A few weeks ago, I wrote of my intention to focus on my health following several months of progressively feeling worse and experiencing unpleasant symptoms ranging from muscle and joint pain to extreme tiredness and lapses in concentration. I was very keen not to put all of my symptoms into the ‘perimenopause’ bucket, as I’d recently moved house and town/city, and all the uprooting can do some serious upheaval to one’s systems. But it’s probably in the mix. This wasn’t the first time I’d experienced such symptoms, but it was certainly the most dramatically unwell, in the chronic sense, I’d felt in a good while.

Symptom #1 – Dizziness to the point of nearly, but not quite, fainting. I put this down to either some blood-sugar wildness or, more likely, iron deficiency, since I trend that way anyway. This was one the nastier symptoms, but mercifully it passed quite quickly. However, it pointed to a tendency to low iron and so I have been taking care to eat iron-rich foods, making sure vitamin C is on hand to bolster the absorption, and used a liquid iron formula as well, for a while. It still features as part of my maintenance routine.

Symptom #2 – Chronic lower back pain. I tried massage, finding it very knotty indeed. All I can say here is that it didn’t properly shift until I started taking a lot of magnesium and began focusing on protecting my nervous system with some adaptogenic support. Adaptogens are compounds found in herbs and some foods e.g. medicinal mushrooms that can help buffer the worst effects of stress. Baths and magnesium sprays helped but in combination with the megadose magnesium seemed to be the magic formula for me. Going on holiday somewhere hot where I didn’t have to care about very much at all definitely expedited the process. I advocate for going on holiday. A change of scenery and the putting down of all the usual daily tools works wonders for the psyche, and can really accelerate healing.

Interestingly, my mood improved a lot too. Low iron and low magnesium are both implicated in mood dysregulation, so, not merely ‘hormones’ but a lack of vital nutrients! Dark chocolate has helped too, I think – it contains both iron and magnesium, so I have an excuse. But there are many other foods that contain the good stuff. I know what they are and I have been eating them! But also, trying to optimise my digestion. Another blog post in the offing…

Symptom #3 – Joint pain generally. For this, I took a joint health supplement containing specific joint-supporting and collagen-supporting nutrients. And, counterintuitively, I began jogging again, even though my knees were not keen at first. I believe the combination of getting outside, often in the early part of the morning, seeing some nature first hand (I live by a canal towpath), some sunlight on my skin, and getting a bit sweaty and out of breath, has all combined to improve my physical health and sense of wellbeing. For this, I can thoroughly recommend the NHS Couch to 5k podcast series. It has got me through three 10k races when I never thought I’d be able to run for a bus, let alone 6ish miles nonstop! Personally, I like a challenge. Somthing to work towards is a great motivator. I would love to hear from you if you have any other challenges that you like to take on.

Symptom #4 – Weight gain. Upping the exercise has been the real clincher here but also I have been following a plan that emphasises anti-inflammatory, plant-rich and diverse foods, with fermented foods and plenty of fibre for satiety. I still have some way to go to feel truly comfortable, but I am trying out some amazing whole-food recipes thanks to getting a local, organic veg box every week, which is like a lucky dip of veggies. You never know what you’re going to get, as Forrest Gump would say, and I feel like I’m in an episode of Ready, Steady, Cook as I try to come up with new and interesting ways to cook things I would normally leave on the supermarket shelf. Kohlrabi, anyone? Garlic scapes? All delicious, and I am loving the salad leaf bag we get every week, full of unusual greens, things that look like weeds but taste great, and herbs that add a mint or aniseed flavour. Eating healthily need not be dull! FACT – The more diverese vegetables you eat, the better for your microbiome AND you get a greater range of polyphenols, giving yourself a broad spectrum of antioxidants into the bargain. What’s not to love?

I’m also going down a bit of a rabbit hole on ancient recipes following a talk at a conference at the weekend where heritage recipes were discussed. I am using my herbs medicinally as well as for taste, just like our ancestors did. The fact that I know how to do this thrills me no end!

