Three things you probably already knew about health: Three other diet habits that I stick to (most of the time): Other thoughts: What works for me:  Appendices: Tracking health data: My supplement stack: My veggie drinks Mushrooms My healthy snacks My exercise shake Notes on eating things In-Order: Sleeping: After a year of effort: A note about alcohol, the zombie apocalypse of health: More notes on drugs: A note about Exercise Hygiene: A Note about Sit/Stand/Move Ratio when at a desk: Floor-to-stand desks:

 

This page contains a few notes-to-self about staying healthy.  I refer to it once in a while.  Hope you find something useful here.

 

When I left my last job as a manager, I was pretty unhealthy.  I had gained a lot of weight.  I was getting sick a few times a year, and my knees hurt after just a short walk, every time I walked (which was nuts because I have always walked everywhere)

 

I began to study health online as a form of procrastination.  Countless hours on youtube and reddit were logged.  What I learned boils down to...

 

Three things you probably already knew about health:

 

1) Eat mostly veggies, drink mostly water, and eat meat sparingly.  I try to eat as little food containing processed white products (pasta, white bread, and products containing sugar) as possible.  Eliminating processed white junk, and drinking more water, was a game changer for me.  I did have to get used to telling others that this was my goal, and refusing a lot of offers of food.  I can't do it 100% of the time.  Almost everyone who knows what they are talking about will recommend that you eat a whole vegan diet if you want to live a long life, but I can't seem to commit to that diet, yet.  (Quick note for meat-eaters like me: There is some evidence that eating garlic with your meat will reduce the DNA damage from carcinogens in the meat - yum!.) (Update on my personal diet: After living on a farm for a while, my wife and I no longer eat mammals, who are mostly non-combatants - we still eat some birds and some fish, however.)

 

2) Do some form of exercise every day.   "Greasing the gaps" in my schedule with stretching and movement during my breaks is probably my most important form of exercise.  In addition to that, moderate weights and/or interval training and/or yoga a few days a week seems to be enough for me at this stage in my life, to keep me healthy.  My philosophy is that I will take anything I can get in this department - even if I just get a few minutes of exercise in, it is way better than nothing.  If you want to avoid joint problems and keep mobility into old age, then you should learn to regularly test the mobility of each of your joints, move through their range, and stretch and/or foam-roll any tight muscles that might restrict healthy joint mobility.  A healthy pattern of movement in your work environment is a huge win as well (see sit/stand/move ratio, below).  Also: The best desks on the planet.

 

3) Reduce stress and get more sleep.  This is not easy or even possible for many people (if you have a kid like I do now, yeah, -skip-) - big trade-offs to be made here.  

 

I do a decent job of applying those three lessons in my daily life.  Not a perfect job, but I never lose sight of the goals.

 

There are positive knock on effects of studying this stuff - knowing how to get better sleep, have higher energy, deal with certain injuries, a little biochemistry - these were all a bonus - studying this stuff is fun - also, it might make me live longer than the amount of time I spent studying it - lifelong study on this topic is a clear win.

 

Three other diet habits that I stick to (most of the time):

 

Common Knowledge: Eat lots of fibre.  My favorite method is a morning bowl of oatmeal.  There is a strong correlation between low cholesterol and a diet high in fibre.  Oatmeal can be enhanced with nuts and berries and gives me a ton of energy - especially combined with a veggie/berry shake - I don't need lunch.

 

Totally not controversial: I eat a lot of veggies.  Specifically, for me, I eitherdrink a veggie/berry shake almost every morning (or for lunch) to make sure I get my fibre and some other nutrients - lots of doctors are recommending that these days - OR - I eat a really big salad at least once a day, often with some other protein in it.  Those are the easiest ways for me to get my veggies.  If I miss it in the morning, I try to make it up later.  Part of the reason to eat berries is for the polyphenols - a high polyphenol diet is delicious as heck - just read this list and you will have a good list of foods high in polyphenols.  If your veggie shake has avocado in it, then you will uptake vitamins better, and the fat may keep you going longer.

 

Somewhat Controversial: I have a supplement stack that I believe in (a little), and I reorder when I get low.  I spend about four bucks a day on supplements, and way, way more on food than I used to.  Well, less than four bucks  on the supplements because I miss taking the supplements at least twice a week.  WARNING: The research on supplements is changing day by day - it is impossible to recommend dietary supplements with confidence.  

