Have you followed this blog for a while or just stumbled upon it recently? Have you made changes to your diet and lifestyle based on what you’ve read here? Have you experienced minor changes, major changes, or even total transformation in your state of health? This page is here for anyone who has experienced changes in health by following the suggestions and recommendations found in this blog. Please share your story. Many will benefit from it.
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
healthfully 
Dear Guillaume, just before the new year I put two search terms into google: arthritis and magnesium. Google showed me your article “arthritis 1” and it had such compelling advice that I ended up reading all of your blogs on this site and implementing all of it in my life. Some major changes for me, to be sure! But what I had been doing for 60 years was no longer working for me and I was facing more and more episodes of debilitating knee pain. Arthritis runs in my family so I figure, whatever my relatives are doing isn’t good and I need to do an about face, so I am! I cut all carbs out and ordered a case of native forest organic coconut milk (super delicious) Doc Broc;s greens (surprisingly not bad), magnesium, salicic acid drops, vitamin B patches. I have been doing it all and am already getting encouraging results! I also take UC II and some other common supplements, such as probiotics and vitamin C. I have been a lacto ovo vegetarian for 40 years, so I am not eating any meat. I am eating some beans, but not too much. I eat eggs and raw cheese. I just ordered some New World raw whey which I think will be good for protein. The whole high fat diet I am eating now turns the USDA food pyramid on its head! Because good fat is so satisfying, hunger has not been a problem and I have already lost 5 pounds. Losing weight is important for my knees. I am excited so far by how good I am feeling and how easy it is to eat this way. It takes motivation, not will power. Thanks for such a well researched and helpful website! I will update you in a few more months. I am in it for the long haul.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here I am 4 and 1/2 years later, doing even better! For 15 months now I have been on the ketogenic diet that Guillaume espouses. I can’t believe I waited 3 years to try it. Don’t wait!!!! It is such a great way to eat. Losing weight, sleeping better, never hungry! God bless Guillaume!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Guillaume, some follow up to my first post: I am already (after 5 weeks on this protocol) having immense relief of my arthritis pain!! I am so much less stiff. This is truly amazing to me as arthritis runs rampant through my family with hip and knee replacements galore. I am also losing weight at about a pound a week and have tons of energy. Here is my question: I am taking many ionic or liquid minerals. Magnesium, silicic acid, and boron. Can I put all the drops in the same glass of water together and drink it while taking the rest of my supplements? I do this after I eat a substantial meal. Are some things better taken on an empty stomach? Thanks for all you help!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much for writing. I am truly very happy to hear you are doing so much better and, in fact, so very well. You should take magnesium, silicic acid and boron first thing in the morning on an empty stomach (you can take them together). Trace mineral complexes like Concentrace contain the full spectrum of natural minerals, and they are dissolved in water together. Zinc and anti-oxidants (most, if not all), for example, should be taken on a full stomach, especially with fat. Omega-3 rich fish/krill oil supplements should be taken in the morning and not at night, because they will most likely keep you awake, as will B12 (always put on your patch in the morning).
LikeLike
Dear Guillaume,
I’ll always be thankful for the day we met in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in March last year. Since then I’ve been following your blog and I never miss a single post.
What attracted me from the very beginning were two things. Your scientific determination to put reason and proof before hype and speculation and your ability to explain complex things in simple English for us non-scientists. As soon as I detected these two qualities of yours, my defenses went down and I was ready to dedicate my time (lot’s of time) to study your research, conclusions of your research and your recommendations for a better, more healthy, diet and lifestyle.
I’m not new to the concepts of optimal diet, super foods, anti-aging, longevity secrets and other similar subjects. I’ve always been buying and reading books and magazines on these subjects, attending seminars and workshops, but it has all become so overwhelming over the last ten years or so. Too much information and too much confusing, inconsistent and even contradictory information.
A quick background for the readers of your blog. I have trained and competed for many years in different athletic disciplines, never smoked or drank alcohol and always consumed healthy foods and drinks. (Or so I thought!)
Before I switched to your dietary regime I was not in a bad shape at all. On the contrary, at 177 cm I had 72 kg, my body fat was around 10% or 11%, and at the age of nearly 50 I could still sprint 100 meters under 13 seconds, do 50 push-ups and 15 pull-ups. I have no medical record and no aches or pains of any kind.
So what more could I possible want? Well, it turned out that I was “deprived” of many good things due to my less than optimal food choices.
I used to believe that the exemplary ‘healthy’ diet consisted of 30% fat or lower, moderate protein and plenty of fruit and complex carbs and that diet should be low on salt or with no extra salt at all.
When my wife and I — our children are coming along with these changes nicely — eliminated simple carbohydrates from our meals literally overnight (no sugars, no pasta, no rice, no pastry or bakery products, only occasionally a few slices of potato) in just a few weeks changes started to happen.
My energy level, mood and my mental functions (concentration, focus, even memory) all went up.
That first week after the “transition” was really a special experience. When one eats lots of processed carbohydrates each and every day and does that for years, and when these food choices are then eliminated from a daily menu quickly and completely, a body needs to experience some kind of a shock and cope with some withdrawal symptoms. I needed to remind myself constantly that I didn’t need those foods to be healthy and feel well. And that was enough, as it was true.
My daily routine is now to drink at least three liters of water with unrefined sea salt daily for maximum hydration. I start my mornings with 750 ml of green vegetable juice, then in the next hours I have a few more glasses of water with sea salt and at around 11 am I consume one can of coconut milk blended with a tablespoon of frozen berries and just a tiny bit of Stevia.
This, together with a few handfuls of almonds, macadamia and other good nuts, keep me going for a good part of the day. It’s amazing how I feel no hunger for may hours after such a simple meal. And even when it’s time for our main afternoon meal, I’m never hungry the way I was when my body and mind was so low on energy, craving for a “shot of glucose” which would put me on a yet another carbo roller-coaster.
