What is Healthy?

Reading Time: 3 Minutes – What is Healthy?

As a cancer survivor, going on four years now I’ve come to understand that what is referred to as healthy, even by medical standards is a term that is almost meaningless.

Cancer that showed up on the surface at forty-five years of age for me was preceded by many decades of being referred to as healthy by my doctor’s standards and measures. In full blossom, the cancer demonstrated that it had been a part of my life going back as far as my teenage years, yet the earlier manifestations leading up to my mid-forties were continually misdiagnosed and treated as other minor things.

We are still living in the dark ages of medical technology and practice no matter how cool and futuristic the diagnostic toys that help determine health are. No matter how well educated the degrees, certifications, internships, and residencies make our medical staff feel, it is STILL A WORK IN PRACTICE.

The reality is that death is the final state and cancer is only one step or stage before the end of the journey or play. The reality is that there are at least six other stages in the play that lead up to the final act known as cancer. Then the end of the show.

The problem lay in the ignorance of us and our PRACTITIONERS to be able to identify the six or more other stages in the playhouse of disease we call life. And I along with every other person that has been diagnosed with cancer were long considered HEALTHY by medical standards, weights, and measures for decades before the final curtain falls.

And after four years of deep research into human physiology and disease pathology, the only clear indicator of health I’ve been able to find is this. And I know people will want to disagree for many reasons but to each their own. I know I’ve done the hard work and danced with cancer for four years and surviving well.

A body that is working out for at least thirty minutes a day with full use of every joint and muscle. This combined with a diet that includes ONLY foods that have a hydration level of 80% and above. And anything cooked or processed in ANY WAY before entering the body will eventually become problematic.

That’s my $0.02.

Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest | Scribe at Terrain Wiki

What Makes the Keto Diet Work?

Reading Time: 2 Minutes – What Makes the Keto Diet Work?

The removal of processed foods, and that’s it. There is nothing magic about eating animal products that make a ketogenic diet work.

Even if someone were to simply remove ALL processed foods except animal products, they would still have the same benefits.

The problem with animal products is that they are highly concentrated processed foods. Highly processed by the animals that originally consumed a RAW whole-food/plant-based diet.

Of course some will ask, “Where do you get your protein?”

Wrong question. It should be, “Where do you get your AMINO ACIDS?” Because that is what our body needs in that our body makes ALL of its own proteins from amino acids. And if you are deriving them from animal products you are doing it the hard way.

Our body wants all of its nutrient sources to be present at the lowest overall metabolic cost and having to break down animal products is the least efficient way to go about it at great cost to your overall vitality.
This is just how human physiology works. It’s not even up for debate.

If your diet and metabolism aren’t easy it will eventually become diseasy.

Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest | Scribe at Terrain Wiki

Blessed are the Flexible

Reading Time: 4 Minutes – Blessed Are The Flexible…

…For they shall not be broken.

All humans, if they live long enough will eventually dance with cancer. I did at an earlier age than some. It is a dance in which I elected to take the lead. And I choose to remain in that position. PERIOD. There is no until in my dance manual. There is no finishing this dance in my estimation; only a lack of will and vitality to continue.

I will outpace this partner because I have nothing left to lose and life to gain. I choose to overcome this limitation on life that is seeming plagued my life for many years. I have overcome illness and I am overcoming aging at the same time. They are seemingly one and the same. I choose to live a longer, much fuller life. I have adapted and I will continue to remain flexible.

Continued education, observation, and interpretation of my body messages have taught me that there will be a continual readjusting of dietary requirements as the body see’s fit according to ITS needs with no concern for my so-called desires.

At this point in my journey, I believe it is smart for me to stop telling people what, how, and when they should eat because my own experience and obedience to my body has taught me that my best thinking needs to remain in the back seat where it belongs. The only thing my body has confirmed to me is that its need for sufficient hydration is unwavering. There is no ambiguity, and any derivation from sufficient hydration will be outside of the will of my body and ITS best interest, which should also be mine.

Sufficient hydration or Euhydration is the goal of the human body. There is no room in this statement for opinion. If we want the longest, fullest life, to our body’s uttermost potential, this is how it is to be attained. And anything going into our body that falls below 80% H2O content will ultimately lead to a painful and pitiful end.

Below is a table that has helped me enter into being my best self. Personally, I don’t foresee anything animal ever being a part of my diet moving forward considering it is not needed for a sufficient nutrient base. We now live in a world of plenty and easy access to all things nourishing if we choose.