 

Other thoughts:

 

What works for me: 

 

In short: Preventative care is the best value in health care.

 

1) This is pretty meta, but making a habit of studying healthy habits is important.  If you are lucky like I was, you get a wake up call (like not being able to walk pain-free for more than a dozen yards) and follow that up with a long period of study and heavy investment into solutions.  If you want to see who motivates me, check out Dr. Greger, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Dr. Kelley Starret and Dr. Paul Stammets on youtube.

 

2) Talking to other people about health online and IRL was a big help, too.  I found out, for instance, how to lower my health insurance costs (when in the US) by two thirds using a health care sharing ministry instead of a big insurance company (HCSM).   There are reasons you might not want to use one (HCSMs don't have to cover what they don't believe in), so check them out first, but you should know about them.  Maybe someone should start an all inclusive religion that believes that anything that works to make you healthy is good, and an associated HCSM on the blockchain.  In New Zealand, costs are already that low - you just supplement public insurance with private health care and end up in the same spot.

 

3) I think that financial prioritization of preventative health care over every other financial goal is important.  I get that I have more resources than most, so I can do more.  Do what you can.  Having healthy organic food, exercise equipment, and supplementation around changes the way I think.  All that stuff visually keeps health front and center, as well as providing a major financial punishment for failing to use those resources.  That said, I spend way more money than I need to.  I could make do with simple foods, no supplements, and no equipment for exercise - but the psychology of having this equipment and supplements appears to be helping.

 

Appendices:

 

Tracking health data:

 

I take notes on paper and in google sheets on occasion.  I have a plan to fix that, though:

 

1) Get my medical records digitized using something like this: https://www.mychart.com/

2) Experiment with and settle on some sleep and health tracking tools (using 8 sleep and Oura rings - both are helpful and worth it so far!)

3) Upload yearly blood test results from labcorp or other orgs into mychart (if that works)

4) I went through a Zoe trial, and they are analyzing my gut biome and I wore a blood glucose sensor for a week - in short - don't eat more carbs than you need to if you want to have energy.  Wearing a blood glucose monitor for a week is interesting - you get to see which foods really crash your energy (not necessarily the same set that crashes mine)

 

I've given up tracking diet and exercise formally.  It takes enough willpower and energy to keep from eating bad things - so I keep track of what I can in my head, document exercise programs on my whiteboard, and try to make it FUN to eat well and exercise - no apps - no spreadsheets

 

My supplement stack:

 

WARNINGS: The research on supplements is changing day by day - it is impossible to recommend dietary supplements with confidence.  I just switched out fish oil for blue-green algae, which coincides with a change in literary consensus.  Take that with a grain of salt, because the consensus on supplementation is usually very weak.  

 

TESTING: You might want to look into reviews with lab tests on supplements: you can find supplement tests at https://www.consumerlab.com/ and https://labdoor.com/.  Of course, testing your own vitamin levels or doing other blood work before or after dosing with vitamin supplements is something you might do if you think there is a problem.

 

TIMING: Taking all your vitamins together is going to make it hard for your body to uptake them.  D, K, and E are fat soluble, so maybe take those with a fatty food.  Taking vitamins after a fatty dinner might help them dissolve into the food and provide better uptake.  Here's an article on that.

 

Every day (all in capsule form):

 

* Magnesium, D3, Calcium, and K (all in one pill - but I run out of this a lot) [NOW cal-mag dk]

* Extra 5000mg D3 pill (for a total of up to 8K mg per day of D3 - and I miss days)  [Bronson Organic 5000IU/125MCG D3]

* Blue-green algae (500mg) or a fish oil pill (both can have contaminants and scary stuff in them, so get lab test reports first!) [Kirkland wild alaskan Fish oil 1400 mg]

 

Less than once a day (experimental stuff - but I'm convinced that some research supports it and this stack correlates positively with feeling great for me):

 

* I take NMN now that I'm in New Zealand - for whatever reason I couldn't find a good supplement (500mg a day, when I take it)

* B complex including B-12 (once a week - if I can - need to get a blood test once in a while for B levels) [Bragg True Energy ACV + 6 B vitamins]

* Tongkat Ali [Double Wood Tongkat Ali Complex 1020mg]

* AKG [Double Wood AKG 1000mg]

* Creatine Monohydrate [Nutricost 3g capsule] (actually trying to take this every day now)

* L-Carnitine [Nutricost 1000mg]

* Powdered mushrooms [Freshcap Ultimate Mushroom Complex Capsules]

* Trace Minerals - [ADE02 Trace Minerals Complex Capsules]

* Fadogia Agrestis [Double Wood Fadogia Agrestis 600mg]

 

Very occasionally:

 

* C - for immune support - not for reducing length of immune issues - just for long term resistance - rarely take if I'm eating at home because I get plenty of C in food, then.

