The View from the Whitehouse no1: Earthing

My Editor at The Moorlander Newspaper has given me permission to reprint the columns I've been writing for them here, so this is no. 1 from 2017.

Hello, I’m a woman with a thorn in her foot who’s just scared the willies out of the postman by lying naked on the vegetable patch. Our garden is pretty sheltered if you’re not actually coming into the driveway — and I did have enough time to ensure that my important bits were decently covered with a towel — but he probably thought I was a dead body for a moment.

This lying naked on the earth thing is called “Earthing.” I think it’s simultaneously the latest and the oldest thing on the planet. According to the website www.earthing.com, “Earthing is a fast-growing movement based upon the major discovery that connecting to the Earth’s natural energy is foundational for vibrant health.”

Major discovery eh? I think our ancestors knew a bit about that. Even my mother knows — she’s survived to 90 very healthily and firmly believes it’s all down to all the gardening she does. She’s probably right; mothers usually are.

It’s all because of electrons. Research from Texas A&M University reveals that when we take our shoes off and touch the earth with our bare flesh, free electrons, powerful antioxidants that can help reduce inflammation, transfer from the ground into our body via the soles of our feet or the palms of our hands.

You’d think, given their contact with nature, that walkers would be the most grounded of people but rubber or plastic-soled shoes prevent us from contacting the earth. Nowadays we rarely walk barefoot except on a summer holiday at the beach. We don’t even lie on the sand—it’s plastic loungers on the beach or by the pool.

I think it’s a bit too much of a challenge to spend half an hour a day lying naked on the vegetable patch so, instead, I’ve started to walk barefoot on the Moor. So much former city-dweller ‘it’ll hurt’ wimpy stuff came up ... and it was jolly cold too until this last month ... but it feels amazing and it certainly makes you focus on where you put your feet. There are tiny, tiny fledgling gorse bushes on the Moor and they hurt.

But I love the feeling of my bare feet splaying out as they were designed to do, adapting to the grass and peat beneath them. That’s not to mention the comfort of socks and shoes when I put them back on my feet afterwards. 

In the meantime, I’m leaving some intriguing footprints in the squelchier places. When just the ball of my foot and toes show up it looks like a very weird mark. Maybe some curious hikers on the way back down to Shilstone Tor are starting to wonder if they have seen the elusive prints of the mythical Beast of Dartmoor?

Mind you, she’s the one racing down the hill behind me, tongue out and leaping for joy. Dogs have all the right ideas and walking in shoes is not one of them.

The Three Day Fast

I'm on a three day fast. Which means no food at all. Nada. It's not fun but it is interesting.

And of course, I've just driven myself crazy posting a picture of a quiche I made because you're 'supposed' to have a picture on a blog posting. Sometimes I do make myself laugh...

So, you say, why are you doing the fast if you don't enjoy it? Who would?! But there are three reasons really - it's good for my body and it's good self-discipline - and because of John-down-the-road.

When I was ill a year or so ago, I ate very healthily but since then I've gone back down the 'yummy carbs' route probably because I'll never be one of those people who only eat to live. I love my food! And I love baking and making treats for others.

When I was sick I ate keto as much as I could - no sugar, virtually no carbs for 18 solid months (and no alcohol either). I certainly got slender - though ironically that wasn't any part of the goal - and people said that I'd never want to go back to sugar. Really? On what planet? I have to say I'd love to be one of those people who genuinely discovers that sugar no longer appeals but it certainly wasn't the truth for me.

When I bake nowadays I bake gluten-free (which is probably why so much of my food is messy - see articles below!) but I still include maple syrup or sugar when the recipe requires it. I focus on the gluten-free not because I'm coeliac but because I just think it's healthier. Who knows how much mess there is bound into most gluten? Apart from anything else, most pesticides are formulated to destroy the insect's stomach and if you have enough of that in your own tummy ... well, need I say more?

Incidentally, the quiche pictured is 50-50 gluten free and normal flour. That was quite simple: I just made two pastries and stuck them together. The non GF half was for my husband.

It would, of course, be healthier to drop the sugar too - but I don't want to. And I am a fervent believer that what makes you happy is a valid pathway to greater health. Eat as well as you can and eat happily and you are doing okay. I hardly ate happily any day for those 18 months; it was a grind and that's not how I want to live my life. It's not healthy!

There is research that supports what seems to be true for me - that the body tries to re-build the fat it used to have before you dieted/got sick. It seems that it believes that being skinny is not the accepted, healthy norm for it - and as the dieting doesn't actually remove the fat cells, just makes them skinny. They want to fill out again.

Hence the fast. I reckon that if I want to stay as healthy as possible and I intend to eat stuff that is 'bad for me' and which makes me joyful then I also need to allow my digestion and immune system the chance to take some time out and re-set itself. Here's an article about it. If there's no food to process, the stomach can rest ... and if there's nothing to spark any reactions, the immune system can get on with sorting out what really matters like any rogue cells, that sniffle that's gone on too long or anything else that might need repairing.

What's fascinating is that, here on day two, I'm not hungry. Truly, there has been no rumbling yet at all. But I miss the routine of eating breakfast, lunch, tea and supper with my husband, I miss the anticipation of meals, I miss the cooking. And I miss the food!  I can smell Lion's lunctime soup and his supper much more than I would notice the scent of my own food. And I'm finding it hard to concentrate which means my blood sugar is (understandably) low. But I'm incredibly proud of myself. In many ways I lack self-discipline but this is an exercise in just that and it's pleasing that I am ready, willing and (so far) able to do it.

Oh...the bit about John-down-the-road: John is an incredible man who heals people with chronic pain through EFT and kinesiology. He truly has had some wonderful results but, just like all healers, he has had his failures too, including, partially, himself. He had arthritis. Now he didn't have it like he 'should' have had it because of his work on himself and his diet and his beliefs; it has reduced and reduced since he started healing work and became simply faint but it was still there. So John (who has shedloads of money and never charges for his healing work - bless him) went off to Arizona to do a three week fast, to reset his immune system enough to clear his arthritis.

This fast was fully medically supervised - he wasn't even allowed to leave the facility which, to me would have been hell! - and all he took in for 21 days was water. He was bored out of his brain but he did it.

And the arthritis went.

Now, I don't have the guts to do 21 days but I can be inspired by John and I can manage three days and I can intend to do this at least every six months as an act of love towards this marveous, beautiful body of mine.

And on Friday, I can have another of those uttely yummy GF, organic brownies I made on Sunday. If Lion hasn't scoffed the lot.