What’s for dinner? Greens and proteins, usually. At centre stage we always have a big bowl of salad with organic eggs from free range (grass and insect eating) hens, butter, fatty cheeses and grass-fed meats, in moderate amounts. Luckily, organic, free range eggs and meats, can easily and consistently be purchased on our central food market.
In the first weeks after I made a switch I lost three or four kilograms of mostly fat (I’m now at 67 kg), so my body fat percentage decreased to 8% or 9% which is what I measured in my peak performance years.
I feel great, light and strong. Just one example, I improved my pull-ups result significantly. My recent best was 15 pull-ups but I could go all the way up to 20 repetitions just a few weeks ago. Which is almost my personal best! (My PB in pull-ups is 22 repetitions from a Mr. Fitness competition in Ljubljana when I was 36!)
I feel and perform much better on this high fat diet than on any other food regime I’ve done or tried before. I’m burning good fats for energy and it’s clearly obvious that my muscles and brains like it much better that glucose or glycogen.
Plus I sleep really well. I sleep better than I ever remember I did. And there’s another thing which is important to me, to my good night’s rest and a good start of the new day…
You know how I told you about my involuntary need to wake up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom. Over the years it gradually went from one to regularly two and then even three “wake up calls”.
You told me what to do to change things and I followed your advise “fanatically”. Instead of decreasing the amount of water consumed which was an advice I was hearing from almost every doctor, you recommended the opposite — to increase my hydration but also to add a fair amount of unrefined sea salt to all my vegetable drinks and water intake during the day. You also said that I needed to be patient and that it would take time for a chronically dehydrated body to get back to appropriate levels of hydration. You said that it might take a full year of following your plan consistently.
It took a little less than that and a few weeks ago it happened. I slept eight straight hours (in a totally dark bedroom) for the first time in probably 15 years. And it wasn’t an exception. That’s a norm now. That’s my new reality and I like it very much. As a bonus I got an additional hour of my waking time and I feel better when I wake up than I ever did.
It’s amazing how everything you said worked out just the way you predicted.
Thanks again,
Bostjan
P.s. My blood tests prove this better state of health also with numbers. My Insulin is under 2 mE/L, Glucose is at 4.7 mmol/L, Triglycerides at 0.7 mmol/L, HDL Cholesterol is 1.4 mmol/L and LDL Cholesterol 3.5 mmol/L.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The first time I learned about a high fat diet was in October 2012 when I was visiting Guillaume in Madrid to work with him at ESAC. Of course, I was totally skeptical about it, because everything he told me was in complete contradiction to what we are told by doctors, and it all looked more or less like “just another diet”. Because of that, there really wasn’t much possibility to get me interested in it.
At one point he mentioned in passing that paleo-anthropologists can easily distinguish whether bones belong to members of a hunter-gatherer or a farming society, because the latter show obvious signs of degradation. The thing is, I had already read this in a very convincing book (I think it was Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies) and Guillaume told me the very same thing in the context of grain-free, low-carb, high-fat diet he had been practising for about five years at that point.
I simply had to start paying more attention to what he was saying. I started reading this blog and some of the papers referenced in the posts. The arguments against carbohydrates and for fat were very compelling… I mean, tumors disappearing when glucose is removed from diet! Come on, what more do I need, I should be ready to let go the starchy/sugary food at once, right? Nope.
Even though the stuff I had read and was reading was really convincing, and I was even quite sure that it was right, I still wasn’t ready to give up on all the pasta, potatoes, sweets, cakes, … you know, the “good” stuff. And bread! Probably the most symbolic of all foods! So, I just decided that if I ever got cancer, I’d do this no-carb thing. But until then: no diet for me. (I guess this is quite similar to smokers’ dilemma: they all know it’s bad and that it might very well kill them, but they just don’t care.)
Unfortunately, some unexpected and unpleasant events occurred in my family the next year, and this is what made me think that maybe I shouldn’t wait this long… So, when I was about go work with Guillaume in September 2013 for two weeks, and he suggested that this would be a perfect occasion for me to try his diet, my first thought was: That’s a great idea!
My next thought was: Oh no! I’ll starve to death!!
I got to Madrid, ready to be continuously hungry for two weeks. Guillaume prepared a meal plan for me for every day of my visit and reassured me that if I followed it I wouldn’t be hungry – that I would never be hungry, and I’d be much healthier when I left. So I ate eggs with butter every morning, in fact, I ate more eggs during those two weeks than I normally would have eaten in 6 months! I ate/drank coconut milk, meat, raw veggies, big salads, nuts. No carbohydrates. And I wasn’t hungry. I know that two weeks is not a long time, but I felt quite a bit lighter by the end of it.
When I returned home, I followed the plan with minor changes, e.g. in the morning I started having the thick green juice with coconut milk and oil as described in one of Guillaume’s previous posts, you know, “The True Breakfast of the Champions”, (I just call it “The Swamp”). The trick is to get the amount of each ingredient right, and even more importantly, to use really fresh vegetables. In this case it has a sweetish taste and is actually very drinkable. But beware! If you make it with not-so-fresh ingredients, then you no longer have a Drink of the Champions, but rather a Drink of the Brave.
Now I’ve been without carbs for more than 6 months. I didn’t get sick this winter, even though I’ve been in contact with many people sneezing and coughing. I feel great, I don’t get sleepy after lunch. I never get really, really hungry.