* Lions Mane pill (This is a mushroom powder pill - I sometimes just take Stamets 7 to get Chaga as well)

* CoQ10 (occasionally)

* 300mg of l-theanine ( occasionally - to mellow all the coffee I drink )

* Probiotic Pill (occasionally - containing Saccharomyces Boulardii - which probably doesn't work and  should just eat more fibre)

* Broken Cell Wall Chlorella (absorb any heavy metals in the above)

* Curcumin (I don't have a good quality supplement right now, but I take it from time to time)

* Zinc Gluconate - I have this in lozenge, spray, and pill form - I take it when I even feel the slightest bit like I have a sore throat or cold symptoms - reputed to reduce cold duration. 

 

I order them all on Amazon.  This stack is specifically designed for me, but if you don't have a supplement regime, you could do worse than use this as a starting point for your research.  I believe these are safe for me to take every day, but I skip taking them at least once or twice a week.  

 

My veggie drinks

 

I've seen people make these drinks with a cheap blender, but a powerful blender will make this easy and fast.  Blendtec, Vitamix, Ninja, or Hamilton Beach commercial seem to be ideal.

 

I make a veggie drink for two every morning (or the night before).  It is made from whatever greens and berries we have, but I try to have the stuff that Dr. Rhonda Patrick recommends in the fridge all the time:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys86ZgjQQYg

 

I'm also very excited about Dr. Gregers veggie drink, and plan to try it shortly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMOFa8iRqo

 

I will note that the avocados, flax seed, and flax milk in Dr. Rhondas recipe make for a creamy, slow drinking shake.  In the past, I would go with water instead of those components for a fast-drinking shake.  I used to say I would eat some avocado and flax seed in some other dish once in a while.  However! , Dr. Greger made a really good point that some of the nutrients are fat soluble and better delivered if you have some fat while you drink his shake - some walnuts or avocado.  So I am having to rethink things, and I will probably go Dr Gregers route, and do my best to eat some fat with the shake.

 

I order the veggies from a delivery service immediately on finding I am running out.  Everything else I shop for like a normal person and try to get a good deal.  I take no chances with my veggies - gotta get em'.

 

I make two litres per blend and drink one litre a day, most days.  Costs a few bucks.

 

Mushrooms

 

I eat mushrooms every day I can.  I take mushroom powder in tea and coffee from time to time.  I like the taste and I think Paul Stammets is a genius - check him out.   I'm growing mushrooms in mella machines now.

 

Side note: /rant on.  The sad thing about mushrooms is that you will find cell-tests, rodent tests, and anecdotal data galore - but like all unpatentable, probably-effective, plant-based dietary supplements - there is no money for expensive human trials, so we have no human trial data.  Not only that, but, often, research is funded by the pharmaceutical industry that is highly misleading, in order to promote patentable drugs that are less-effective and more profitable than plant-based remedies.  There is no end to the evidence of tragedy engendered by oversimplified incentive system for the medical industry.  The only defense for it is the dumb version of libertarianism - markets must be free - and no further thought or finer grained incentive system can possibly improve quality of life on earth - one rule to rule them all.  Western Orthodox Rationalist Libertarians like myself are not happy. /rant off.

 

Note on my side note: Things are getting a little better with mushrooms.  Research just keeps showing how beneficial they are.  EGT being just one of the compounds getting more research and bringing more people into #mushroomlife.

 

My healthy snacks

 

a) We sprout broccoli and eat it for the sulforaphane (easiest thing to grow on earth -  just rinse it once a day and grab some out of the jar when hungry) - kit: http://a.co/8Nsy1CA  This, incidentally, is probably the cheapest way to get a lot of nutrients.

 

b) I mash an avocado, the juice of a lemon (or half a lemon if it's big), and a big spoonful of brewers yeast into a dip.  I dip crackers or corn chips or bread into it.  This is like hawaiian beans on toast, if that makes any sense (a lot of the time my imagination is the key ingredient in my cooking ;) ).

 

c) I buy meat snacks and veggie snacks. (chicken meat snacks only - we stopped eating mammals since I originally wrote this).

