ExamineHealth

 
We made it 28 days and truthfully I learned an awful lot. I have lots of new things that I want to tell you about, and will be in the next couple of weeks. The whole experience was quite enlightening. I can't say that I've ever done that intensive of a focus on my nutrition and my health in general. Sure, I've focused on gaining muscle mass, or dieting to drop fat, or training for an athletic event. However, I can't help feeling like those were all misguided efforts now. The way of looking at health and nutrition that Scott introduced me to makes so much sense, that it really provides you with an AH-HA! moment regarding the rest of your nutritional choices.

 
So the first day on the cleanse had some wins and some losses. All in all, it was a success.

One of the aspects of this program that is taking some getting used to is the preparation for all the meals. There are lots of grains and lots of beans. Both of which need to be soaked overnight before being cooked. This requires planning and forethought. Well, we succeeded in soaking the whole oat groats for our morning oatmeal, and it turned out fabulous. It was my first time eating whole oat groats, and they were delicious. Basically these are rolled oats, before they get rolled. Or steel cut oats, before they get chopped up.

I had a question about the requirement to use whole oat groats. I'm a big oatmeal fan and have been eating rolled oats for years. My question was what kind of nutrient damage is being done by simply flattening an oat groat? 

 
I've been thinking about detox and cleanses for a while now. I've made arguments in the past, about how our bodies are strong and capable and can handle anything we throw at it. However, I've been convinced that this is a shortsighted argument. The fact of the matter is that we're putting things in our body today that is so far outside of anything that it's prepared for and it's definitely affecting our health. Yes, our bodies are tough, and miraculous machines of digestion and filtration, and they do a tremendous job of keeping us upright and walking around, despite all of the garbage that goes into it. It's surprising that we're not all lying in ditches somewhere.

And if you never decide to do a cleanse or any kind of detox on your body, you'll probably keep right on living. The question becomes the quality of that life, and how long will it last? With 100,000 Americans a year diagnosed with End Stage Renal Disease, and 320,000 Americans that are on a kidney dialysis machine already. More than 1 million Americans suffering and bleeding from kidney stones. And colon cancer killing over 60,000 Americans each year. There's plenty of evidence that something about our way of life is not copasetic with the natural functioning of our bodies. And I don't know about you, but I plan on being healthy, active, and pain-free until the end of my days. If I can avoid some of the maladies that have become common in our modern society, just by cutting out some junk food and watching what I eat, I'm sold.

The Brain's Propensity for Pathways

Your mind is made up of connections.  Millions and millions of connections.  Each cell in your brain connects with thousands of other cells.  Neurons fire electrical impulses from one to another, triggering chemical reactions and coordinating our thoughts.  This mass of connections forms a mesh through which there are hundreds of thousands of pathways through.  An electrical impulse could travel from one side of your brain to the other every minute of your life and never need to follow the same path.

The interesting thing is that they do follow the same paths.  The neurons in your brain tend to utilize the same paths over and over again.  Each time a particular pathway is used, it becomes strengthened.  The next time that function is needed, or that thought recalled, it hops along the same neurons in the same order.  This is the formation of habits.  This is also the basis for learning.  As we continue to utilize a particular thought sequence, it becomes further ingrained into our brain.  We become more proficient as a result of the increased traffic through that pattern.  

Particular patterns become worn and are more likely to be activated.  They also operate at increased efficiency.  Think of them like grooves that are worn in your brain.  The deeper the grooves become, the more likely those actions and pathways are to be used.  These pathways can also represent associations themselves.  A song can remind you of a particular time period in your life.  This is due to the strong association that you have in your brain between the two memories.