.

Everything was great for the first year. We would only eat once a day and the body felt great. We couldn’t completely avoid rice or flour as we needed some sort of base to eat those delicious dishes (a lot of chicken and egg curries with a Chapathi or a small quantity of boiled rice, but I have learned to mostly discard these base stuff these days. Nonetheless, there is a roughly 50-gram limit on Carbohydrates consumed per day and one’s mileage can vary based on stuff such as their body’s ability and the type/parameters of Carbs like the glycemic index, bioavailability (I guess), its ability to trigger insulin and stuff like that). We also ate a lot of powdered nuts, especially ground nuts. But slowly we realized something wasn’t right. Only after almost 5 years, we discovered that our vegetable portion was way less than the recommended quantity. Almost 200 to 250 grams of green leafy stuff should be ingested daily per person but have you tried eating that much veggies? It is a pain in the mouth to eat, and a pain in the mind to plan and cook! That’s when I discovered smoothies. You just put the veggies such as spinach, salad, beans, broad beans, ginger (5-10 grams), lemon (half or full), coriander leaves, curry leaves and mint leaves, and blend it. Chugging a cup or two down is a pain so I water it down a bit and drink it with some nuts and pickle aside. Adding a bit of salt to the smoothie can also help. It is a life-changing experience for us. It looks like all the oil/fat we were eating is now easily converted and accessed by the cells in the body for energy, thanks to the micronutrients in the veggies. One disadvantage when blending veggies is that they should be consumed as soon as possible (no storing them overnight in the fridge), as they can oxidize fast (or something like that), changing the nutrient content. Another is that we have to go shopping every few days in the hunt for fresh veggies (or that can be grown by oneself if space allows).

But it is better than cooking as cooking can sometimes significantly alter the nutrient content of veggies negatively, and it is a pain to cook and eat. Even a lot of Ayurveda people suggest to eat raw veggies. It only takes 10 to 15 minutes to blend and drink the veggies (Don’t breathe or taste it and drink like my father does!). But my mom recommends rinsing, soaking the veggies (no chopping) in salt, ACV and turmeric solution for 15 minutes and rinsing again before blending it to get rid of the unnecessary stuff (I have no clue how effective that is but it doesn’t hurt to do it). Hence, now the process takes 30 minutes. So I soak it before brushing, drinking ACV with water and doing dishes in the morning and then proceed with the smoothie-making process. I don’t filter the smoothie as the non-liquid part contains a lot of fibres which is very good for digestion. Sometimes I also eat Avacados, since I arrived in Belgium.

Sometimes we also drink Kefir or Buttermilk to top up the gut microbiota. Protein is important too, especially for the ones that exercise to gain muscles. Usually, meat about the size of one’s palm is ok to consume per day. We also take protein in other forms such as eggs and nuts. Too much protein can have an effect similar to eating too much carbohydrates so moderation is the key. All that said, we don’t strictly follow the Keto diet. But we are ardent about intermittent fasting as it seems to give the body the time it requires to heal various parts from the daily wear and tear and this is said to happen only when no digestion happens. Or at least that’s my understanding (This video could be a good intro). So snacking is strictly forbidden. Whatever one needs to eat, eat within an 8-hour window, which starts from the first meal of the day. Sometimes I have to go out for research and have to stay in hotels where I can’t follow keto + intermittent diet. When I get back, it’s a real pain to get the food style back. I can handle the stomach hunger properly but the tongue hunger (I am just using the words to describe my feeling here) is a pain to control. So I heat the water and mix it with bio-labeled butter to drink it whenever I feel like it (usually only once a day). For some reason, that seems to get me back on track after a few days of fight. Processed food is also forbidden (bye burgers, chips and Oreos) and I often substitute fruits with berries.

NOTE: Eating a lot of spicy food (in my case, taking more than a quarter spoonful of chlli powder while cooking per day) in relatively cold countries like Belgium (compared to India) can sometimes cause skin irritation and blisters. I had to find it the hard way. Also I tried putting the thermostat to 17°C but it was and wan’t funny (at the sametime) to find my toes all turned purple in the morning. So I keep it at 18°C and above during winter with sox to be safe. Your mileage might vary.

