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Achieving Ultimate Health

I’ve read about 5 or 6 books on nutrition and health within the past 3 months. I’ve changed my diet a lot. I discovered that I am slightly lactose intolerant, so I rarely drink milk. Regular milk’s fat is highly processed and broken down to where the fats are unstable and unhealthy anyways.

I also completely cut out gluten for 3 weeks, then ate a big meal with pasta, and felt the difference. I’m slightly glucose intolerant also. I can eat a cracker here and there, but I stay away from it. Even if I wasn’t allergic, what is going to give you more nutrition, a bowl of pasta or squash? Bread or broccoli and carrots?

I started taking random amino acids for my depression. I took 5-HTP (I recently discovered that Tryptophan is actually a better choice) and DLPA. After a while, the DLPA made me a little “speedy.” Sometimes I felt a little high and other times I got a little angry. So I stopped taking it.

Best part about using amino acids? No withdrawals.

After reading a couple more books, however, I decided to step it up a notch.

In Depression Free Naturally.. Joan Larson has a table that she uses to get people’s emotions running right.

So being the obsessive person that I am I decided to do it.

First Couple Weeks

The first few weeks I felt amazing. Started to have so much energy that I joined a Muay Thai gym while still lifting weights. I was sleeping deeply (I used to be a hardcore insomniac) about every night. I still don’t sleep perfectly, but I can always at least fall asleep. I used to have nights where I wouldn’t sleep at all.

A couple of the supplements would give my stomach a few problems, and I think I have narrowed it down to Betaine HCL.

Down the Road

This morning I woke up, took some Tryptophan with an apple and niacin. Carbohydrates help Tryptophan cross the blood-brain barrier. The body converts Tryptophan into niacin if you don’t have enough, so taking the niacin ensures that the Tryptophan will be converted into serotonin.

I sit down and do my morning meditation to give my body some time to produce the serotonin.

I walk upstairs, eat my meal, and take my supplements. Fish oil, multivitamin, B Vitamins, extra Vitamin C (everyone is sick), amino acids, and antioxidant complex.

Go throughout the day nice and relaxed 🙂

Afterthoughts

I don’t plan on taking every single one of those supplements for the rest of my life. The point was to bombard my body with the vitamins and amino acids it probably has been deficient in for a long while.

I’d rather go all out and test out everything and be able to figure out exactly what I need and how it actually worked rather than speculating and researching without ever doing anything. I’ve gained a lot of wisdom on how my body reacts to various supplements through this experiment regardless of whether people made fun of me for taking pills like an old geezer.

Once this stack is gone, I plan on continuing with a high quality multivitamin, fish oil, B Vitamins, Vitamin C, and the antioxidant complex.

This also goes with saying that I hope that by that time, my diet will be under my control.

Supplements are supposed to supplement your diet. Therefore your diet is the most important aspect of health. Once I can begin to cherish the joy of eating grass fed beef, healthily raised chickens, and genetically pure broccoli, I will be able to see how my body reacts to healthy food.

Why TJ, Why?

Are you on your way to achieving ultimate health? If not, why?

The most common excuse I hear is, “Yeah, but that costs money.”

What about your gym membership? Does that cost money? What if I told you that you’d be better off eating right instead of working out and then stuffing yourself with a Big Mac?

That is the equivalent of someone picking out a car with a friend where the friend says, “This car is reliable, requires very few maintenance checkups, gets great gas mileage, and looks great.” Only to hear the reply, “Yeah but that costs more.”

Achieving better health is one of the greatest investments you could ever make. Think you’d make more money at your job or business if you had more energy?

What about all the money you’d save by not having to see the doctor or fight off cancer?

I’m interested to hear your responses. Why aren’t you investing in your health? Is money really a factor, or just an excuse to put off feeling your best? We spend money on TV’s so that we can relax and feel good. Let me tell you, eating right and becoming healthy feels far better than any gadget can make you feel, and with your energy you’ll probably get promoted anyway and can buy that plasma TV with your bonus.

Update: June 2012

I wrote this post last fall. Many things have changed.

For one, I don’t have to take any 5-HTP or Tryptophan. I only take vitamins. I eat the healthily raised beef. 😉

However, my cabinet still looks like this:

It’s all about experimentation. Figure out what your body needs. Try it out. See what happens, then adjust. Every body is different. If yours is telling you something is wrong with signs such as depression, get on the road to discovering what you need!