I had a minimal blood test about a month ago, but unfortunately I hadn’t had one for a long time before that, so I can only compare the results to a test that was done two years ago. (I know for sure, however, that if I had taken it just before starting the diet (in September 2013), the results of that test would have been much worse – alarming even.) So, the latest results… my cholesterol is still not so good (very high LDL, very low HDL), but my triglycerides dropped very significantly (from 250 to 140 mg/dl!!!). My blood pressure also dropped, even though I have been using more salt than before (you know, doctors always tell us not to eat salt because it increases the blood pressure).
To be honest, I expected the cholesterol to go through the roof because of all the fat I had been eating, but no, it didn’t happen. So (for now?) I’ll just attribute its persistently high and low values to all the stress that I’ve been experiencing in the last three years (and that should drop significantly this summer).
Ah, yes… I almost forgot one good side-effect of this no-carb, high-fat diet: I lost about 20 kilos in 6 months, without much exercise, none at all, actually (I know, I know, shame on me!). I had to buy smaller pants already after a month of the diet, and now I’ll have to do it again.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fantastic! I’m very happy for you. Thanks for writing. Triglycerides should keep going down (you want those to be about 50 mg/dl), and cholesterol should improve greatly by reducing stress (and you want LDL and HDL both around 100 mg/dl). What about insulin, B12, Hcy and D?
LikeLike
Dear Guillaume,
Ever since I stumbled upon your blog site, it’s been my Number One Resource site on health-and-wellbeing matters (including your Bibliography section). I greatly respect your dedication, and I trust your advice 100% because it’s obvious that you have researched every topic thoroughly. Your passion for healthy living and proper diet/nutrition is contagious. You are a Purist – and I mean that in the best possible denotation and with my utmost admiration! I would like to implement all your recommendations in our diet at home, and we are trying, but it’s not so easy with the leafy green’s: Kale, Dandelion, Swiss Chard (haven’t been able to find a recipe to make them any less unappealing…) Spinach is where the line is drawn – it’s tolerable once a week, but no family favourite. And to eliminate our daily espresso coffee would require extra will power… So no great success to report in the “Testimonials” section, but we’re deliberately making an effort. However, the importance of your blog site is indisputable!
As to me, here’s why I got involved in health matters, and my perspective, all in a nutshell for brevity’s sake:
* Treating the family’s chronic health concerns (Osteoporosis, Diabetes, etc.) I used to trust and fully rely upon the conventional Doctors and Specialists, which – in hindsight – I’ve come to regard as a big mistake.
* It’s a fact that conventional medicine today could undoubtedly offer successful treatments for acute, urgent and life-threatening conditions like at no other time in the past – Granted!
* But: At the same time, I’m convinced that treatments of chronic ailments are heavily influenced by Big Pharma who has managed to highjack the medical profession. I suspect that Doctors and Specialists, by their rigid professional guidelines, are expected (and encouraged?) to prescribe Rx medications and seem to me to be afraid to deviate from the standards likely imposed on them.
* That sad state of affairs leaves me no choice but to come to the realization that I have to – very reluctantly – take health matters in my own hands (I have other hobbies, you know!…). This necessitated an urgent focus on educating myself from all available sources. Thankfully, there’s no shortage, but then sifting through that whole lot becomes most important and it’s also quite time consuming.
* I’m sharing my current main sources because I’d welcome feedback (and further recommendations) by you, Guillaume, or any member of the blog:
* Dr. Mercola’s website
* Mike Adams (The Health Ranger) website
* Dr. Sherry Rogers (all her books + Newsletter)
* Dr. Carolyn Dean (books, newsletter, Magnesium supplements)
* Dr. Atkins (his excellent Vita-Nutrient Solution book + all other books), Jeff S. Volek & Stephen D. Phinney (“The Art and Science of Low Carb Living”), Dr. Christian B. Allan & Wolfgang Lutz (“Life Without Bread”).
* Dr. Marc C. Houston, Stephen Sinatra, Jonny Bowden, Uffe Ravnskov, Malcolm Kendrick (on Cholesterol and Cardio matters)
* Dr. Mary Enig (“Know Your Fats” must-read book)
* Weston A. Price Foundation resources (Sally Fallon books)
* Elizabeth Lipski (“Digestive Wellness” book)
* E. Haas (“Staying Healthy with Nutrition” book)
* I got a dozen books on Thyroid health, but I haven’t yet had the chance to get into that topic. Eventually I will, though, because my mother is on Synthroid for years, and I’d like her to safely transfer to natural sources (desiccated thyroid powder supplement?).
Guillaume, you have a distinct talent to write and make all these complicated health and diet/nutrition matters easy to understand. I would whole-heartedly encourage you to collect all your blog’s essays/articles and get them published in a book, so that more people could benefit. Your colleague Astrophysicist Paul Jaminet (with his wife Shou-Ching Jaminet, a molecular biologist) have published “Perfect Health Diet”, a 425 page book which I just got.
Thank you for your dedication, and I’m looking forward to your next post!
Toni (Ontario, Canada)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Toni,
Thank you for taking the time to write and for sharing you thoughts and experience. I appreciate it very much.
The first point you raise about implementing positive change is something everyone struggles with, but if you are committed, then it is just a matter of time, and a step by step progress. You know by now that I consider certain things far more important than others, as is outlined in my Roadmap to Optimal Health: water and salt; green juices and lemon water, raw green vegetables, lots of unprocessed fat (the best is from coconut oil); nuts and seeds; and a little bit of clean animal flesh (fish or mammal) protein; no sugars, no starches, no processed foods, no chemicals. These are the basics and are really quite simple. Everything else is far less important, and coffee is really not a big issue. Supplements, however, can be crucial in certain circumstances.
