Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

The labs are in, and the numbers are fantastic. Really, I couldn't have hoped for better. While I do sometimes mope about all that I have given up, especially pizza, when I see the positive results from having done so, the clouds part, the sun shines brightly, and I dance around the house with the dogs (which gets Sunny all riled up and he ends up peeing on the couch).  It took several years, but all of the numbers are in the green. The last time I had blood work done, my liver enzymes were elevated, and my cholesterol total was nearly 300. I asked my then-doctor what I needed to do to get my cholesterol under control. Her answer was nothing, that the numbers were fine (they weren't). She said the same thing about the liver enzymes (they weren't). What she should have said was, "Let's look at your diet." She didn't. She didn't do anything except suggest medication if I was worried about the numbers. That was the moment I said I'm done with her. I n...

A friend mentioned in a comment that he read David Perlmutter's Grain Brain , and is especially interested in the studies that "show a strong relationship between high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and cognitive / neurological problems." I, too, am very interested in all of these ideas, so I decided to check out Grain Brain . Just a few pages into the book, I was thinking, "My gosh. This is some scary shit." Part of me wanted to think Perlmutter is fear-mongering and working for some big business of some kind, and that eventually I was going to get to the chapter where Perlmutter was going to try and sell me something. Granted, I'm not that far into the book yet, so I haven't come across the selling chapter if there is one, but what I've read so far has been extremely interesting, making me want to continue reading. A month or so ago, I read Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck, and one chapter in her book that really got me thinking ...