Oblomov Sees the Light

Oblomov Sees the Light; More Health and Diet Notes

By John Taylor; 2006 June 22

Stu introduced to me two major dietary innovations. First was a recipe for bean salad made of canned beans, quick, easy and healthful. I have a bowlful for lunch daily, flatulence be blown, so to speak. Decades of chronic illness have put health way before social acceptability on my priority list. I have improved upon his recipe by adding a handful of curry to every batch; since that Indian spice has been proven to prevent Alzheimer's and that runs in my family (50 percent of seniors get Alzy or dementia anyway these days, so it probably does not matter much if it is in your genes or not). Just to make sure, I put heaps of curry in my thrice daily gazpacho soup too.

Stu also introduced me to the idea of eating omega fortified eggs, that is, eggs laid by chickens fed exclusively on flax seed meal. Here was his story: somebody noticed that patients in some heart clinic somewhere liked their eggs in the morning, but as we all know, eggs raise cholesterol levels. So this person tried out flax fed chicken eggs on the patients and discovered that eating these eggs regularly actually lowered their cholesterol. Thus was born the omega fortified egg. So it was that for a few months I shelled out the extra dollar per dozen for these elite eggs and got into the habit of having two microwaved omega eggs, nuked in a special plastic explosion container, along with my normal breakfast every morning.

Then on my second visit to my doctor's in-house nutritionist I asked about the omega eggs. She said, "Save your money, buy ordinary eggs and eat the flax directly. Grind up the seeds in the blender, put them in the fridge and have two to three teaspoons full each day. If that does not give you diarrhea, work it up to two or three tablespoons of flax seed daily." I have followed that advice and it seems to help. By then I had gotten into the habit of two morning eggs. She did not recommend so many eggs but for me it is a choice: either every day or never. I cannot do things on a weekly basis, I can only remember every day not several times a week. Besides, a recent study -- admittedly funded by the egg industry -- found that as many as four eggs per day are safe; the same study also found that although eggs raise "bad cholesterol" levels, the type of bad that it raises is not so bad as once was thought. Call it good bad cholesterol. The study also suggested that that many eggs might be a good alternative to suggest to the poor, since eggs are relatively cheap. Low cost, in my book, always clinches it.

But the egg story is not over. In this month's New Scientist a gardener wrote in and asked the resident expert why it was that when he had two eggs in the morning he did not have to have a mid-morning snack, whereas when he had a cereal breakfast his hard labor induced enough hunger to force him to stop for a refill halfway through the morning. As soon as I read the question, I noticed that this had been true for me too, sedentary writer that I am, at least in the morning. I realized that since I had started on my two egg a day habit I had felt no desire for my usual morning snack. Instead of eating, for my break now I grab a bottle of water and pace around and stretch my legs for several minutes. It does not occur to me anymore to sit down and eat.

Anyway, the scientist answered the gardener's question by pointing out that eggs are a type of protein that predates the addition only 10,000 years ago of grains to the human diet. For that reason the body absorbs egg proteins quicker and more thoroughly than whatever the nutrients are that are in grains. At the same time they seem to hold off hunger pangs longer... Okay, I admit, I did not pay much attention to the answer, to me the observation in the question is the important thing. You go past shelf after shelf in the library about diets and how to lose weight -- you could spend the rest of your life just reading these elaborate schemes -- and yet studies found that none of them lasts more than a year before dieters regain the weight again. Yet here is a simple and easy change, two eggs in the morning, that will really work, as long as you keep it permanent.

This is the big obstacle to overcome for just about anything, how to keep good changes permanent. The only thing that for me keeps an improvement going permanently is knowing exactly why I should be doing it. For example, for many years I kept paying for distilled bottle water because of a vague sense that I "felt better" when I drank more; since distilled water tastes better than tap water I tend to drink more of it when it is easily available. Eventually last fall (or was it the autumn before that? Remember what I said about Alzies.) I stopped buying water completely. It seemed a needless expense for a possibly imagined benefit.

At around that time my migraines became much more frequent and severe. I was being blinded, the mark of a crippling condition. But only when I happened to come across it in a Migraines for Dummies book did I realize that avoiding dehydration, or to be more accurate, drinking water until you are about to burst, actually both alleviates and prevents migraines. Migraine, in my opinion, is caused by a defective sense of thirst; you do not feel the need for the amount of water that your brain actually needs to function. Now, knowing that, I gladly shell out for water, I force myself to drink it all day long, and I no longer am subject to being raked over the coals by migraine attacks. Knowing why I am doing it means that I will never revert or backslide.

I remember one doctor I went to in Ottawa (which places it around 1980) who listened to my list of symptoms, read the test results showing nothing abnormal, and then offered this speculation: "Maybe you just have a weak physiology." Yet thanks to the reasonable planners at OHIP (Ontario's medical plan), now dieticians are considered to pay for themselves, and I am a case in point. At that last visit a blood test the dietician had ordered turned up a vitamin B12 deficiency, resulting in the languor of anemia. This is something that has dogged me all my life. I had said to that Ottawa doctor,

"How could I have a weak physiology? I was among the top five Judoka in Canada in my weight class a few years ago. I was training for the Olympics. Judo matches are three minutes long, which requires only short bursts of energy, but what kills me is lasting through a whole day. Once I get through the morning all I want to do from then on is lie around. I cannot hold down a job, I get so sleepy and apathetic all of the time and afternoons are absolute torture. I cannot believe this is normal."

Yet this and many other doctors put me through every imaginable test and nothing ever turned up. Even my closest friends thought I was imagining it, or was simply lazy. Now I get a dietician and at last an adequate explanation turns up. When she asked me if I had been feeling anemic lately I had to say no, I have always felt anemic, all my life. My favorite novel for many years was "Oblomov," the story of a fellow so languid and bed bound that he falls in love and loses her simply because he is too tired to roll out of his couch. Long, long ago I gave up all hope of changing that.

Just think of the millions of dollars the government could have saved -- not to mention my own career tossed to the wolves -- if only there were closer monitoring of bodily functions. Since I started taking the 1000 mmg. of vitamin B12 daily I have been trying to be as active as I possibly can, even though I must say I still feel excruciating tired most of the time. But seeing light at the end of the tunnel, I am willing to fight it again. The dietician said that there may be an absorption problem and I am to check back with her again in August. Maybe vitamin shots will be necessary.

Be that as it may, I am determined to fight to get what I have never had, a healthy, vigorous constitution. Which is why when all the other soccer moms and dads are sitting by the sidelines I am the only adult over at an empty goal area fending off the shots of a group of ankle nippers. When Silvie is playing or practicing I kick the soccer ball around with Thomas and friends, and when he plays, I practice with Silvie and her bigger friends. I may barely be able to run like a turtle or kick like a flounder, but better be thought a clumsy fool than lose the only worldly thing that matters, your health.

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John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com