Your resources all look very good (many are also in my bibliography, as you know). About thyroid health, I have unfortunately not yet written about this, but by far the most important supplement that everyone should be taking to ensure proper thyroid but also generally healthy glandular and hormonal function, is iodine/iodide. More specifically, either Lugol’s solution or Iodoral, in the amount of 50-100 mg/day for at least 6 months, and then 12.5-25 mg for maintenance (see Iodine: why you need it, why you can’t live without it). So, start taking 100 mg of Iodoral or Lugol’s per day (morning and noon) and ween off the Synthroid over a month of so. It is also much better to take ATP cofactors to help with the absorption of iodine. Both supplements are made by Optimox and available on iHerb.
Finally, about the last point regarding the Perfect Health Diet, although I have not read that book, I have read a series of very long and detailed exchanges between Paul Jaminet and Ron Rosedale, and I am definitely with Ron Rosedale on this. In essence, Jaminet (Irish) and his wife (Chinese) are pushing the theory that it is important to eat what they call “safe” starches to avoid “glucose deficiency”, whereas Rosedale (and I) hold to the point that all starches are just a form of sugar and are therefore metabolically and physiologically damaging, and there is not such thing as glucose deficiency in keto-adapted individuals.
What are their safe starches? Potatoes (Irish) and rice (Chinese). But the truth is that the only difference between glucose and starch is that the latter requires amylase and a little bit of time to be broken down to glucose that is, by definition, indistinguishable from the former. So, if we agree that dietary glucose is damaging, then starch is just as damaging, or almost. The amount of damage is a function of quantity and metabolic state, but why would we want any damage-causing substances in any quantity, really? But I’ll be happy to hear what you think of the book when you’re done.
LikeLike
Dear Guillaume,
Thank you very much for your response! A few quick comments:
– Your Roadmap to Optimal Health is our goal here at home. However slow, we are actually making progress, and I know how every new beginning is tough, but it gets easier down the road.
– On the thyroid paragraph, I’ll be posting under “B12: Your Life Depends On It” only because that’s where my previous posts were (to keep it all in one place).
– On the Jaminets’ book, say no more! Now that I know what it promotes, I don’t need to read it (long list of many other important books to read). Some time ago we at home decided to go “Low Carb” and dropped potatoes from our diet. Rice we consume very seldom (organic brown Lundberg rice). By mentioning the book my idea was, when I heard of the author Paul Jaminet, to encourage you to please seriously consider putting together a book. I’m assuming that there must be thousands of people who, like me, are frantically trying to educate themselves on the topics of your blog, and are – like me, having a heck of a time (especially at the beginning) to sift through a huge amount of information out there and to arrive at a progressively clearer path regarding diet, for example. I got Ron Rosedale’s book, by the way, and I’ll definitely read it sometime.
Thanks, Guillaume, please keep the articles going!
Toni
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Guillaume,
Re: Your response to the post of Uros (Mar. 25/’14) on the targeted values for HDL, LDL and Triglycerides. Could you, please, post the converted in mmol/L equivalent for us here in Canada? And what about TC/HDL-Ratio (apparently the Trigly and the Total Cholesterol to HDL-Ratio are most important to watch?)
Thanks, as always,
Toni
LikeLiked by 1 person
Guillaume and I are colleagues. We do not work on the same project but in the same work place (ESAC) and, apart from occasional “Hellos” on random encounters in the corridor or on the way to the cantine, we never communicated much for years and I did not care much for his views about health and nutrition. This changed drastically about 1 1/2 years ago. At the time I was weighting 105 kg (at 1.91m), was feeling sluggish and drained of energy and decided to do something about it. I started doing regular exercises and running and was wondering what else could be done to loose weight and get a leaner body. I started reading Guillaume’s blog and was instantly fascinated by the clarity of the articles and, being a scientist myself, by the rigorous scientific style and way of presenting facts. I started following his advises, cutting out ALL sugars and starchy carbohydrates from my diet, drinking much more water, supplementing, etc. The effect was dramatic: Over the course of 3-4 months I lost 20 kg of fat and felt for myself the effects that Guillaume had predicted and described I would feel: More agility and flexibly, more energy, better stamina, better concentration, less fatigue and much more. I loved feeling like this, and still do now! In the first testimonial above the author writes “I am in it for the long haul” and the same is certainly true for me as well!
For all who read this now and feel encouraged to change their diet also, I would like to add the following: Please be realistic from the start and try not to fool yourself. Realise that to follow all advises and tips requires effort and a lot of self-discipline. That is one thing. The other is that we do not live isolated on our own but we are social beings with colleagues, families and friends who do not share these beliefs or may even oppose them totally. Something people have done for decades (eating starchy foods) is not given up easily especially if they keep hearing from all sides (doctors, magazines, TV, Internet, etc) that there is nothing wrong with it. Guillaume, I am sure you are fully aware of this circumstance – perhaps something you may want to comment on in a future blog. Of course this has nothing to with nutrition itself but I am convinced it is THE major obstacle that most people trying to follow your advice, your roadmap to optimal health, are facing.
I like to believe I have transformed my body into a healhier state and I am certainly planning to continue doing so. I am extremely grateful to Guillaume for all his help and insight he has given me so far. When I talk to others about my experience and (new) beliefs on proper nutrition I often encounter dismissive reactions and scepticism, and understandably so. If you read these lines and have this tendency I can only say: Just try it! You have nothing to loose. If it does not work for you, you will have lost nothing in the process, and can simply go back to what you were eating and drinking. But if you do start to feel a difference, you will have the proof, as I do now.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Three years ago, I was a mess. My stress levels were disproportionately high, which caused my nervous system to take over and derail everything else. My body was completely out of balance: hyper-ventilation, heart palpitations, anxiety attacks, loss of memory, insomnia, depression, vertigo, loss of balance, candida, migraines that stopped me in my tracks, piercing earaches… The works. I was overly exhausted daily, like I had swallowed bricks, and also been hit by a few in the head.
