Microbiome and Naked Health

[jbeegoode]

Remember this one?

https://thefreerangenaturist.org/2023/11/05/germs/#more-14697

Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

Remember this one?

https://thefreerangenaturist.org/2023/11/05/germs/#more-14697
Jbee

Good article Jbee

[nuduke]

I agree with Safebare - one should adopt practices that are well thought through and not just because this or that pundit says so.  Or to make that point better...If we come across this or that regime from a pundit then we should ensure that what we adopt is relevant to ourselves.
But as Jbee says in the article, the most important thing is balance of health, diet etc in ones life, not substituting wholesome healthy living for artificial support by supplements.

Following up Jbees blog about balanced hygiene, I listened to a very fascinating radio discussion about food and personal hygiene.  It started with a discussion of the 5 second rule - if you drop some food on the floor/ground, if you pick it up before 5 seconds has elapsed, it's probably OK to eat.  Whilst this is of course, complete bollocks, a fascinating comparison emerged from the experts interviewed.  Since almost all pathogens live within us or require body temperature to survive, pathogens are not really found in nature outside bodies.  What this means is that if you drop your toast, butter side down on the floor, it will pick up bacteria, viruses and fungal spores but it is very unlikely any of these will cause disease.  However, where we prepare food, (as opposed to our floors or carpets or outside), there are many pathogens which we deposit there from our hands or from foods such as raw chicken and meat.  The upshot was a conclusion that frequent and thorough handwashing was a good thing whilst preparing food but that a healthy symbiosis with ones surroundings was to be encouraged.  As Jbee puts it, the aim should not be to kill stuff but to live in harmony with one's environment.
 
On the subject of supplements etc., There are so, so many dietary and medical and lifestyle 'just one thing' practices or habits to adopt, the mind boggles.  It's impossible to construct a truly healthy life - you wouldn't have any life left, just getting through the profusion of exercises, dietary practices and mental activities in a day - it would take up the whole day!  There's a doctor on UK radio that has a series, each one examining 'just one thing' you can do to improve your health.  There are 40 or 50 x 15minute episodes!  That's enough things to remember to do on a daily basis for an army of fanatics!!


For me moderation in all things is my watchword.  Exercise, balanced lower fat and carbs diet, socialisation and keeping the brain practiced and working seem to be the best things one can do to stay healthy as one gets older.  No guarantee but maybe a positive bias achieved.
John 

[jbeegoode]

I have trouble with "moderation." I like to take it over the top here and there.  Occasional gluttony in moderation. 

I like getting my stuff from lectures from people that are top in their fields, who are quoting studies. Then, I often check out the studies.

Plenty of rest. Exercises, aerobic, just breathing hard once or twice a day, strength workout three plus per week. I try to get up and do movement every hour or so, I've failed this over and over. I keep at these better habits  and I'm steadily adopting them. I got rid of my couch to live more Japanese on the floor. It makes a big difference.

The food and the fasting, I'm doing great. Whole plant based, fermented foods, fresh as can be, from the best of soils, cooked lightly, as close as live and living as I can, and as great of a daily/weekly variety as I can find, herbs and all. I eat lots of fun, new diverse foods and it is very fun, enjoyable, interesting. I have mastered the Devil's draw of pizza and ice cream. I am in a habit of staggering a very thoughtful regimen of supplements to augment and make up for age related needs. This is pretty simple and tons of research, biological and statistical support it. I feel the difference and observe changes. When I do manage to keep my moderate exercise disciplines and nutritional food together, the combination amazes me.

I fast three or four times a year for around five days. Lots of research. It isn't such an imposition when I feel the dramatic benefits.

Sauna, sweats, are difficult to keep at. The social and musical aspects have kept me more regular. It bores me otherwise. Three days per week at three rounds at 170F to 180F, fifteen to twenty minutes each are that goal, but I do manage at least one longer period each week. This is primarily from a the Finnish long term studies. The biology is well documented. A simpler life supports simple regimens.

Naked active in nature, often. It's worth the effort, every time.