To analogize, the fat I consume is similar to what the optimal research octane number (RON) petrol is for a motorbike while veggies are like what oil, additives, tire pressure, optimally sagged shocks and battery charge (and a few more of them that I am yet to discover) are for the motorbike - it just elevates the bike ride experience and bike’s lifetime to a whole new level. Proteins aid in growing fairings on a naked street bike (yuck for me! Sorry faired version enthusiasts) or maintaining the paint job and the muscular looks of a naked street bike (that’s more like it!). With all of them combined, you get a top-performing KTM, Street Tripple or MT (Feel free to substitute your dream bike here! Huuuh! Some day soon …) If you are expecting overnight magic with this food style, it is similar to expecting to beat Valentino Rossi within a day of your first-ever bike ride experience. Feels like an empty-headed expectation if you ask me.

Lifestyle rant of sorts

Racing and life/food style improvements are long-term games, where the time is often measured in months and years. And I have yet to hear of a human who graduated from schools and colleges in a day. Patience! Things take time. Enjoy the process while moving steadfastly toward the destination! It is a way more fun and painful experience rather than a boring one! And no, I don’t think painless life is interesting as my brain is fast to adapt to the new fun levels as the norm and therefore it’s not fun anymore - that’s painful. Dopamine optimization is a big topic in itself! Please do your research. And the pain here is not a physical one. This whole idea is a prototype and I am working on it.

Toothpaste

Another thing that we put in our mouths but don’t try to swallow is toothpaste. Nonetheless, a fraction of it can enter our digestive system and can upset our body (Fluorides aren’t exactly healthy you know). It’s a definite risk. So I use a recipe provided by this online doctor (How sketchy does that sound! Lol!) for brushing my mouth and getting rid of that slippery gunk or plaque. It uses coconut oil : baking soda : 3% hydrogen peroxide (not 100% hydrogen peroxide) in a 4:2:1 ratio, as shown here. Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda might sound sketchy but it turns out my saliva and body already have them, of sorts. I just make half a spoonful of this toothpaste every morning to brush my teeth. At night, I just brush with no toothpaste (I just find it convenient and I am not claiming to have some science behind this nighttime brushing). And I avoid sugar like the plague (or plaque - lol!).

When my eye aches

I do the eye exercises shown here, often during the day and with my fingers soaked in castor or sesame oil before dozing off. Also, I try to follow the 20-20-20 rule but face a lot of failures. I have to change that slacking attitude I guess.

Meditation

The idea is to have a sound mind (sharp and present) and body (healthy strong). For meditation, I start by sitting in an upright posture, legs crossed, breathing slowly, closing my eyes and focusing on the sound for three breaths, then the air around my body/skin of my body for the next three breaths, the breathing itself for the next three breaths, and finally I focus on my heart beat as much as possible. During these meditation maneuvers, if thoughts keep on flooding, I just let it flow. After many attempts to stop them, I noticed that all those thoughts were some form of unprocessed observation of sorts from the past. As long as I don’t create new thoughts (by kinda disconnecting from my senses, roughly speaking), I usually run out of these thoughts sooner. Sometimes it takes a few minutes and sometimes it takes a few hours (in which case I try to spread it across multiple days). This seems to clear my RAM (I have no clue which part of my brain acts like that), and makes me feel light in my head and ready. These thoughts are often surprising in my case as to how minute and nuanced some of my observations were. Try it. Who knows, it might be like watching a film about oneself which, one has never seen before, which I kinda enjoy sometimes. And then there is this focusing and unfocusing part that I try to do. It involves focusing on just one thing like an imagination or sound or a finger touch (often this) for a while and suddenly shifting my focus to another part. It helps me context switch better in real life (Again, sorry for the CS terms). Oftentimes I make this experience harder on myself by trying to not think about anything other than the one I am focusing on. But nowadays I find it easy to just focus on what I want if I don’t disturb the flow of thoughts. It’s just that I don’t even mind the flow of thoughts when I focus. I don’t know how else to explain it (there seems to be huge a difference between this and actively trying to not think about other stuff).

Exercise

As far as exercise goes, I am in no rush to get shredded. So I prefer starting with warm-ups from head to toe, followed by pushups for the upper body, toe touches for the abdomen and stuff, and sit-ups for the parts below the abdomen. For my flexibility, I try touching my knees with my head/nose while sitting and standing, Chakrasana and some other stuff that I don’t know the name of (it’s like the Japanese way of sitting, but I also lie back post the sit). Some karate poses too. Hoorah!

Breathing

For breathing, I kinda try to breathe with my belly (I force my belly to push outwards as I breathe in and hold longer. My chest usually remains less affected) and follow 4 types of breathing exercises in the morning (I try to do it every day but …) like in a youtube video I saw long back to which I have no reference.

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