The frustration that goes along with being dysfunctional is surreal, and it unfortunately also increases stress. So there I was, seemingly powerless, caught in a vicious and highly detrimental cycle.
My doctor prescribed medical leave from work (read: toxic workplace) and with what seemed to be a gift of time, I went on a foolish rampage to get well. I had to get better, FAST. So I made long lists of things to do and appointments to keep. I consulted with a naturopath, a homeopath, an Ayurvedic doctor, a Chinese doctor, an energy healer, an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, and a psychotherapist. I kept a day-timer that was fuller than during my time at work. I was staying as busy as possible, and not at all following doctor’s orders to rest. I had to feel a sense of accomplishment. I convinced myself that I could not just sit there, that it would be LAZY.
I was wrong.
I learned the hard way that you can’t rush wellness. The more time went by during my leave, the worse I felt. It was interesting to experience stress rising to the surface once my adrenaline levels were no longer in hyperdrive. I was soon after diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which made things even worse.
But there was hope.
When done naturally and without pharmaceuticals, healing is a long-term process that requires discipline and patience. The body needs time to heal. It can take months, even years to eradicate the stress that has plagued the body.
By understanding that rushing things does not work, I learned that slowing down is important. In my case, vital. So I had to relax gasp and stop drafting to-do lists. I had to let things flow. No planning, not for now. I had to bask in the harsh reality of “I am not well. I can’t function properly. I will get better eventually. Patience.”
Ugh.
This was the most difficult thing I have ever done. We live in a society that measures success on busyness, and multitasking ourselves into illness is a backwards and completely twisted way toward optimal living. So when I had no choice to stop and slow down, I was an anomaly. In contrast, my friends called me a hero. They said they were proud! What? To me, this was incomprehensible. They explained: “You are taking control of your life before it’s too late. This takes courage, and for this, you are amazing.”
Oh.
After meeting half a dozen healers, each with opposing doctrines, I called upon my friend Guillaume. His blog is intriguing, to say the least. It describes health at the biochemical level, and how the body functioned physiologically. This was alien to me. It was an approach I had never heard of before, yet his scientific reasoning made sense.
Guillaume was a high school friend, and I trusted him. I wrote to him personally to tell him I admired his blog, and thanked him for all the information he was sharing. I was also honest in relaying that I didn’t quite understand his counter-intuitive recommendations, and that everything seemed very complicated, almost inaccessible. The truth is that his information is indeed quite thorough, as it relates to the anatomical complexity of the body’s biochemical functions. Yet once properly understood, what he shares is fundamentally simple and straightforward.
Yay.
With my somewhat obsessive mission to feel better, I would read wellness articles on detoxification, how to live a stress-free life, and optimal health. It’s the latter that caught my attention. Optimal health. How do I truly achieve that? I had been a health nut from day one. When I grew up, there was no soda, no chips, no boxed juices, no processed foods, and no condiments except Dijon mustard from France.
I was on the right track. Yet symptomatically, which is essentially biochemically, I was imbalanced. As I mentioned before, I failed to understand the power of cumulative stress, and this was not at all optimal.
Essentially, if you sleep well, exercise regularly and eat great food, all measures toward being healthy are completely eradicated if you are stressed. Stress is a virus, a poison, a plague. It takes over everything like an evil, unforgiving authority, exerting itself on all bodily functions. So someone like me suffering from PTSD has an even lower threshold for stress than someone who has not gone through something traumatic. In other words, something mundane feels like something major. For people suffering from PTSD, nothing is minor, everything is a massive, stressful ordeal.
It’s no fun.
Guillaume advised: “If you follow everything I say diligently, you will heal, but you must listen to me and not question anything I recommend.” This sounded forceful but since I had already tried so many other avenues, I was willing to comply. After all, how could a high school friend genuinely concerned about my well-being steer me wrong?
Guillaume’s passion for wellness and all his supportive research was very convincing, and made his advice definitely worth following. So I went for it. He also insisted: “You must forget everything about your past, everyone who has steered you wrong, everyone who has been a disappointment to you. You must understand that on a healing path, you cannot focus on negative things. You must believe that things will improve, and that you will feel better. Because you will.”
Finally, air.
My journey began at the molecular level. It was tough and went against anything I had ever done, and took eight months for me to feel a change. On month four, I caught a terrible flu, lost track of my optimal health routine many times, had increased headaches, worsened sleep; it seemed Guillaume’s advice was not working at all. He continued to be supportive and encouraging. I’m not exactly sure how an astrophysicist working full-time for a space agency, who has a family of his own, finds the time to advise a cross-Atlantic high school friend in another time zone, but I was very grateful.
During that ghastly flu where I felt I had been hit by a truck, my body was actually undergoing a lengthy and natural detoxification process, eliminating everything I had accumulated over the years. My body was rebelling to the deprivation of sugar and starches. It was screaming for the addictive cosiness of high insulin levels in my blood, and it was not happy about it.
It was horrendous, and it was worth it. My body has undergone major metamorphosis. I lost body fat I didn’t know I had. My high school shape came to the surface without any specific exercise regime whatsoever. I was becoming my true self, and was on my way toward optimal health. To achieve it, I had to follow, and continue to follow, Guillaume’s diligent doctrine.
In the beginning, I didn’t believe doing any of these things would help. I was exasperated. I cried. I stayed up late worrying. I sought fulfillment from the wrong sources. I ignored Guillaume’s advice. My candida soared. My insomnia persisted. I suffered. My symptoms grew stronger. Seemingly, nothing had changed.
Guillaume continued to coach me, offering me constant reminders to follow his recommendations. He was almost annoying, repeating himself all the time. In reality, I was the one being annoying by not being disciplined enough, and by not honouring my promise to follow his advice.
