Bipolar disorder with minimal medication… from an 'expert' by experience……………. Useful search option >>>
February 26, 2019 6 Comments
I am continuing with Displays and Discussions near my home, while making these ‘transportable’, by which I mean I can pack it all into my car to share anywhere in England, Wales or Scotland. If you’d like to find out more about reversing bipolar or whatever has been challenging your well-being please contact me.
Next 3 Display and Discussion events:
January 23, 2019 2 Comments
I am now into my 8th year since my last dose of medication relating to bipolar disorder. Recovery from such diagnosis/medication takes a long time. Back on my feet now, I am sharing what I have learned along the way.
I am making these events in Grantham ‘transportable’, by which I mean I can pack it all into my car and display the same information anywhere in England, Wales or Scotland, only limited by the cost of fuel to get to a venue near you.
February 4, 2018 Leave a comment
Live Longer Feel Better!
If you want to get healthier and live longer take time out to watch as much of “Live Longer Feel Better”
All 7 episodes were screened for free in February 2018.
Why am I sharing this at Rethinking Bipolar? Whatever helps us to live longer is almost always what helps us to manage our moods or live well whatever mood we find ourselves in. It is all linked!
For example, see Episode 3, which matches my own experiences of eating well doing me far more good than any medication.
https://www.livelongerfeelbetter.com/
Today, as I update this page, there is no free screening. If you’d like to know more about how this information can help you with understanding your mood while getting healthier please do ask via the comments option.
February 3, 2018 Leave a comment
Live Longer Feel Better
Are you watching or listening? Currently I’m listening to episode 2
August 4, 2017 Leave a comment
I’m not recommending the Master Fast System – just that this article and the 12 minute embedded video is making me think how, it seems, we have all been programmed to believe we cannot go for more than a few hours without eating.
Recently, I’ve been eating later in evening again and earlier in morning again and gut-pain, poor-sleep and troublesome-moods have returned. So, I’m going back to no food after 6pm and no food before 10am = 16 hours not eating and 8 hours eating. In recent times that is when I felt and functioned best.
Article and embedded video: http://www.corespirit.com/happened-body-didnt-eat-21-days/
If little time and prepared to hear the most gruesome bit then listen from 5m 30s… on to where Alanna Ketler says, “a foot and half long”.
This does highlight many of the benefits for those who have the willpower to fast for longer periods.
Best wishes
Roger
July 14, 2017 Leave a comment
I thought I’d share the mind-map-planning I did for my ‘good, bad and ugly’ dietary fats training. If you have a training venue and people who want to know more about nutrition for wellness, recovery, health, happiness and longevity, then do contact me. Best wishes Roger.
June 29, 2017 Leave a comment
This Mind Map is from my preparations for Monday’s presentation and discussions at Folks and Fables cafe. If you’d like a copy of the other slides that go with this in pdf format just ask.
If you are local and would like to attend or in UK and would like me to share similar at another venue: www.stoppaddling.com/bingham
March 22, 2017 Leave a comment
It is known that eating butter helps with weight loss and with reversing many chronic illnesses. I do not know if butter makes us all healthier overall. Personally, I feel good having slices of butter almost every day.
If you do not have much time just watch from from 10m 30s, then maybe skip to the less scientific video below this one. (Maybe also weight loss example from 16m 30s.)
Butter Makes Your Pants Fall Off
Why am I not blogging about bipolar?
I am keen to share how I stay well rather than how ill I was.
So, I have been on a LCHF diet or as some people say “High Fat / Low Carb” for a few years. Okay, so I am a bit thin, but it feels better being thin than how fat I was while on prescription drugs and on low fat. So, no prescription drugs for about 5 years now. Latest dietary change for me is to 16:8 = 16 hours fasting and 8 hour eating window each day. I am still working on this – getting it right most days.
I am finding that with LCHF and 16:8, together with mainly plant-based (non-factory foods) is giving me the energy for lots of 3D Dynamic Movement.
March 16, 2017 Leave a comment
I’ve not read it. I am not selling it. It is however, the way I have gradually been moving for sometime now. It is not only good for physical health but in the longer term is great for steadying moods. If you want to eliminate bipolar disorder then using fat for fuel is almost certainly going to help.
Mammals, and therefore all of us, work well while using fat as our main energy source. This is known as ketosis which is a word that to many people can sound bad. It is not bad, it is just what our bodies do automatically whenever we go without eating for 6 hours or so. (The exact number of hours varies from person to person.)
Question 1 of 2: In a typical 24 hours what is the longest you go without consuming any food or drink that contains carbohydrates or man-made chemicals?
I have found the easiest way to maximizing my time in fat-burning mode is not to eat or drink any carbohydrates in the morning. For me, this includes avoiding drinks with any kind of added milk, because milk contains sugar.
Whether I say I am skipping breakfast on days I do not eat before noon, or I say that I am having a very late ‘break-fast-meal’, it is the days I do this when I feel best and think most clearly.
Question 2 of 2: After reading about Fat for Fuel could you share, using the comments option, how going longer between meals and minimizing snacking helps you to be in the mood you want to be in?
A new website set up by Dr Mercola: www.fatforfuel.org
Just to make it clear… I am not being paid to advertise this… I simply believe most people would be healthier and less prone to mood disorders if eating less often and this requires us to burn fat for fuel.
February 7, 2017 Leave a comment
Maximizing Memory (Part 1 – Focus on Food and Drink)
Thursday 23rd February 2017
Folks and Fables, Bingham
2:30pm to 3:30pm and 6:30pm to 7:30pm
This is my next talk, followed by discussion, sharing much of the new research into:
Find out more from Folks and Fables
February 6, 2017 Leave a comment
I wrote about fasting to improve mood a month ago. I have made progress and am keen to share this.