 

d) Nuts are always around the house.

 

e) Beans on toast - you can get all kinds of awesome beans and all kinds of awesome toast out there - and add chili powder or anything else - this is something my mom ate while the germans dropped bombs on britain, and passed it down to me - so satisfying.

 

I'm willing to spend a lot of money on those snacks, primarily because they keep me from eating sugar.  They also have some positive nutritional value.  Probably spend a few bucks on those per day.

 

NOTE on sugary snacks: They are pretty bad for you.  Sugar is a drug.  If you need something sweet - in moderation - yams and berries are the best, but fruit is o.k., monkfruit sweetener is probably third, and blackstrap molasses or date sugar are distant fourths, and honey is an only-if-absolutely-can't-resist possibility.  Stevia doesn't have much of a glycemic load, so if you can find those snacks, and enjoy them - I *think* they are o.k.  Realistically, unless you can find/make the sugary treats you grew up with with sans processed sugar, it's going to be hard to resist them.  I just try to keep as little refined sugar in the house as possible.  I try to buy tiny ice creams, tiny candy bars, and not too many of them.  That way it's hard to go totally nuts.

 

My exercise shake

 

Maybe once a week, half an hour before or directly after a workout, if I remember to, and if I think I want to build muscle at the time, I'll blend this up with some grass-fed milk:

 

• Whey protein (45g)
• Collagen peptides (20g)
• Calcium with Sodium Beta Hydroxybutyrate (19g) (Note: I stopped using this because a random person at a party told me that boxed ketone salts like these are dangerous - need to look into that)
• Creatine (7g) (Note: I stopped using creatine a long time ago - it's not that I believe it's harmful, but I just don't think it's that useful to me and it tastes like *ss)
• Cocoa powder with NO sugar (to taste) 

 

That seems to give me some energy throughout the day (It may put me into ketosis sometimes).  Also, not a cheap milkshake at all.  Probably totally unnecessary unless you plan on building muscle, in which case you will need extra protein and might want to supplement daily in some way.  Adding protein to your diet, to help build muscle, shouldn't be controversial.  Lifting weights and eating more protein is the easiest way to build muscle, period.  It's like cheating.

 

Notes on eating things In-Order:

 

This is something to look further into.  I don't have a lot of good info on this, but if you want to avoid energy crashes, it's a good idea to understand the relative energy impact of foods.  

 

IIRC, as a rule of thumb, energy from simple carbs hits you in 10 min or less, and dies minutes later, complex carbs start in hour one and end in hour 2, protein hour 2 through 4, and fat hour 2 through 6.

 

Fibre, has an important role in energy regulation.  When your mom told you to eat veggies with each meal, she was building a useful habit. 

 

Reputably, eating protein before sugar doesn't add the protein energy curve to the sugar energy curve - it diminishes the spike of the sugar into smaller modulation on the protein curve - and it's not clear that the protein needs to be fully digested - this may happen in the gut. 

 

Low to moderate amounts of "healthy fat" are going to help you absorb certain nutrients like vitamin D, which you will need for certain metabolic processes, so avocado FTW. I'm completely down with ingesting way more olive oil (extra virgin only - evoo) than I need as long as my arteries and heart keep showing completely clear (which they do - heart scans are commodities in some places we travel to).   A whole avocado is probably better than the oil.

 

I have barely scratched the surface of this topic myself, but my trivial research shows a weak consensus that Fibre, Protein, and healthy Fats are the things that you should attempt to include in each meal, even if (up to especially if) you include a bunch of unhealthy simple carbs in that meal. (Note: Identifying trans fats)

 

Sleeping:

 

You will probably skip this if you have kids.  

  

Sleep Hygiene:

 
If it's not obvious - sleep is worth investing in.  Research shows a strong correlation between "healthy" sleep and increased healthspan. 

 

There are about a zillion factors (light, sound, cats, temperature, your partners movement, etc.) in sleep hygiene, but most are intuitive. 

 

This video snippet covers the basics of getting your sleep position right using supports.  It's tricky to get the right supports in place and use them.  I have found them to improve my sleep, when I get them in place before I sleep, but I rarely get that done.

 

In general, the easiest things to control are light and sound (keep it pitch black and silent), so I just go for those, but...temperature...I'm experimenting with the 8 sleep mattress and another sleep tracker (oura rings) that have a bunch of unique features - I suspect they are worth the money.  Might throw some notes in here on that.

