Have I Found My Headache Cure?
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If you go back into the archives (2011-2013), you will see many posts where I attempted to solve my headaches. I tried many experiments to reduce the number and frequency of headaches that had...
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63 posts
Oura Ring Sleep Tracker - 42 Day Review
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This summer I went looking for my next health challenge. After reading Super Human by Dave Asprey and listening to Peter Attia's Drive podcast, I decided to tackle improving my sleep quality. They...
Read more →Did I Heal My Cavities With Ice Cream?
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July 28, 2011: I sat in front of a monitor as the dentist showed me two dental cavities. They were in my wisdom teeth. On the screen, I could clearly see each cavity. April 23, 2015: A new dentist...
Read more →An n=1 Skeptic
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I spent last week fixing years worth of grammar errors on this site. Over 300 posts were updated. While fixing the posts I was reacquanted with many of my old n=1 experiments. A lot of what I read...
Read more →Low Food Reward: Tuna + Tomato Paste + Rice
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I came up with a low food reward idea. Mix a can of tuna with a can of tomato paste and rice. This is a true appetite crusher. !tuna-paste Looks more like cat food than people's food. This would be...
Read more →Embracing Food Reward
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I mentioned at the end of the post Food Reward and Old School Bodybuilders that I would be testing the food reward theory for myself. There are several bloggers that get hung up on the definition of...
Read more →The Grand Experiment Revisited
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One of the wonderful things about having a blog that goes back years is you can revisit older posts and see not only what you were up to but how you interpreted those events. With more time and...
Read more →Visiting the Cryotherapy Chamber
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For the past six years, I have been fascinated by cold temperature exposure. When I left the perfect temperatures of San Diego in 2007 for Seattle, I became uncomfortable at temperatures as high as...
Read more →Casein Not Whey For Reducing Appetite (n=1)
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In mid-June, I decided to revisit the Tim Ferriss 30 in 30 experiment. The 30 in 30 refers to getting 30 grams of protein ingested within 30 minutes of waking. Doing this is supposed to help you...
Read more →Revisiting the Tim Ferriss 30 in 30 Experiment?
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Last year I unsuccessfully tested Tim Ferriss's idea of consuming 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. Instead of curbing my hunger, it increased it. Here is what I posted on Ending...
Read more →Quantified Self and False Pattern Recognition
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I was watching Episode 3 of the new Cosmos show when Neil deGrasse Tyson said something that reminded me an awful lot of the Quantified Self movement.: > The human talent for pattern recognition is a...
Read more →Experiments Update: Sleep, Gray Hair, Tight Neck
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This will be a quick post on the status of my latest experiments. I've been sick since Saturday and haven't felt like posting. Sleep There are two current experiments related to sleep. The first I...
Read more →It's Gettin' Hot In Here (Metabolism)
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I'm ready to provide a status update on the "Turn Up the Heat" experiment I started last year. The goal was to see if I could increase my body temperature using some of the ideas found in Matt...
Read more →Life After Quantifiable Self
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On September 1st, I quit my Hunting Headaches quest. After 2.5 years of tracking, I’m now 2 months free of the daily quantifiable self habit. Did taking my eyes off the data make things worse? Nope....
Read more →Ending the Tim Ferriss 30 in 30 Experiment
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On Friday September 20th I began each morning by consuming 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking. This is a fat loss strategy Tim Ferriss explained in his book The 4 Hour Body. Less than 3...
Read more →One Confusing Month: My June 2013 Experiment Wrap-Up
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A month ago I posted June 2013 Experiments. Using a few strategies my plan was to reduce headache frequency/intensity and lose 5-7 pounds. Well I succeeded on the first goal and failed on the second...
Read more →Cold Thermogenesis - 5 Years Later
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It has now been just over five years since I began exploring cold temperature exposure. When I first started doing this, I didn't use the term thermogenesis. My goal was not to lose fat, but to widen...
Read more →June 2013 Experiments
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When I've done experiments in the past, I focus on one thing. For June 2013, I'm going to mix some past experiments together to see if I can get a synergistic effect. I'm also going to try a new...
Read more →"Turn Up the Heat" - 1 Month Update
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Actually, this is the 1 month and 1-week update to my "Turn Up the Heat" experiment, where I am using ideas from the Diet Recovery 2 book as an attempt to increase my body temperature. I outlined the...
Read more →My Plan for the "Turn Up the Heat" Experiment
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A few days ago I mentioned that I was starting the "Turn Up the Heat" experiment, which is my attempt to increase my body temperature. Read the previous post for the background on where I got the...