I'm retired. My new job is my health. What better task for these years, but unlearn bad habits, improve good habits and extend my life of quality. I can see where a lack of change will give me the results that i see it doing to people's health all around me. We shall reap what we sow. Friends are looking and moving inflamed with pain, overweight in the same common ways, over doing and dying. I'm getting younger, as in better and better health, feeling it.   

[nuduke]

Well, Jbee, I must say I admire the wide and varied routines that you describe. 
Keeping up consistency with quite a variety of things to fit into the day is hard but worthy of admiration!
I do things daily too...just a lot less!
After the varied health challenges you have had in the recent past, it's great to hear that you are benefiting from the healthy lifestyle activities.
What has been the thing (or things!) you have noticed getting better/fitter/healthier?
John

[Greenbare Woods]

As I always say, "Moderation is good, as long as you do it in moderation.  Excess is good, as long as you don't do it to excess. "

[jbeegoode]

As I always say, "Moderation is good, as long as you do it in moderation.  Excess is good, as long as you don't do it to excess. "

That one might be worthy of carving into the dining room table, me thinks.
Jbee

[jbeegoode]

Nuduke: "What has been the thing (or things!) you have noticed getting better/fitter/healthier?"

Off of the top of my head:Walking further, recovering quicker, needing recovery less. Much less, or no morning aches. Calmer demeanor. Loss of weight and it staying away. Feeling more energy and dynamic, often. People noticing these things and even saying so.
Looking around at people my age that look old and not seeing anything like that in the mirror. Feeling lighter. Less brain-fog in the morning and shorter duration till it lifts. Lots of fun eating from the farmers market and the Asian Market. Getting back to earth in the garden. Knowing that I'm doing the right thing. Continued increase of number of pullups and seeing nobody else able to do even one...yet. Small incremental ability to do monkey bar activity. More gymnastic and fluid movements in bed and increased endurance coming back. All of these and more, but there are days better than the rest still, more improvement and then more. A set back here and there, but there are solutions to find, it is a very interesting challenging process. Hypoglycemic condition dissipating to gone. DF and me bonding with the common interest in health and passions. The more results, the more encouragement to do better. Failing, but then accomplishing anyway, feels good. I feel younger. I don't feel any particular age, but I sense that I'm getting younger from feeling out of shape. I can do much better and I can imaging that better, envision myself there better. Dreams can be come real and then, now, I can dream even bigger, like more distant interesting, hikes, nude.
I'm more flexible.I have to reward me and I like that and feel the reward. I'm sort of pampering myself, in a way. I can get down on the floor with my granddaughter and run with her with near ease. Less fear of age, limitations and helplessness. 

There's more....
Jbee

[nuduke]

Wow, thanks for that, Jbee.
I wish I felt so strongly and deeply as you the effect of my efforts to promote health in older age.  My muscle building and increased exercise activity over the last 18 months has certainly had noticeable effects and I do feel better for it.  The challenge now is to keep it up so that the benefit is maintained and the gains are not lost through indolence (which I am very good at!! ).  But that's a challenge to avoid it getting boring and a therefore becoming a chore.  Also my weight reducing diet of the last 2 years has been successful but again, is now a treadmill to keep the same lower weight ongoing.  So whilst satisfied with progress, I can't admit to being quite as euphoric as you about it all.
John

[jbeegoode]

Yep, I'm struggling with the routine of exercise part of my equation. Still, I plod on.
Jbee

[nuduke]

Yes, I reckon that any exercise is good and if you can keep it regular and exercise all your bits, it just can't be bad.  Like you and Bob, I believe in moderation - particularly with respect to exercise.  I have known several people who, whilst enormously fit, have as a result done themselves permanent damage - a runner with shin fractures, rugby football players with injuries that last a lifetime etc.  But a weekly round of gentle challenge to the ageing muscles, I believe, is an offset factor to geriatric decline.  You can't guarantee it but without exercise, the consequences are clearer and more negative.  I do find repetitive exercise very boring however and it is this that requires the mental resources to keep it going.  I do mainly resistance exercise (weights and whatnot), stretching and flexibility (yoga) and swimming for aerobic exercise.  I have never been able to sustain running for any length of time - I find that's the most boring of all and I don't seem to have much stamina for it.  How people can run on a daily basis for hours and miles, I shall never fathom.  But I certainly envy their capacity to do it.
We'll see how the long term pans out! 
John

[yeldew]

I have always found exercise boring, and am so grateful that someone introduced me to the game of squash 57 years ago.
I just keep playing as often as I can and forget about exercise.
Norman.