Symptom #5 – Bloating and gas. Especially burps. The holiday, yes, the holiday calmed down my burps! I went to Greece for one week and ate salads with fresh veggies and things like feta and oily fish pretty much every day. It really did reset me. But also, I’ve been taking probiotics, and making sure I eat plenty of prebiotic foods, while cutting back on the refined sugar. I wish I could polish my halo and say I’ve cut it out completely, but I find sugar hard to give up, like everyone else. It is, after all, reputedly more addictive than some class A drugs I could mention. I think my microbiome is predisposed to like a lot of it (there is growing evidence that pathogenic bacteria will essential hijack the brain to crave the foods that sustain it…Bodysnatchers!) and I blame being born in the hot summer of 1976 and my mother mainlining ice cream during pregnancy. It was always a big feature of our household – further evidence suggestst that formative eating experiences endure into adulthood.

While there is no doubt I am eating less of the stuff. I do love a sweet thing from time to time. I’ve definitely cut back on the baking, which I went a little mad for when we first moved in to our new home, but it still makes its way into my dessert bowl. However, more often than not, it’s a fruit based thing. And I am switching to the mini versions of treats, or sharing them with my partner, to cut down on quantities. Fortunately, I am not a sweet drink person, not adding sugar to any hot drinks or having sodas or juices or squashes very often at all. And we don’t buy biscuits (cookies) or cakes generally. And if I’m going to have something, I try to make sure it’s homemade. Enough of the excuses. Sugar is poo for the body and I really ought to redouble my efforts to remove it from my diet. A blog post on realistic ways to reduce sugar is in the post, I promise.

There have been other things too. I take care of my sleep. What I don’t know about sleep hygiene isn’t worth writing about. I am trying to calm down my nervous system – yoga, breathwork, journalling, getting into a creative flow state with art and music. I am one of these lucky people that seems to feel the effects of stress all over the body in wonderful and surprising ways, and I am also a bit, well, sensitive to things. Likely there’s some genetic predispositions involved but I haven’t investigated them….yet! If I had led a nice, calm, relatively uneventful life, then perhaps I would be in better shape, but sadly, it’s been a bit lemon-y, in a ‘life hands you lemons’ kind of way. In fact, on occasion, I’ve had enough for a decent lemonade stand, if you know what I mean. But we work with what we’ve got and I try to make the best of the things I’ve been blessed with, and they do exist, even if my troubled mind sometimes forgets they do. We are, as humans, primed for survival, and in that, most of us have a negativity bias, and I am no exception. Would it surprise you to know that I (try to) practise gratitude every day? Mindset is another cornerstone of good health. Another blog post beckons…

There were other symptoms and other solutions I’ve tried, and all in all, I am pleased with the results of my labours. To use a very overused word, it’s EMPOWERING. Next thing for me to focus on is hormone balance. That’s a HUGE area and topic for another day.

There is room for improvement, there always is, but to give myself some grace, it seems I have done enough good stuff to make a real difference. After all, if I can’t help myself, then what am I doing with this here Nutritional Therapy thing anyway? So, it turns out, as well as helping others, I have helped myself. It took time away from other things, to focus on myself, and that felt difficult at the time, but now I am in better shape and better able to be of service to my loved ones, my existing clients, and those I haven’t met yet.

Talking of which, if you feel like you want to focus on yourself and your health, please do drop me a message at jop.naturalnutrition@gmail.com to book in a FREE discovery call. I’m really excited about how good I feel at the moment. If I could bottle it and sell it, I’d be very rich nideed, but like all good things, it isn’t as simple as one pill, one supplement, one food, or even one good habit that will make the difference. It’s a synergy of all sorts of things that in combination help to bring you back to yourself, and I love the challenge of putting the pieces together, like a detective, to find out the best solutions for my clients.

Everybody is unique. We all have a story, we all have particular ways in which our bodies manifest ‘dis-ease’, and we all have different healing formulas that are right for us at any given moment in time. This is the real beauty, the art, of what is often called ‘alternative’ medicine but which, perhaps, should just be called ‘medicine’.