Read more →Ending the Ice Cream Experiment
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It was about a year ago that I stepped on the scale at the gym and saw I weighed just 183 (my height is 6 ft 2.5 inches or 189 cm). This wasn't good. I had been weight stable at 190 for a few years...
Read more →Diet Recovery 2 and the "Turn Up the Heat" Experiment
In the past year, I've become a fan of Matt Stone at 180DegreeHealth. We agree on many things. The two primary things are we both see the neurotic approach to food and exercise as being unhealthy. My...
Read more →Low Caffeine Weight Gain
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Beginning in late September I scaled down my caffeine intake. Then in October, I went the entire month without coffee and 21 days without any caffeine. This month I have been on a very low caffeine...
Read more →Hunting Headaches - A Favorable Trend
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In the last installment of Hunting Headaches, I reported that I finally appeared to be making some progress on solving my night headaches. By wearing a mouth guard, I was able to reduce my headache...
Read more →Did It! A Month Without Coffee!
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I completed my most challenging health experiment to date. I went the entire month of October 2012 without coffee. No decaf either or any food that used coffee for flavoring, such as ice cream. For...
Read more →Hunting Headaches - Progress?
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I haven't posted about my night headaches since May. There are many posts about headaches on this site. When I started the project in March 2011, I was confident that I could figure it out quickly....
Read more →Coffee and Caffeine Detox Update
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The month is almost half over, so I thought I'd provide a quick update on My Caffeine Detox Plan. My last coffee was on September 30th. Then for a week, I continued to drink some tea. On Sunday,...
Read more →Results From My 30 Days Without Grains Experiment
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I was just reminded that I never posted the outcome to My Current Experiment: 30 Days Without Any Grains. There was a data issue with this test. On September 1st, I got exposed to gluten at a...
Read more →The Guinea Pig Diaries
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During a recent trip to the library, I spied this book out of the corner of my eye under Staff Picks. Just look at that cover. I had to read it. !The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment The...
Read more →My Caffeine Detox Plan
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Last week I posted Caffeinated Delusions, which outlined my addiction to caffeine and my desire to overcome that addiction. It also covered how my prior detox attempts were flawed or too short. Well...
Read more →Update on My Ice Cream Experiment
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Last year I only had two servings of ice cream the entire year. I've more than made up for it this year. Around March I started eating ice cream on a weekly basis. As we moved from spring to summer,...
Read more →My Current Experiment: 30 Days Without Any Grains
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Even though I gave up gluten years ago, I still would from time to time have gluten-free grain options. In the past several months as I've increased my carbohydrate levels, I've been consuming...
Read more →Better Than Bulletproof Coffee
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I've received several requests to comment on Bulletproof Coffee. The reason I am being asked is not only have I been an active blogger on nutrition for a few years, but I'm also a coffee enthusiast....
Read more →The Low Histamine Diet
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Well, the day finally arrived. Yesterday morning my refrigerator had no ferments at all. For the past few weeks, I have been finishing up all my sauerkraut and kimchi in preparation for my latest...
Read more →Chlorine Shower Filter: 3 Month Update
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Back in February I started a test I called Chlorination Elimination Experimentation. I wanted to see if using a shower filter that removed chlorine could positively impact my skin. I was a bit...
Read more →Gelatin Supplementation and Deep Sleep
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A month or so ago I stumbled across a recommendation for using gelatin supplementation to improve sleep quality. Specifically the theory was that gelatin could minimize early morning awakenings. This...
Read more →Defending the Quantified Self
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I got a healthy dose of criticism on Facebook for the experiment I outlined in the post My Chamomile Tea and Sleep Quality Experiment. To bring everyone up to speed, I design tests and collect data...
Read more →My Chamomile Tea and Sleep Quality Experiment
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One of the most often things repeated about Chamomile Tea is that it improves sleep quality. For many people, this means being able to fall asleep faster. I wanted to test this assumption. For my...
Read more →Hunting Headaches - Side Sleep
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One of the jobs I had in college was loading trucks for UPS. It was the most exhausting job I've ever had. It made Army Basic Training seem like working at a library. One night I came home so worn...
Read more →Hunting Headaches - Shampoo Up My Nose
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It is time for a status report on my Hunting Headaches project. For the new readers, almost a year ago I started a quantified self project to track down the cause of my late night headaches. Many...
Read more →Chlorination Elimination Experimentation
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Last week I ended my topical coconut oil experiment and started a new skin experiment. A month ago I was poking around the Underground Wellness site when I found a post about shower filters. My first...