[jbeegoode]

I've just been watching youtube of Dr. Daniel Lieberman (Harvard), who studies primitive lifestyles as they relate to modern lifestyles. Bob, you'd like this. I know that we share the interest.

He crystalized an idea for me, for how to keep at exercise regimens. He sets himself up/signs up, for marathons and then feels the pressure and positive reinforcement to work out more often, like for him to do weights twice a week and run more (he likes to run). So, I'm thinking a backpacking challenge every so often might help me to do the weights, the swinging, and cardio in prep and reward for results. A goal oriented thing in increments. I got a big backpacking boost a short while back, after not backpacking. I'll have more about that, the story, on my website within the next month. I think three weeks.

Just an idea. 

He also has research showing that resting is an innate impulse. It's quite natural to want to take the elevator/lift than the stairs. Because of our spoiled lifestyles, we now have to make an effort to work physically harder/exercise, which doesn't occur to those in more primitive lifestyles.

He goes on and on about the effects of exercise, aging, disease, etc.

Exercise also bores him often.

here's one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOwzRq31hA

Yea, Nuduke, Street bike riding, running, boring. I have an exercise stationary bike that I sit on. I read something light, while I'm on it. Otherwise, it would be a full-time laundry rack, or sold. I used to enjoy hours and hours on mountain-bikes, exploring, sprinting, a jump here and there, etc.

Jbee

[ric]

I don't do exercise, never have.  I try and move whilst doing other things. even to the extent of parking at the back of a carpark so I have to walk across it,  leave the spaces next to the shop for those who cant walk.   I rarely go for a walk just for exercise....I carry binoculars and go bird watching.    I've recently bought a metal detector , intention is to walk up and down the beach more often,   
The bicycle isn't for exercise, it's to get me to the bird reserve or shops quicker.

Similarly I've never been a big sun bather , my naturism comes whilst doing other things,   guess I'll be metal detecting at the naturist beach...our local one abuts a bird reserve so I feel comfortable wandering around with binoculars...saw about 30 oyster catchers there last week

[jbeegoode]

The science has been pointing to muscle building type weight lifting exercise as we age, as well as more breath taking aerobics. There are toxins in there that need kicked out, it builds muscle, the system gets exercised, it helps regenerate cells and there is statistically less risk of falls. Nothing too vigorous. That kind of exercise generally bores me. It isn't a waste of time, but something in me has to be overcome to stop feeling that way. So, I keep attempting it as a new good habit with the machines and the swinging bars. I tell myself that I'll look better, too.

The authorities are talking about getting exercise more frequently in the course of the day. That's why I sit on the floor and have to get up off of it. I stopped being efficient with time and put garden tools on the opposite side of the property, things like that make me walk more. I get a cool drink of water from a dispenser on a shelf in the fridge that requires twist and turn stretch. Little things like that. Like DF's 101 years old mom used to say, keep movin'. When I go to the garage and forget one of the tools, I don't sweat the time, or stupidity, because it is about the movement, as I walk back to get them.

Movnat has been showing how to exercise with natural movement, so I built in a light path and meditation structure in the yard. A walkway of cement that is very uneven, a loop of railroad ties to balance and walk on all fours, some stumps to climb up on. Sometimes while camping, I can take a thick stick and use it for exercises. Medicare bought me rubber straps and I bought a bar for them. I can essentially be as if lifting weights with a small two pound potable package. I get it, but I'm bad at getting to it.

ric: Treasure hunting toys! I've pondered doing that. I met a guy a few years back, who spent over $3000 for a high-end metal detector. He wandered around old gold mine digs in Oregon and got a return of his investment, not much more. Gold fever can be fun.

I'd have to find a deal on something like that, rather than risk a few K, but I can imaging all of the old mines around Arizona that are a hike to, remote, nicely overgrown to camp at, and so doable all day nude. There's the old ruins and equipment to explore, lots of pretty rocks to collect and take home, too.

Jbee