 

The following techniques gave me the biggest sleep gains:

 

1) Window coverings:  Just buy a big roll of reflectix and a couple rolls of the 3M sticky backed hook and loop tape.  Cut the reflectix to the size of the window to black out and use the hook and loop tape to secure it.  Rip it off in the morning as needed and reapply at night.  Pitch black.  Big improvement in sleep.

 

2) Cooling pad for your mattress:  I got the 8sleep, but you don't need anything that tech-heavy.  Just something that can cool your bed down a few degrees for a few hours when you go to bed.  Significant improvement - not as big as the light management, but worth it.

 

Morning and evening routines:

 

Here are  some notes on morning and evening routines from youtube - those are probably more interesting than my sleep notes.

 

Alarm:

 

Ideally, I follow my own advice, below, about using alarms to get to sleep and to wake up.  But life is complicated, and I'm not the only person in the house, so I can't always follow the advice below.  This will also change when our first child arrives.

 

An interesting twist on alarms is the use of light instead of sound - this is probably what we evolved with.  There are some notes on this on this page.

 

I sometimes use an alarm to get to bed on schoolnights (Sun through Thurs).

 

Using an alarm to get out of bed should be the exception for me, not the rule.  

 

Here's the thing:

 

Getting up is easy if you get to bed early enough.  I have a full complement of will power in the morning (if I have slept well).  I don't usually need an alarm in the morning if I go to bed at 10PM - I'll simply wake about 8 hours after I go to sleep.  My biological clock is pretty  good at waking me up - if I get up at 6AM for ten days in a row, it knows to get me up at 6AM plus or minus 10 minutes, without an alarm, on day 11. 

 

Now, I'm not crazy.  I often have to set an alarm in the morning, most commonly when I have failed to arrive in bed by 10:30PM, or if I have an appointment in the early AM.  However, I usually get up before the alarm goes off.  I don't schedule things early in the morning unless absolutely necessary.  

 

So hearing an alarm is the exception, rather than the rule. Ideally, I should never hear my morning alarm.

 

It's easy to justifiably fail to get up with an alarm - if you are a certain level of tired, you won't be able to get up, even with the alarm.  Failure to get up at 6AM when there is no appointment means that I needed the sleep, and just prioritized my health and long term productivity - I can easily rationalize feeling good about that.  Whenever possible, I don't set an alarm in the morning.

 

Getting to bed is another matter entirely.  My willpower is low at night.  Distractions are through-the-roof high (entertainment at night is a tradition in my privileged part of the world).   My mission in life is to get to bed at 10PM on schoolnights.  If I succeed in this mission, I am almost guaranteed good sleep and to wake-up at the correct time.  I'm batting about 500.

 

It's hard to justifiably fail to go to sleep with an alarm telling me to, but it sometimes happens.  If I fail to get to bed on time, I will at best be groggy the next day.  At worst I could miss a number of appointments, throw off my circadian rhythm, and force myself to use my precious little willpower to deal with a minor failure - oof.  I always set an alarm for bed on schoolnights, unless special circumstances dictate I don't.

 

After a year of effort:

 

After a year of some intentional daily focus on health:

 

The good:

 

It's been over a year since I left my job at the time of this writing.

 

Food: I still eat bad stuff from time to time, but it's definitely not a daily thing anymore.  Eating bad food is a weak, low-grade habit.  Eating healthy food is a powerful one.  A big factor in that is just not being around bad food as often during the day.  I also can't stand to see healthy food wasted.  Even though it's dollar value is lower than the bad stuff, it pains me to waste the slightest bit.

 

Exercise: No day goes by without *some* exercise anymore, that's now a habit.  I walk WAY more, as walking is the laziest form of exercise that still counts, and it's both mentally and physically relaxing.  I would rather walk and think than sit and think any day of the week.  

 

Sleep and Stress: Long way to go here, but some progress was made in the last year.  I pay way more attention to how tired I am.  I am more mindful of my condition in general (distraction, pain, etc.).  I'm working on building a desire to crash at 10PM.  I'm working on developing triggers and getting into "modes" that encourage behaviors.  I might discuss this more if I ever fill out my page on Stress, Hormones, and Energy.

 

I should also note that I did not get sick for over a year after I started working on my health.

 

The bad:

 

* I never go to the doctor.  Data is important to proper preventative care.  I can use every bit of data I can get - blood tests, MRIs, Stress EKG, EEG, etc. etc.  I need to get on a schedule for all that stuff.  There is so much wasted time and money when you involve the health care system that it is hard to motivate myself to capture this valuable data.