Be blessed on your journey…

100% Distilled Water
90–99% Fat-free milk, cantaloupe, strawberries, watermelon, lettuce, cabbage, celery, spinach, cucumber, squash (cooked)
80–89% Fruit juice, yogurt, apples, grapes, oranges, carrots, broccoli, pears, pineapple
70–79% Bananas, avocados, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, potato, corn, shrimp
60–69% Pasta, legumes, salmon, ice cream, chicken breast
50–59% Ground beef, hot dogs, feta cheese, tenderloin steak (cooked)
40–49% Pizza
30–39% Cheddar cheese, bagels, bread
20–29% Pepperoni sausage, cake, biscuits
10–19% Butter, margarine, raisins
1–9% Walnuts, peanuts (dry roasted), chocolate chip cookies, crackers, cereals, pretzels, taco shells, peanut butter
0% Oils, sugars

Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest | Scribe at Terrain Wiki

Life & Longevity vs. Low Carb Diets(Keto/Paleo)

Reading Time: 1 Minute – Life & Longevity vs. Low Carb Diets(Keto/Paleo)

“In a large cohort of adults living in four diverse US communities, with more than two decades of follow-up, mid-life dietary patterns marked by both low carbohydrate and high carbohydrate consumption were associated with increased mortality risk and shorter residual lifespan.”

“Low carbohydrate dietary patterns that replaced energy from carbohydrate with energy from animal-derived protein or fat were associated with greater risk. However, this association was reversed when energy from carbohydrate was replaced with plant-derived protein or fat.”

Continue reading here(Full Text) – https://www.thelancet.com/article/S2468-2667(18)30135-X/fulltext

Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest | Scribe at Terrain Wiki

H2O is Not Enough for Sufficient Hydration

Reading Time: 3 Minutes – H2O is Not Enough for Sufficient Hydration

Got Plasma?

Our body also needs to be producing sufficient amounts of healthy blood plasma as it is a MAJOR component of the fluid that fills our skin stores for whole being homeostasis.

The body fluid outside the cell is composed of blood plasma, interstitial fluid, lymph, and transcellular fluid.

The extracellular fluid pertains to all body fluid outside the cell(s). In humans, the total body water composition is made up mainly of intracellular fluid (67%) and extracellular fluid (26%). The extracellular fluid, in turn, is composed of blood plasma, interstitial fluid, lymph, and transcellular fluid (e.g. cerebrospinal fluid, synovial fluid, aqueous humour, serous fluid, gut fluid, etc.).

The interstitial fluid and the blood plasma are THE MAJOR COMPONENTS of the extracellular fluid.

Because of its composition, it, therefore, serves as a delivery medium for nutrients and waste products. It is also a crucial site for various homeostatic mechanisms.

In most mammals, including humans, the formation of urine begins in the nephrons of the kidneys by filtration of BLOOD PLASMA into the nephron; the fluid found within the nephron is essentially THE SAME AS BLOOD PLASMA without the macromolecules (e.g., proteins).
The blood is a very active organ with many cells that turn over rapidly. If you do not provide your body with the right nutrients, your blood production can deteriorate, and you increase the risk of anemia, bleeding, or bruising.

While your blood needs several vitamins and minerals to function effectively, the following are key nutrients that promote the production of healthy blood plasma:

Iron
Riboflavin-Vitamin B-2
Folic Acid-Vitamin B-9
Cobalamin-Vitamin B12
Vitamins A, D, and C

The attached photo is a bag of our Blood Plasma. I imagine this is why the color of our healthy urine is yellow.

Image provided by DiverDave – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11866692

Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest | Scribe at Terrain Wiki

Soma Nature

Reading Time: 2-3 Minutes – SOMA NATURE

Just like the natural world around me, my body, in a sense, has a “Mother Nature.”

Let that sink in and simmer for a moment.

I call It “Soma Nature.”

Soma Nature is a personification of my body’s nature that focuses on the life-giving, life-preserving, and nurturing aspects of my body by embodying it in the form of a parental figure.

It has become clear that my body has a level of intelligence and set of operating instructions that it uses without any intervention on my part that I have no access to. I know that I can interfere with those processes by something as simple as eating poorly to a certain degree. But even then, I can only go so far before good old Soma Nature takes back control.

This is often referred to as an auto-immune disorder which is a slight misnomer because our body doesn’t attack itself. It isn’t attacking you but trying to correct an error in your body, and that level of detoxification is never comfortable and sometimes downright painful. It is precisely that mechanism of action being misinterpreting as an attack when it is not. If the irritating factor is removed, the auto-immune disorder typically ceases to function and stops being needed as a meaningful biological process. Even cancer under the right conditions has been observed to heal spontaneously.

Not sure yet why I connected these two concepts, but it seems like a useful tool for understanding how our body functions.

What do you think?

Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest | Scribe at Terrain Wiki

Short Essay: The Creators Hour Circa 1984

Short Essay: The Creators Hour…Circa 1984

Often times when I wake up in the middle of the night I find myself extremely creative and sometimes an idea manifests itself. Sometimes it is something related to something I was studying the day before, other times whole cloth fiction. This morning’s creator’s hour was a little of both. Something from the mind of Ray Bradbury or George Orwell. Good times…8)

I thought I would share it with you.

