Escaping the Matrix…

A recent recurring thought I’ve been struck with this week on my endless commutes to London and back on the train…

The solution to your problems does not necessarily lie in quitting your job.

Or “escaping the matrix”.

Or the aim of being a millionaire by your 30s.

The grass always seems greener from afar compared to where you are standing.

Truth is, the grass is greener should you decide to nurture your patch of land.

It’s greener where you choose to water and curate it.

I want more but I also need to remind myself for what I do have already.

Don’t keep looking forward so much you forget to enjoy your wins and the process.

Find pleasure and joy in the smallest of things; your dog putting their head on your lap, a really good nap, a great pizza…

In an age dominated by having to plan – weeks, months, years…try to focus on one day at a time.

True success is not the culmination of your gains and how much you have.

It is far more about how little you need to be happy.

It’s all Greek to me…

A commonly used English phrase to describe something that is unintelligible or doesn’t make sense…

Well, this makes sense…unless you speak Greek… so what are the alternatives to this phrase in other languages? Which countries do other languages pick on?!

If you’re Greek, you might say the Greek equivalent; “It’s all Chinese..”

If you speak a Slavic language; for example Serbian maybe or Polish it's: “It sounds like a Spanish village to me..”. Not Spanish, specifically a Spanish village!

Northern Indian languages say “it sounds like Farsi..”

The French are cruel and pick on many languages! “It sounds like Javanese…Russian, High German…”

But what of poor old Chinese... so many languages say “it sounds like Chinese” but in Mandarin, when something is compared to the incomprehensible they typically compare it to “sounding like birds” or “a script from the heavens..” or “written by ghosts”.

The Germans say “I only understand the train station”

The Italians say “Are you speaking Arabic?!”

Funnily enough in Arabic they sometimes say “Are you speaking Sanskrit?!”

Life Updates:

The last week was a tough one.

3 podcasts recorded… and with that I am almost done with season 1 of my podcast! A whole season! I started in May 2023 and we’re almost at the end of the year and summer has flown by and practically left without a proper goodbye.

Podcasting is an interesting medium; there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes – from generating ideas, to scripting, to finding the right guests, to verifying the information we put out, editing, scheduling, recording, posting and then planning ahead for the following weeks. It literally takes a team!

I’m finding my podcasting feet but there is a long way to go in this new venture! It is often very easy to give up after a few weeks or months and not seeing incredible progress, but as with anything you have to keep forging forwards. I was on social media for 8 years before anything changed for me. Small wins, small progress but going forward nonetheless even for minimal gains.

I also finally managed to record my audiobook across 14 hours worth of studio time. My back and voice hated me but you will love the audiobook. I spent 2+ years writing this book and I read it like I was picturing my book as a live action movie (maybe one day?!). It was a full circle feeling for me to be able to read the book in my voice and bring the words I’d penned to life.

I recently shared a clip of the audiobook to my socials and thankfully people seemed to enjoy it! (phew)

You can pre-order the book here if you haven’t done already:

Cancer:

One of the podcast guests I had this week was Professor Peter Johnson, the national director for cancer in the NHS. THE “cancer” expert in the UK and arguably the world. He has spent more time researching cancer than years I’ve been alive!

It was a deeply fascinating discussion about the increasing use of AI in cancer, how our microbiome can influence our risk of cancer as well as affect our treatment of cancer, future cancer cures, cancer myths and much, much more.

I’ve shared some pretty incredible cancer breakthroughs over the past 2 years and you might feel like you hear about these cures and then they seem to “disappear”. Conspiracy theorists eat your heart out!

The truth is – trials take time. Once we hear about breakthroughs they need to go through several stages of assessment and further evaluation and longer term follow up but trust me they do eventually make it to widespread use.. they just don’t continue to make headlines.

Does fasting actually improve your health?

There are plenty of diet books, influencers and online hype around fasting – that it helps us lose weight, improve health markers and longevity…. But what does the science say?

Fasting can be one of multiple strategies for losing weight but its worth bearing in mind here that based on the evidence we have so far, it doesn't seem to do anything special over and above any other form of calorie restriction…

In studies that have controlled for the amount of energy that's been eaten. It doesn't seem to be the case that people lose more weight than would be expected by fasting versus any other means of restrictive eating patterns.

There's also a short-term and a longer-term effect on blood sugar levels. The immediate effect is that you would get a slight lowering of blood sugar, and that's because you're not eating anything, including carbohydrates.

But after a period of fasting for a few days, if you then eat a meal that contains carbohydrates, and because we've had this switch to burning fat as a fuel, our body isn't quite as adapted to using carbohydrate as effectively. This means we can actually get a rise in blood sugar that's more exaggerated, than we would have otherwise.

It may lower your blood pressure, for example, if you’re cutting out sodium, or salt. That will result in a reduction in the amount of blood circulating around the body and so can lead to our blood pressure reducing. Again probably a similar effect can be achieved with lifestyle changes and being mindful of sodium intake.

What of the microbiome?

One of the main things that our gut bugs will respond to from a dietary perspective, is fibre. If we eat a lot of fibre, we're providing food for our gut microbiome to feed off.

When we eat a lot of diverse fibres and fruits and vegetables we tend to have a diverse microbiome. So, if we're fasting that will limit the amount of fibre consumed and could have implications for our microbiome.

At least in mice, there are many studies that have shown that any form of calorie restriction, including intermittent fasting, seems to extend lifespan. But this is in mice… we aren’t mice.

The science of fasting is at its nascency… so there may be something here but we need more data!

Lucy Letby…

If you haven’t heard the name Lucy Letby… have you been burying yourself under a pile of rocks?!

This name is seared into British conscience and she will go down as the worst baby killer in modern British history.

Could this have been partly avoided if warnings about her were taken more seriously? Who knows.

I finally managed to find time to delve into the deep rot at the core of the NHS and the problems which led to Lucy Letby being allowed to continue her acts of malice. This deep dive into the Lucy Letby case and NHS will be out soon on my Youtube!