Read more →The Topical Coconut Oil Experiment
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When I returned from my trip to Ohio in December parts of my face were dry, slightly red, and starting to flake. Damn you veggie oils and gluten! I had read about how some people use coconut oil to...
Read more →Hunting Headaches: Remaining Suspects in Early 2012
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Last March I decided to finally figure out the cause of my late night sinus headaches. I started a headache journal, ran numerous tests and tried several supplements. Nine months later and I still...
Read more →Nut Elimination Test Completed
I completed my 30-day elimination test with nuts. At the end of the 30 days, I reintroduced almonds, pistachios, cashews, and pecans. The result is I have zero issues with nuts. This is what I...
Read more →The Next 30 Day Test: Nuts!
My next 30 Day elimination test will be nuts. Starting on October 29th, I will go 30 days without any nuts or nut butters. Then I will reintroduce nuts, probably almonds, for a period of 4 days and...
Read more →Intermittent Fasting - The No Hunger Method
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I started doing Intermittent Fasting over three years ago. My strategy has always been to just deal with the hunger. If you ignore it, it goes away. When I first began fasting, I'd think about my...
Read more →My First Week Back on Coffee
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In the post What I Learned During My Coffee Detox, I covered the results that I experienced by gradually lowering and eventually taking a full 2 weeks off from coffee. As informative as that test...
Read more →What I Learned During My Coffee Detox
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The last time I did a serious coffee detox was in 1997. I was long overdue. I got down to a single espresso by August 22nd. In the end, I went 14 days without coffee. During this time, I did still...
Read more →30 Day No Dairy Test Complete
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Although I messed up a few times, which forced me to restart the test, I have now completed a 30 Day No Dairy test. One of the methods to test to see if dairy is a problem is to completely eliminate...
Read more →Sluggish
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I haven't posted much this week, because I'm feeling really sluggish. I've dropped my daily coffee intake to a single espresso (double ristretto). That might not seem extreme to some, but I live in...
Read more →Do Cold Showers Lead to Fat Loss or Fat Gain?
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There are some contradictory opinions on whether cold temperature exposure leads to fat loss or fat gain. Before I share my thoughts, I want to say that regardless of fat loss, I find cold weather...
Read more →My Case For Self Experimentation
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In 2008 I did something that completely changed my outlook on personal health. I embraced the idea that the way to resolve disagreements on what is best for optimal health could be addressed with...
Read more →Hunting Headaches Take 3
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This has been a rough summer for me. Things haven't turned out as I expected. In addition to personal and financial setbacks, I still have not solved the riddle of my headaches. When I began actively...
Read more →30 Days Without Cheese
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I completed another 30 Day experiment. This time I went 30 days without any aged cheese. This restricted me to just cottage cheese and cream cheese. All other types of cheese were eliminated during...
Read more →Concluding Seasonal Strategies For Fitness and Nutrition
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About a year ago I decided to alter my diet and activity level based upon the season. I was motivated by the differences I saw in the approaches to paleolithic diets. Some of my nutritional mentors...
Read more →Hunting Headaches Take 2
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In the post Hunting Headaches, I shared my headache journal and my inability so far to solve my headache problem or even isolate what type of headaches I'm getting. In the comments, I got a lot of...
Read more →A High Intensity Approach to Cold Weather Training
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It has been a while since I last posted on Cold Weather Training. For those new to the site, I began experimenting with cold temperature exposure back in 2008 as way to "toughen up" after living in...
Read more →Be Your Own Dermatologist
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From about the time I was in college until two years ago I would occasionally get rosacea outbreaks on my cheeks and forehead. Rosacea is a skin condition that manifests as redness. It is mostly just...
Read more →Ending the 30 Day No Sugar No Fruit Experiment
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Almost a month ago I started a new 30 Day experiment of going a month without any sugar or fruit. My goal was to once and forever determine if there was a link between sugar and my frequent...
Read more →30 Days Without Sugar or Fruit
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I love a good experiment and I'm about to start a new one. I've done 30 days without sugar and 30 days without fruit, but not at the same time. Yesterday I realized that if I really want to test the...
Read more →Life Without Gluten
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I am a fan of doing experiments on nutrition and fitness. And although I understand most people do not share my enthusiasm, if I were to pick a single 30 day experiment for mankind it would be to go...
Read more →After 30 Days Without Sugar
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I completed my 30 Days Without Sugar challenge. It wasn't hard at all. Actually it was quite easy and it just got easier. The purpose of the test was to see if I could detect any positive health...
Read more →No Jacket Required Revisited
In December 2008, I did a post titled No Jacket Required. It detailed my experiment with cold weather exposure. At the end of that winter I shared my results in the post Still No Jacket Required....
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