How I Destroyed My Health Without Noticing — And How I’m Getting Back On Track
For the past 2 months, I’ve been on a journey to curing asthma (which has been bothering me for almost my whole 20 years on earth) and improving my digestion (also an issue, for more than 5 years).
I was lucky to find the Buteyko-Method which helped me a lot. It improved my breathing and in turn helped alleviate my digestive issues as well.
The better I breathed, the more easily I was able to digest my food. I was finally able to wake up in the morning, without the feeling of having 10kg of food in my stomach.
I was able to train, without feeling like I was going to throw up in the gym. I didn’t feel bloated anymore.
But recently, I’ve reached a plateau. My asthma progress was still steady, however my digestion didn’t improve anymore. I ignored these warning signs and kept doing what I was doing. Terrible mistake.
It got worse and worse over many weeks. So I started looking for answers.
What was I doing wrong? I thought I was making great progress?
I watched a podcast by Lewis Howes on healing the gut. The guest talked about how sleep, nutrition and exercise are the most important parts of improving digestion and reducing inflammation.
“Wow, thanks. As if I didn’t already know that.”
Not being happy with those answers, I researched more and read a couple of articles about reducing inflammation and improving digestion. Still the same answers. Sleep, nutrition and exercise.
“What was I supposed to do with this information? I was already doing all of these things to perfection.”
I stopped.
“Or was I…?”, I thought to myself.
“Was I actually optimizing the way I exercise, sleep and eat? Or was I just completely oblivious to the fact that I had been slacking?”
Before my gut issues came back, I saw lots of warning signs along the way. I started eating more processed food and disgusting unhealthy snacks. I wasn’t getting adequate rest and I was skipping my morning walks more often than I would like to admit.
It was no wonder that my digestion suffered, with me not optimizing the basics as much as I could. Here I was, trying to find the magic, secret answer to all of my problems, while the answer was right there in front of my face the whole time.
This proved one very important lesson to me:
In 90% of cases, you already know what to do. You already know the basics.
You don’t need someone to tell you that sleep is important.
You intuitively know it. Your body knows it. So act accordingly.
The day after I received this insight, I went on a 5-day family trip with lots of (way too challenging) hikes, lots of shitty food and lots of bad nights of sleep.
And guess what? My health got even worse than before.
That sucks, but it confirmed exactly what I thought.
I just needed to master the basics.
Now, 3 days removed from the trip I created a strict protocol for myself, that I’m trying out for a week:
- Breathing exercise every morning and evening
- No go’s: Sweets, Candy, Chips or any Artificial snacks, Protein bars, Protein Powder, Cream, Soda, Fried Food, Mozzarella, Salami (a bunch of shit that I noticed my body have a negative reaction to)
- Eat: Fruit, Meals from home, Own cooked stuff, Oats, Cheese etc. And watch how you feel. (things my body reacts well to)
- No food after 9PM, only drinking
- Sleep 9 hours every day
- Don’t miss the morning walks, at least 20 min daily.
I feel much better in just this short amount of time.
And it will only go up from here.
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