I remained on the path of wellness, green juicing every day, eliminating foods and supplementing with vitamins and minerals as per Guillaume’s strict recommendations, and here’s what I noticed:
Flawless skin void of acne, with no blemishes, and less wrinkles.
My mood improved. No more tantrums, no more road rage, no more impatience, no more inner turmoil.
Sound sleep. Guillaume recommended a minimum of eight hours, with bedtime no later than 10pm. I understand everyone is different but I function best on eight to ten hours per night. Resting as much as I can without being lazy or giving up was key, and I quickly understood that restorative sleep is paramount for optimal health. I suffered from insomnia for five years, sleeping only two to four hours every night, and sometimes not at all. During my leave, it took me almost two years to get a good night’s sleep and I’m still working on it, easily derailed by unexpected and/or consistent stress.
Decreased cravings. Everyone has cravings, and I am living proof that there are ways around it. By eating clean, I noticed my cravings change from convenient foods to food made from scratch and homemade smoothies with coconut milk and berries. Every bite counts! I also drink lots of water, which is not so hard when I’m being mindful about everything all the time.
Cured candida. This was my favourite part. Candida is a yeast overgrowth that causes mind fog, insomnia, depression, and more. So being stuck in a stress vortex due to being overworked as well as having an eruption of candida on my body that is causing even more stress is demoralizing, to say the least. This was where Guillaume was most helpful. He recommended mineral salt baths with baking soda and drinking a teaspoon of baking soda with water every morning on an empty stomach before my green juice. Low and behold, my candida disappeared within a week. Diluted baking soda may not sound appealing but it’s a natural healing process that I’ve grown into. As soon as I’m stressed, however, my candida returns with a vengeance and I’m back to square one. So staying balanced with optimal foods, sound sleep and minimal stress is lots of work, but essential.
Increased vitality. With the elimination of candida, improved sleep, intensive exercise, and clean eating, I transformed my body from the inside out. My outlook has changed. My energy levels are slightly higher. My immune system is strong. Less headaches, no mood swings, not even during my menstrual cycle, and no colds or flu.
When faced with serious life challenges, I still suffer from insomnia and stress-related symptoms which is the curse of PTSD, but I am on my way.
I still thank Guillaume to this day. I would not be on this path without him. The magnitude of health-related information is often contradictory, and Guillaume gave me consolidated insight I was having a hard time filtering on my own.
Even my family physician is familiarising herself with Guillaume’s posts, and has been recommending his blog to her patients.
Guillaume is a gem toward natural healing, and he has also taught me that in the end, optimal health is up to me.
Thank you, Guillaume, for all the time and energy you spend on helping others attain optimal health, for being so patient, and for not giving up on me. I wish you hundreds of thousands more followers! Healthy people = happy people. : )
LikeLiked by 2 people
R, thank you for taking the time for this great post! Normally in our hectic times of twittering and texting even while driving, people don’t get half-an-hour uninterrupted to complete something (hence Attention Deficit Disorder and the likes, which were completely unknown as I was a teenager some 35-40 yrs. ago). You are lucky that your family physician is receptive to Guillaume’s exquisite blog (and even better – promoting it to other patients!). All my medical staff are, sadly, Rx-drug pushers and flatly dismissive of treatments with Vitamins-Minerals, etc.
How did you know, by the way, that you had Candida? It’s funny how this topic for some strange reason keeps coming up in my recent readings, and that may be a signal to pay attention to it (I notice such “coincidental” hints).
I join you in thanking Guillaume for the excellent job he’s doing, my own gratefulness is beyond words.
Toni
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Toni,
Thank you for your kind words and reply, much appreciated.
I knew I had candida when it erupted years before my doctor prescribed medical leave. At the time, we treated it topically, and as an isolated thing. It didn’t work. Everything in the body is obviously connected and by no means was this isolated from other symptoms, which were hidden under massive amounts of adrenaline at the time. It did not take long for candida to worsen and aggravate symptoms I am still treating today. But at least the candida is under control! Having all these symptoms PLUS candida compounded the hurdles.
I am so happy to read there are others who are benefiting from Guillaume’s advice! He takes so much time to research everything and is truly changing lives, one person at a time.
LikeLike
Hi Guillaume,
Just checking in again, a year later, to let you know that I continue to make progress with my arthritis! I have continued with the virgin coconut milk smoothies and green drink every day. I also take magnesium, boron, zinc, selenium (not calcium) and iodine, turmeric, sea salt (and other vitamins, including b12) and continue to see improvement in spite of my increasing age (63) and the fact that I am still about 30 pounds overweight. My arthritis problem is my knees and I am extremely motivated to avoid joint replacement surgery! I truly believe that with the right diet, supplements and exercise, my body can rejuvenate itself. So far, so good! In the meantime, I am experiencing other benefits, including improved sleep! I am pain free 98% of the time and use no pain killers al all. Thank you for all your help!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great! Thanks a lot for letting me know: it makes me very happy to know. Now, I have not yet had the time to write about it, but after reading a couple of books on it, it is clear to me that supplementation with A, D3 and K2 are probably the most important supplements for preventing or recovering/curing arthritis. D3 is actually the essential one, but these fat soluble vitamins work as a trio. I urge you to start taking DaVinci’s A-D-K supplement, and taking at least 4 per day: 2 with breakfast and 2 with lunch. This will be excellent for you on your road to full recovery.
LikeLike
Guillaume, thanks so much for this advice!! I did recently buy Carlson’s 4000 IU D3 drops and a good K supplement. I will also buy A and take them together. Maybe I will order Davinci’s anyway, as you suggest. Thanks! Catherine
LikeLiked by 1 person
The reason I suggest DaVinci is because it provides these three fat-soluble essential vitamins in the optimal ratio based on what we currently know about their function and synergistic action in our organism. Each small capsule contains 5000 IU of A, 5000 IU of D3, and 500 microgram of K2 in the form of the more potent and naturally derived MK-7. Also, you need to take between 4 and 6 per day for several months in order to have not just maintenance level, but curative effects, which is what we generally seek, especially in repairing the damage accumulate over years and decades as is the case in arthritis sufferers, but is generally true for everyone.
