Welcome to This Is Me Actually. I am Heather, and this place is about me becoming the person that I want to be; that is someone who is finally well, and can therefore start to truly live. If you are reading this, then probably that goal is something you can relate to.
I grew tired of being vaguely ‘not quite well’ all the time. When doctor’s can’t pinpoint my ‘condition’ in a medical textbook, I am waved away and told it is ‘just a part of aging’. I am not buying this tired story. I am a person. I am me. I can be well.
For lack of a better term, I call what I have Modern Life Disorder (MLD). I am always tired and in a fog. I’ve lived all of my life with varying degrees of diarrhoea, congestion, rhinitis, fatigue, dermatitis, psoriasis and brain fog. It has worsened as I have aged, and with menopause have come arthritis and insomnia. I try my best to stay active (I particularly enjoy water sports like swimming, diving and kayaking) but having MLD is making it too hard. Just too hard.
During the last 15 years or so, I have become increasingly aware that I can affect my MLD with diet and lifestyle interventions. Of course, the world is full of diets and fasts and advice and books to buy and blogs to subscribe to, all with the promise to cure your soggy liver or unbalanced stomach acid. Like many with MLD, I have tried plenty of them, and generally they do make some difference to something, but they are never the complete answer, and they are never sustainable either. For me though, a few things changed recently. Firstly, menopause brought with it arthritis. I suddenly was confronted with a future of medications and hobbling around. Secondly, the gut microbiome began getting more and more attention. And here, finally, I have found something that makes sense. By eating for my gut bacteria and exercising (especially just walking), I have found I can be free of arthritis. Now I just need to work out how just what changes I need to make, and how to make those changes sustainable. Yes, the thought of building back my strength and fitness — and learning to live with a lot less pizzas — is daunting. But it is exciting too. Imagine waking up every morning and having energy! It does my brain in just thinking about it.
Of course, there are other factors playing into this too. I am very aware that many of my friends also have MLD. I mean, nearly everyone I know is trying some supplement, avoiding gluten, on the auto-immune protocol, or waiting for their SIBO test results. And it is bigger than just tweaking diet a bit too, because factors like stress and sleep also make a big difference. Finally, lifestyle changes are hard to make. It takes time to change habits, and what to do if you don’t actually fancy changing your life significantly? Yep, the path ahead is not a simple trot through a pretty garden.
And then, who am I to be sharing my new knowledge? The truth is, I have always wanted to understand the things around me. I have a degree in geophysics, and a science and teaching background. So I read the research. I question its reliability. I gravitate to researchers and authors who can back up their claims with true science and ignore the rest. I have friends in psychology who help me with ideas about stress and habit-forming behaviours. And, what I find out, I share here.