* I'm not going to other professionals, either.  There are experts out there in physical therapy, sport and fitness that I could learn from and collect a lot of data and knowledge from.  (Although when I had an acute problem, I did go to a few physical therapists and found one good one.) 

 

My workaround for this lack of professional input, like everyone elses, is to learn from the internet and experiment.  Here's how I do that:

 

Lets take vitamin D as an example.  How do I know what my current level is?  There is no way I'm getting regular blood tests just so I can stay in the vitamin D sweet spot.  Just not going to happen.  Who does that anyway?  Let's work around that.

 

The vitamin D3 overdose level is about 50 grams in a day for many days in a row (depends who you ask, but, approximately).  I can get a few grams out in the sun (only when above 45 degrees and not in winter or highly overcast/smoggy, supposedly), and I can eat a few grams in my regular diet.  That's about all I can get without supplementation - 6 grams.  

 

Since I cover up and avoid the sun, I will not exceed 1/5th the OD-limit by eating one or two 2-gram pills several times a week.  Staying that far below the OD limit, unwanted supplementation side effects are less likely.   The upside is that I always have plenty of D3 (although that doesn't mean I can uptake it), and any benefits that might come from it.  With that level of safety, it's worth a try.  

 

The cost in my time of ordering the supplement and adding it to my regime indefinitely is measured in minutes per year.  The cost of making an appointment with a primary care physician, getting in there, maybe getting an appointment with a specialist, getting blood tests, is much higher both financially and in terms of my time.  I wish there were simple pin-prick-style home blood tests for all this stuff.   DIY wins.

 

Final thing to do with vitamin D is to just keep learning.  If new research comes out indicating I should change my behavior, I should have my ear to the ground well enough to hear about it.

 

* Probably should finally get more data - 23andMe from Canada or some country that provides health analysis.  Should probably get a prenuvo scan.

 

* Working on energy levels - We know that energy and willpower are related but not the same - I'm closing in on a better understanding of that realationship and will document my findings.  I should also look into fasting and fast-mimicking diets.  It's pretty clear that they have significant benefits, but I wouldn't mind talking to a researcher or a doctor or two about them before trying it.  (Update: I have run some experiments and fasting for 16 or 24 hours one to three times a week has a positive effect on my energy levels and mood with no notable cost other than a temporary willpower drain from time to time - which can be critically expensive depending on the timing - so be careful).

 

NOTE ON ENERGY LEVELS: It is worth reading Lyn Aldens post on diet and energy - lots of good info on fasting and more. Here's the supplement stack from that post:

 

• Vitamin D3
• Cod Liver Oil
• Vitamin K2
• Kelp (Iodine)
• Whole-food Multivitamin
• Magnesium
• Collagen Powder or Bone Broth 

 

 

A note about alcohol, the zombie apocalypse of health:

 

Alcohol is not just bad for your health, but you can easily make the case that it is the most insidious, damaging drug on earth.  It's done more damage than all other drugs combined, I'm sure.  It shrinks brains and takes them over.  I've seen it sneak up and eat the brains of more than one person.  

 

But, you know, some people like it.  Make up your own mind about whether to partake.  

 

I've had quite a few alcoholic drinks in my time and I've never had a real problem myself (other than the extra calories, hangovers, lost time and money, poor sleep, results of stupid actions, liver damage, and dead brain cells that each alcoholic drink delivered - and the associated opportunity costs of being a dummy) . 

 

When I started taking my health more seriously, I found it easy to limit myself to one glass socially a week, tops, and the impact on my life of that change was nothing but positive.  I could see going to zero for life in the near future.  

 

More notes on drugs:

 

See this on drug interactions. 

 

I don't need to explain that most drugs that are recreational make eating bad food more fun - my only tip is that finding a place to take those drugs where no bad food is to be found is really helpful in avoiding that problem.

 

SSRIs, caffeine, alcohol, and cannabis are probably the drugs you are using.  Digesting drugs normally with food is going to be the safest way to use these in each case, but if you have to suck drugs into your lungs, don't suck the carbon in - vaporize at as low a temp as possible to get the desired effect (for cannabis, you can look up the temps to extract the cannabinoids you want in any table like this one, and just set the vaporizer to that temperature - however, you won't get the isolated cannabinoids you would get out of a lab-made food product that any quality dispensary in California would give you (lab report included) - instead you have to understand the rough cannabinoid profile of the strain of cannabis you are using (mixing ground organic flower to get the right ratio) and then dial in the temp of your primarily desired cannabinoid, and accept that you will get some of everything that vaporizes at any lower temp as well.)