LikeLike
hi Guillaume!
I just became a patron! You have been my guiding light in reversing my arthritis and I can’t thank you enough! No doctor that I know could have helped me back from the degenerative road I was on to pain free walking and biking, not to mention shopping, stairs and all the other activities of life we take for granted. And probably I found you just in time before irreparable damage occurred! Thank you for the personal advice to take DaVinci Labs A-D3-K2. It was key and the improvement just keeps on happening!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are most welcome, and I am truly very happy I was able to help you in this way. Thanks your support and the confidence you have entrusted me with.
LikeLike
Dear Guillaume,
This is the long awaited testimonial. I thought I would have some time to write something before today but I couldn’t. Indeed, I started to consider following your recommendations in 2012 as we were colleagues and friends. Before that I knew your strong opinions on food but I was skeptical. My diet was quite “balanced” according to the standard meaning of “balance” and I was exercising regularly. My diet was apparently not impacting my health. At this time, I thought that eating a little bit of everything was making some kind of damage control.
But I started to have some doubts when reading some articles about sugar and fat. I got a lot of cavities since my childhood and I started to question my diet. Additionally, members of my family got high bad cholesterol levels despite they have a “balanced” diet and they exercise.
Finally, I decided to follow your recommendations at least partly and got very surprised by the results. Before that, I always got some hypoglycemia about 2h after a breakfast and was not able to skip any meal. Cutting the starch and sugar solved the hypoglycemia problem completely. This was really impressive. I was even able to do sport in the morning without any breakfast.
Convinced by the efficiency of the diet, I started to take the recommendations more seriously. I am close to follow the integrality of them now I think even if I am not very orthodox in my practice. I feel that I am much less attracted by sugar than before. My cholesterol levels are fine and I don’t gain weight even when I can’t exercise too much.
That being said, I noticed also that I have to be careful if I don’t want to drift back to eat more carbohydrates. It is easy to control during summer as I need less energy. In winter, this is much more difficult. I feel I need a little bit more of products containing “wheat” because if I want to get all my energy intake from fat, I get disgusted by the food. But I can always come back to fat after a while …
These days I could read in a French newspaper that the sugar industry did some intense lobbying in the US in order to prevent any regulation from Health agencies. This sounds like a confirmation that it is not natural to eat some much of it and I think that this idea of replacing carbohydrates by fat is gaining some momentum.
So, I would like to thank you for having opened my eyes and for the very good advice.
Fred
LikeLiked by 1 person
Guillaume, just to let you know: as you suggested 6 weeks ago I started taking A-D-K and am already getting noticeable results not only with my arthritis but also with my skin (eczema). since implementing your recommendations over the last 18 months my knees are much better than they were 2 years ago!! I am able to be more active without pain or recovery period. I am very encouraged by my results so far. I was wondering…..is there a multivitamin powder that you recommend? Thanks, Catherine
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very happy to hear you continue to have positive results and improvements. Some multis that I have taken and would not hesitate to recommend are Mercola’s and MegaFood’s, both of which are made with the highest quality whole foods.
LikeLike
I am researching the soil probiotics and happened to run across your blog. I am an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist in Texas and have been interested in nutrition and supplements for several decades. I am extremely impressed by your knowledge of health, nutrition, and supplements and by your ability to convey all this to your readers in understandable language. I’m hoping that by sharing it on my Facebook page that my friends, family and patients will become fans as well. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this. I’m hoping that sites like yours really will change our personal health, our healthcare systems, and the way we farm and raise animals. It’s all about the daily choices we all make.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Carol
LikeLike
HI Guillaume, just checking in to say , “hi” and thanks for all the stellar information and advice of the last couple of years. I have implemented all of your suggestions except for eating meat (I do eat eggs) and my knees have continued to improve to the point where I would now say my improvement is dramatic. I am pain free all the time and can walk 3 miles easily at a normal stride. My “walking” friend was very impressed the last time we were out for a walk!
I have radically changed many things in my daily routine! I think the most helpful (besides the normal stuff like hydrate, exercise, etc.) was magnesium and other minerals and no calcium supplements other than a bit of cheese or yogurt but not too much. Also, hydrolyzed collagen peptides, 40 grams a day to rebuild my joints. It must be working, because in the last year, since i cut out calcium and starting talking the collagen religiously i have improved over 80%. Oh, also I take the A-D-K vitamins, as you emphasized. i think it is also a key.
Anyway, thanks again, I look forward to your posts!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wonderful! I’m so glad.
LikeLike
It was a sunny day, not long ago. The phone rang. I did not recognize the caller. I answered. It was an endocrinologist calling about my test results. After relating them to me, he then asked: “are you really not taking any drugs?” I said: “no, I’m not”. After this he asked specifically about each of the tests, and about the drugs usually prescribed to address the problems to which they are related, all of which I had. He asked over and over again: “are you sure you didn’t take this drug?” Each time, I gave him the same answer: “yes, I am sure. I didn’t take any drugs”. He had no choice but to give up. He gave a little laugh, and said: “well done!”. I realized that this time I had forgotten that the doctor was going to call me. Some time ago, it was a very different scenario. Each time I was waiting for the results or went to see a doctor, I felt like an animal in a cage. Unable to run. Just waiting for more bad news.
