I, for one, am very glad that 2023 is over. What a year!

Although I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, I am going to try to make sure that 2024 is much better – in whatever way I can. My first attempt at this will be writing this post about a whole lot of things that I read about, or watched, during the last year that might strike a cord in you health wise.

Our diet has significantly impacted our health and there are many issues that people experience, especially woman, that are overlooked or undiagnosed. I’m going to touch on a few here. I will remind folks that I am not a doctor and the things I talk about are my own personal thoughts and opinions. I’m not recommending anything. I’m just throwing out information for you to investigate further, if interested.

The only magazine I usually read on a regular basis is “First for Women”. Lots of good articles about health, food, etc. Many of the articles list symptoms, potential causes, and recommended diet switches or additions. As many of those dealing with tick-borne diseases know, there are a lot of illnesses out there with very similar symptoms and there are some that suggest that some newer illnesses, like Fibromyalgia and CFS/ME, are actually as a result of tick-borne diseases. Although I’m not diving deeper into that right now, I am open to this possibility and, certainly, looking at symptom lists of a variety of illnesses, including Long COVID, many overlap.

One of the issues that I have had for many years is continual weight gain. Although I eat reasonably well and try to get a reasonable amount of exercise, my weight has continued to increase over the last few years. I recently read about nutritional yeast and how it can help with weight loss and also help if you have a sluggish thyroid. I started adding it to smoothies about a month ago and have since lost about five pounds. This may not seem like a lot to some, but when the scale has only gone up for a long time it is amazing to finally see it going down. I will also be interested to see the results of my next blood test for my thyroid. Over the last year I have gone from Hypo to Hyper and back to Hypo, with my medication changing several times. I will provide an update when I have my next blood work.

The other recent addition to my regular routine is psyllium husk powder. I just started adding that about a week or so ago after reading about it in the January 8th edition of “First for Women”. The article notes that psyllium husk provides soluble fibre. I added this to my diet because recent blood work showed an increase in my LDL cholesterol and apparently psyllium husk can help lower LDL – https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/psyllium-fiber-regularity-and-healthier-lipid-levels. My doctor gave me the option to try to reduce my cholesterol before putting me on drugs. The article suggests that you seek out safe sources as there have been concerns that some psyllium supplements contact a dangerous amount of lead. Do your research!

A possible cause of a number of symptoms such as brain fog; memory lapses; blue moods; anxiety; nausea; bloat; and difficulty swallowing is apparently a tired vagus nerve. Might be something for some of you to check out. Two easy recommendations noted in “First For Women” is deep breathing and humming/singing. Very easy to try these two things that can also help with other things, like stress.

If you are fortunate enough to have a doctor, see about getting blood work for things like Vitamin D, Vitamin B-12, etc. There are a number of things that we can be deficient on and sometimes we may be taking things but they are not working the way they should because they are not being absorbed/utilized properly. I have taken a D3 supplement for many years and have added B-12 not that long ago. I have tried a number of things over the years but you have to be careful. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, at least for some things.

In a perfect world, we would all be working with a nutritionist/dietitian adequately trained in all the different foods that can help improve our overall health. However, most of us are not, partly due to cost, but mostly due to the fact that very few people are adequately trained in this regard. This is another area that is frequently discussed in the “First for Women” magazine. For instance, there was recently an interesting article on polyphenols and how a daily varied assortment can improve your overall health. There are many articles on this topic. This is just one – https://draxe.com/nutrition/polyphenols/.

If you want some inspiration, and have access to Netflix, there are a couple of shows that I have recently watched that I found to be very informative. One is “Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones”. I enjoyed this so much that I’m now following the host, Dan Buettner. Have a pen and paper next to you to jot down notes about some of the suggestions that you think you can easily incorporate. The other show was “You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment”. Although this includes a lot of information on why you should be vegetarian/vegan, it also includes a lot of usable info to improve your health. I have definitely decided to eat less meat and fish, partly because of this documentary; however, it is something I have been thinking about for quite some time.

There are so many little tweaks that we can do on a daily basis that are low cost and easy to do. They may not cure all that ails us, but it just might get you to a point of living a somewhat happier, healthier, life, especially as you then have some control on what is going on in your body.

As always, do your research and make sure that anything that you are adding, or subtracting, doesn’t cause any new issues. We are all different and there is very little, if anything, that affects us all the same way. Only you know your body and how it is feeling. Don’t let anyone suggest that they know what is best, including doctors.