Due to my blood sugar being a bit high (not diabetic but often higher than I want it to be) I have created a more ambitious plan for eating better quality food while overall eating less.
For 7 days now I have not eaten before noon. That is, no breakfast at all and no drinks that could be considered as food. This is a big change, for me, especially as I was brought up believing breakfast was essential. I also bought into the idea of “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” before I discovered this meme was invented by businesses that sell breakfast cereals!
I made this transition by initially eating until late in the evening. Gradually I am finishing all eating a little earlier each evening to create a genuine fast, with my first meal feeling like ‘breaking a fast’ rather than a meal called break-fast.
This is day 8. It is 12:45pm and so far not eaten today.
Before I say how I am feeling on this new regime, I want to make it clear that I am not starving myself at all. I am eating a little less but only because I find I am less hungry and more satisfied with the better quality, mainly organic, foods I am choosing.
Moods? Essentially, I am feeling mostly good. I have a little more energy, doing 10,000 steps per day, sleeping through the night and yesterday easily swam 100 lengths… okay, it was a small pool!
If you do not see an update from me within a month, please feel free to ask how my longer overnight fasting is going and how this is improving my health.
Here is my previous article on fasting to improve mood
January 4, 2017 6 Comments
Many psychiatric drugs have a side-effect of increased appetite.
As soon as I agreed to take Olanzapine I found I was getting hungry far more frequently while having less and less interest in exercising. On a combination of lithium and Olanzapine I steadied out at around 45 pounds heavier than my usual weight. I am sure I got off lightly as I know many people who about doubled their weight while taking Olanzapine.
I have said/blogged about how my weight came down as I reduced my lithium intake. Now, I believe the bigger factor was my being able to gradually reduce my intake of Olanzapine and eventually coming off all psychiatric drugs. My weight is now about what it was before starting on these drugs.
What has been bothering me for a while is that bad eating habits that set in while I was on Olanzapine keep coming back. Perhaps those habits have never left me.
I have read and watched lots and lots about the importance of fasting, or at least having several hours between meals and not eating when we should be sleeping. My scientific background allows me to feel I understand why eating less often is so beneficial, yet knowing stuff does not necessary make changing habits any easier.
After another stressful period I recently realized that I was again eating from early morning until late evening with perhaps a total of 12 meals/snacks! Not on any psychiatric drugs I’ve not been putting on weight but am sure all this eating has been doing me harm.
Since 1st January (yes, sounds like a New Year resolution) I have started to take overnight fasting seriously. A friend has reminded me of an info-graphic from Dr Mercola. See below.
My current plans are nowhere near so ambitious at this time. I am currently seeing getting past 9am without eating and not eating after about 7pm as great achievements and I am just starting to get benefits from this in terms of having more energy through eating less. Yes, sounds a bit bizarre, but by eating less often I mostly have more energy and feel better too.
Intermittent fasting is not a form of starvation but a way for you to time your meals to maximize your body’s ability to burn fat. Embed this info-graphic on your site to serve as a guide for you to create a healthy eating plan, and reap the many benefits of fasting done the right way. Use the embed code to share it on your website or visit our infographic page for the high-res version… Intermittent fasting
December 29, 2016 1 Comment
Food and Mood: I’ve been teaching about links between excess sugar and mood troubles for years. Now with a lot of renewed interest in this subject I am going to invite readers to comment on these two big generalizations:
Remembering that, for good health and longevity, at no time do we want more than about one teaspoon of sugar (glucose that is) circulating in our blood stream, we know that foods that spike our blood sugar cannot be good for us. We do need to eat something though, as simply cutting out carbs tends to make us miserable.
For my friend in South Wales, who is resolving to drastically cut back on sugar consumption from 1st January (influenced in part by the article below) – I recommend finding out about healthy fats… What is a healthy fat? How do we get a wide range of different healthy fats?
The long article below explains a lot about how fat was vilified while the dangers of sugar mostly ignored. How much of this false information came from the work of Ancel Keys who seems to have falsified evidence to show fat and cholesterol were problematic while being paid for this by the sugar industry?https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin?
November 10, 2016 Leave a comment
Ultra-processed foods – I am thinking “ultra-processed” may be a useful term, as avoiding all processed foods is too difficult for most people.
e.g. Boiling organic potatoes at home and mashing these with organic butter is food processing…. But compared with… say, making the same potatoes into crisps with about 6 ingredients and cooking such as the water content gets so low the crisps can be stored for a year is surely a lot more processing
This morning I am thinking that, “As most people want to eat processed foods, health may be improved quite a bit just by avoiding the most processed (ultra-processed) foods and going for some really simple processing… e.g. oats cooked in a saucepan with only water and natural rock salt added. This would seem to be fairly low processing.
Article on ultra-processed foods: https://thehealthsciencesacademy.org/science-catch-up/science-catch-up-25/#topic5
((( based on this – after a quick look at where this information came from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27733404 I am thinking that any result other than the people who eat the most biscuits getting fattest would have been odd! )))
I am adding #ADHD to the title above because one of the best things to do for reducing ADHD and bipolar symptoms is to avoid foods with a lot of added chemicals.
March 9, 2013 2 Comments
Emotions can be considered to be a mix of our feelings, our energy and our thinking.
Perhaps almost everything now called ‘mental illness’ may really be ’emotional distress’.
Calling it something different does not solve our problems. It is just that when we recognize our troubles are to with emotions rather than being an illness or a specific disorder, then we can help ourselves and help those we care for by gaining a better understanding of emotions.
Roger Smith (in the UK)
Rethinking Bipolar 