 

I suspect we should be more careful with processed sugar intake alongside other drugs - although a lot of people consider sugar a drug, it's not socially acceptable, yet, to say that.  So, no nice interaction tables for sugar, sigh.

 

A note about Exercise Hygiene:

 

This is only tangentially related, but it's become an important factor to me.  I've been bike commuting for years.  I've volunteered at the Bike Coalition, and encouraged bike commuting in others.  I regret that.  Biking is dangerous as hell.  After the second time cars almost killed me (and each subsequent surgery and recovery) I completely abandoned biking.

 

In every study I have read (maybe three?), bicycling is viewed as a borderline positive trade-off in which the risk of being injured or killed while bicycling is judged to be outweighed by the exercise benefits of bicycling.   

 

I think those studies are wrong because:

 

1) They seem to assume that people will not get exercise in any other way if they don't ride a bicycle. 

2) They do not consider that many bicycling accidents go unreported, and that a shattered arm will set you back for life in your exercise program.  

 

I posit that about half of bicycling accidents go unreported.  If I end up in urgent care after being run off the road and crashing into something, with a broken arm and a half dozen other little scrapes and injuries (this happened to me a few months before I wrote this), then that accident doesn't get reported.  Unless the police are involved, *and* they decide to report a bicycle accident correctly as such, it's not going to go into any database that is mined for bike safety stats. 

 

Bicycling in the presence of cars is bad exercise hygiene.   - it likely shortens rather than extends your life. 

 

Most humans have exercise and transpo alternatives that are just as fun, if not more fun, and safer-than, bicycling near moving cars. 

 

Walking, I have found, is AWESOME exercise.  So is yoga, lifting weights, dancing to old soul train videos, performing classic workouts from the 60s that I watch on youtube, and the list goes on.  With an open mind, I have near infinite exercise options.  I can go places, or stay in, and get a whole heck of a lot more done, while having fun - all without bicycling.

 

For transpo these days I walk, or take public transit, or paid car sharing, or car pooling, or, as an extremely distant last-place last-resort - I will drive a car.  Nothing beats walking if you can swing it. 

 

I still own a bicycle, but after two strikes, and a whole lot of metal bolted into my body, my eyes are wide open.  It's about as clean an exercise as parkour.  Might be fun, but it's not the only way to have fun.  Choose wisely.

 

A Note about Sit/Stand/Move Ratio when at a desk:

 

Floor-to-stand desks:

 

I have a floor-stand desk and it's just obviously the right thing for me. 

 

(Note:   Floor-to-stand desks are different from sit-stand desks. Sit/stand desks are designed for two positions: sitting and standing. Floor-to-stand desks lower all the way to just above the floor, giving you the ability to sit in a nearly infinite variety of positions on the floor, or to sit or stand.)

 

I have a desk like that because the top priorities for my work environment are: health first, and long term output second. 

 

Another way to live is to prioritize work first, and to think short term.  I've been there.  This leads to more sitting than standing - no floor positions - and little movement.

 

IMHO, the key to adding standing to your day is to find a mix of sitting, standing, and movement that works for you on each given day.

 

I knew my body changed day to day, but that I needed to have some modicum of routine to keep my mind on track.  So I started with a common 30 minute pattern of sitting, standing, and moving: https://youtu.be/oNN-LqngvIE?t=189  

 

No one I know personally can break their day into behaviors during fixed periods of time, but changing modes from time to time can be a useful goal and a timer can remind you of the principles behind that exercise.

 

If you have a place where you can stand to work, consider trying that pattern with pomodoro technique to create 30 minute work cycle goals.  Pomodoro calls for a longer break every once in a while, (usually after a couple hours), and it's not a terrible idea to move during the entire duration of the longer breaks. 

 

I'll note that standing is exercise - it takes will power and sucks up calories, and makes you tired.  If you are going to add standing after years of only sitting, then give your body time to change.  If you have been sitting all day, you might start with the goal of standing for one of those 30 minute sessions per day, and take it from there - the rest of the day you will probably just sit/move.  As you get stronger, you can add more of the sit/stand/move sessions, depending on how you feel that day.