And I’ll lead the charge with my own goal experiment…
Short version is: I’m going to start with a goal to eat live culture yoghurt every day. I’ll set the rate to 6/7 a day (6/week), so that I have some room for building up buffer, but I’ll set an autoratchet as well so I can’t earn too much buffer. I’ll start with just one day of buffer, so I can get started right away.
Longer version: I’m reasonably convinced by my course material for my Nutrition & Infections course that I ought to be eating live culture yoghurt. For example, in elderly people a specifically selected strain of Lactobacillus offered a number of benefits, which augmented immune function (through boosting natural killer cell activity) and reduced the risk of upper respiratory tract infections (something to which, though not elderly, I’m quite susceptible).
They’ve also been suggested as beneficial commensals for people with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, which alas, I have, and a finding which I’ve seen elsewhere. There are some other papers that make it all sound very encouraging.
Also, cholecystectomy changes the microbiome in not-great ways, and, you guessed it, I’ve had one. So I ought to try and take care of my microbiome, and Lactobacillus is usually beneficial there.
Now, I’ve yet to do a deep-dive on all of those articles, so I’m not making any recommendations for anyone else here… but I’m uncomfortable enough with my high doses of proton pump inhibitors and daily guzzling of icky sodium alginate products that I’m ready to try any intervention that’s tasty, non-harmful, and has just about any evidence behind it. Also, it’s a good snack to replace some of my less healthy indulgences.
Dosage and so on are all hard to judge, and the strains used in experiments usually aren’t available commercially, so I’m just gonna start by eating one yoghurt a day, with some leeway for days when I have an upset stomach or we forgot to order yoghurt in the shopping.
Other ideas: I have a bunch of ideas about adding incremental goals to improve my diet a bit or make tiny life improvements here and there for overall health and well-being, but I’m terrible for starting a load of hares at once and then burning out. So this time I’m going to stay focused and not try anything else, for now, but I am also considering goals for servings of fruit/veg (and not just the same fruit/veg I already eat), picking up exercise again now my anaemia has improved enough to do so, etc. But I think it’s really important for me to go s l o w l y.