yep, magnesium!

The old adage goes, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" ... not that i've had more than a couple of forkfuls of REAL pudding since i went low-carb!  :-)  I keep promising myself to make a LCHF version every winter, and keep procrastinating....

But i like that expression:  to me, it means that no matter what theorists and armchair "researchers" claim, if it doesn't pan out in the real world, it just ain't SO.  Especially in the diet-and-nutrition sphere, there are a lot of things which are assumed to be true about food and absorption which may have been "proven" in tests on young, healthy subjects but which fall very flat when practiced by time-worn and metabolically-faulty people like me.  For that reason, i'm very skeptical of claims surrounding supplements and regimens -- especially those touted by gym-rats who are younger than i am.  I NEVER assume that what works for others will be beneficial for me, so i'm always surprised and delighted when some things ARE.

Over the last five years, i've tried SO many new things it would be hard to enumerate them -- from patterns of exercise to meal timing to hygiene practices to individual-micronutrient supplementation to microbiome-tweaking to neurotransmitters to variations of diet....  Some worked and some didn't, despite the fact that numerous people out there swore by their efficacy.  And none of my experiments were one-day-and-give-up situations -- i read up thoroughly beforehand so i was usually convinced i didn't just do it wrong.  A lot of things i gave a second chance before marking them as failures, and EVERYTHING that worked i stopped and restarted, to make sure it wasn't just coincidence or placebo effect.  An old lab-tech like me does know a little about proper experimentation.

So with my mood and fatigue issues going distinctly downhill over the last year, I set out to fix the situation before i turned into a complete basket-case.  I researched what has been found to treat stress successfully, from a nutritional point of view, and increased my magnesium supplementation by about double.  Within a few days i started feeling better.

Stress, both physical and psychological, depletes magnesium.  Caffeine does too, AND alcohol.  Guess what i've used more of to combat weariness and irritation?  So do things like antihistamines ... and this has been a hellish year for weather that promotes mold.  As with so many other things, older bodies like mine tend not to absorb magnesium well.  My levels must have been at gutter levels -- no wonder i was beginning to melt down!

When one gets to the nutritionally-stressed stage, things go bad at a geometric rate.  One's coping mechanisms are GONE.  It's not possible to pull oneself together because the tools with which to do it are no longer there.

Figuratively speaking, i dug out the box and got me a POWERtool which i had stashed away -- magnesium.  Even though my multi contains the RDA, i increased my intake to a level found to be effective for severely-deficient people ... and it was.

But "the RESSSST of the story" is, i think that either some of the soil brought in by the landscapers had god-only-knows what kind of contamination in it, or maybe, the cement blocks they're cutting (with much dust going everywhere) are "poisoning" me.  There are times when it's almost as though something is overriding my brain-function!  Despite the beautiful autumn weather we've been enjoying, i'm having to close windows facing the backyard;  i even got my husband to dyson the bedroom and empty the dust-container directly into the outdoor garbage, to try to get any tracked-in dirt out of the room in which i spend so much time.  I replaced both kinds of filters in the air-cleaner, too.  Then we bought a new microfiber mop, to efficiently clean the tile floor in the sunroom.  I'm looking forward to the time that the landscapers have the autumn planting done, and we get grass and mulch holding down the bare soil out there!  Till then, there won't be a prayer of me giving up my Benadryl.