People die from toxic shock for many reasons. It is considered a normal part of the human condition. And the seasonal flu. So what if someone wanted to profit off of something that they knew was coming because we human creatures of habit tend to habituate…8)

What if they saw a pattern of purchasing and dietary behaviors followed by expected disease pathologies and an opportunity for narrative flare. All of those discount tracking cards are on our keychains for our discounts. Our order history on Amazon.

What if they are just putting a collective name on this expected phenomenon because it is much more significant and widespread of a species-level toxic environment cleansing event that they knew was coming down the pike? It’s not like they don’t know everything we are eating. We sold it to them for 10% off our grocery bill.

Mother nature does clean house. Maybe we humans as a species are collectively sick this time around, like a tank full of fish.

Think of it like this. Humans as a race are a distinct body of water here on earth. We all roughly contain the same tissue fluids, plasma, and lymph with pretty much identical components just wrapped in separate lipid bilayer skins. 60% of us is water. We as a human whole are a giant ocean of mostly independent water balloons.

When a fish tank(body of water) becomes toxic you don’t just pull out a cup of water at a time, treat it, put it back, and repeat. No, that would be silly and never solve anything, you remove 50-75% so as to water down the excess toxins with the addition of fresh water.

Is it possible mother nature treats us the same way? Like a community body of water? Unfortunately, some may be so filled with toxins that they won’t survive the detoxification event.

How does that sound? I just made that all up…8)

Originally posted on my blog, www.michaeljloomis.com

What is Underhydration?

Have you ever heard the word euhydration?

Noun. euhydration (uncountable) (medicine) Normal level of hydration; absence of hyperhydration or dehydration.-euhydration – Wiktionary

Even though dehydration describes the state of body water deficit, some scientists have suggested that dehydration refers to the process of losing water, while hypohydration is the state of water deficit, and rehydration is the process of gaining water from a hypohydrated state towards euhydration.

Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest | Scribe at Terrain Wiki

Hydration, dehydration, underhydration, optimal hydration: are we barking up the wrong tree?

Stavros Kavouras, is an assistant dean of graduate education and professor of nutrition at Arizona State University.

Here are a few words from him on the topic of underhydration.

The topic of hydration and health is new and under researched. At this point, we probably have more questions than answers and theories on potential mechanisms associating low water intake with various unexplored pathologies, including cancer and longevity. However, it is time to concentrate our efforts on the health implications of being a low-drinker rather than examining the acute effects of dehydration (water deficit). We need large scale studies and randomized control trials to investigate how increased water intake impacts health and well-being.

According to the Medical Subject Headings of the US National library of medicine “dehydration is the condition that results from excessive loss of water from a living organism.” Even though dehydration describes the state of body water deficit, some scientists have suggested that dehydration refers to the process of losing water, while hypohydration is the state of water deficit, and rehydration is the process of gaining water from a hypohydrated state towards euhydration.

The majority of research on water homeostasis and its effects on the human body has focused on how water deficit impacts exercise performance, mainly in hot environments.

Edward Adolf in his classic work “Physiology of Man in the Desert” was one of the first to study the effect of water intake on thermoregulation and performance. He also introduced the term voluntary dehydration when he observed that during “rapid sweating”, humans do not drink enough to maintain body water. He concluded that: “…when he is active and needs much water his thirst sensations are inadequate.”

During the last 30 years we have learned that even a mild degree of dehydration (< 2% of body weight) can impair exercise performance and increase heat strain, especially in the heat. The degree of exercise-induced dehydration often ranges between 2 and 5% of body weight and it is accompanied by elevated plasma osmolality, decreased plasma volume, and increased urinary biomarkers (i.e. urine osmolality).

Influenced by this observation and based on the mathematical symmetric property stating that if A = B, then B = A, we have mistakenly assumed that the backward association is also true. Thus, if exercise-induced dehydration leads to increased urine biomarkers, then elevated urinary biomarkers should correspond with water deficit and dehydration. So, when we read data indicating that a majority of children, adults, and athletes have elevated levels of urinary osmolality or specific gravity we mistakenly conclude that a large portion of the population is dehydrated. Furthermore, when we read data indicating that a majority of people across the world do not meet the dietary guidelines for water intake we also conclude that most people are dehydrated.

Is it possible that people with free access to water when they do not meet the water intake guidelines or when they have elevated urinary biomarkers are dehydrated? Probably not.

Kavouras, S.A. Hydration, dehydration, underhydration, optimal hydration: are we barking up the wrong tree?. Eur J Nutr 58, 471–473 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-018-01889-z