I hung up the phone. I could feel the warmth of the sun. I felt good, and I felt life was good. That it was smiling at me. In this moment, there was no ill sensation, no aches, no feelings of discomfort, no signs of disease. How had I gotten here? How was I just a few years ago? Let’s take a look back.
As a kid, I had some major problems with vomiting. But they went away when I reached the teenage years. Other than that I was generally pretty well. The “normal” yearly flu, little problems here and there, but who doesn’t? Life was pretty great. As a late teen, I enjoyed drinking and smoking as much as the next guy, but nothing excessive. 10 years later, I was smart enough to stop smoking. I thought I was living a very healthy life since then. Boy was I wrong…
I started to have troubles with my stomach. I was given drugs. And as they were prescribed, I remember being happy. I can now take drugs for free and all would be fixed. The problems did not go away. They were just starting. I started having headaches. I started having troubles with my eyes. They were drying up so fast that I felt I needed to use drops multiple times per day. I was stressed out all the time with no apparent reason. For the most part of the day, I had a very strange sensation, one that people usually describe as low blood sugar. Feeling of the floor under me would move, loss of balance and the sensation that someone would have screwed a giant clamp over my head. This only went away when waking up and going to sleep. I always thought that eating would make me feel better. But I never felt better. Time went on, and I just got used to it.
I was 27. Never had any problems with my heart, until one day, I woke up with a strange feeling. Something was not right: I was having fibrillations. Later that evening I was waiting for an electrical cardioversion. In the ER I had some time to think when they were hooking up the monitoring systems. To thought to myself: I should be at the peak of my life, and here am hooked up to a bunch of machines with heart palpitations. The diagnosis, after all the tests and examinations, was sarcoidose in the lungs, and most probably in other places as well.
It is after this event that the problems really started. I felt cold all the time, no matter what. I had never felt cold before, ever. I started to have such chest pains that I could not put a hockey stick to the ice, the shock went all the way through from the stick to the chest. I tried to lower myself at the level of my knees, and as soon as I did that, palpitations would start and continue for as long as I stayed bent over. I learned to sleep on my back since turning to one side would cause the heartbeat to go haywire, every time, and instantaneously.
The sarcoidose was causing hypercalcemia, hypothyroidism and hypogonadism. The entire hormonal system started failing. Almost all pituitary-controlled hormones going down, and as a man, anyone who has had almost zero testosterone knows what that feels like. Nearing 28, here I was. At the age I should have been at my peak, feeling like I could take on the world, I felt like a weak and crippled 90 year-old.
Sometime in the middle of this, I found Guillaume’s blog. I hadn’t read any blogs. I used to think they were just about people telling what they wore to work that day. I really was not in a place where I would stop listening to my doctors to follow a regime I found on some random blog somewhere online. I started to read it anyway. I remember I was searching for information on when to take psyllium husks. I read the article about that, and thought it was written in a special manner. I took the advice, and a few days later, read another article. That really was the turning point.
Written in such a way that somehow left me no choice but to read them all. When I was done, I thought back on the whole thing, and realized I did not remember anything. So, I read them again. After the second pass, I knew i was doing exactly the opposite all of the things mentioned. Then I started to break it down to little pieces. I took one article that I thought I could follow, and started following that. At the start, I was sure I could never live a life that fully implemented all of the recommendations. I remember thinking, it must be impossible to live like that.
But something in my mindset had changed. I noticed myself going back, rereading another article, and starting to follow that. A year later, I had implemented almost half of the changes. And a year after that, I was doing it all.
Our different lives, situations, places where we live, climate, wealth, all play a part on how we implement these teachings. But I think I understood the most important part. There is not one without the other. So that time I knew I had to do it all.
From the very start, Guillaume had the utmost confidence I would heal. And never during this process I felt like he would throw in the towel. On the contrary, I got regular updates and additional inputs based on my progress, and most importantly, an unwavering confidence and support.
After some months, I started to see something. I had a growing number of warts on my feet. And I mean had so much of them that there were almost no normal skin left. During all the years before that, no matter what we did with the doctors just aggravated the situation, and made them grow more. Over 15 long years, this was happening. And what did I see just in few months of alkalizing? They were clearing up! They were disappearing! And in really such short time after eliminating all sugars, grains and starches.
I also noticed a few months later that I had not used my eye-drops, which I used to put every single day. In fact, feeling like out-of-this-world was only for a few moments of the day, as before I only felt normal a few times a day. Hmm… I realized that all this time I thought I needed to eat every few hours to remedy this, it was actually the one causing it. The best thing when your body starts to shift to a fat burning is that you don’t need to eat all the time. And your mind stays clear throughout the day.
I was also diagnosed with pituitary related hypothyroidism. I had very low values of all the major thyroid hormones, I was cold all the time and if I turned to my side at bed I would lose a regular heartbeat. This condition we remedied with magnesium and iodine supplementation. It only took a few weeks to start noticing a difference, and I started to find it possible to duck and to sleep by my side again. Chest pain also started to fade. This was a starting point in the journey to regain my thyroid health.
Hypercalcemia was coming down very nicely as the sarcoidose became less and less active. We used Vitamin K2 as MK-7, to help to body pull out the extra calcium from the bloodstream and put it into the bones where it belongs.
In a year’s time, the heart palpitations were gone, magnesium and iodine were clearly working very well. But, a year is a long time. 365 days, day after day, after day, is a lot of days. Natural healing is the only true way to heal, but it is a slow process, and it cannot be rushed. Chest pains were only a slight twist here and now, stress levels started to normalize and I no longer needed any aid for my eyes.
Nevertheless, I was still experiencing overall fatigue, weakness, and no sexual energy. This was a tough time for me, as following the regime had gotten rid of so many of the things drugs could not, but at the same time, I had more of the troubles that I found hardest to live with. Many times I wanted to quit. Guillaume did not let me. I am truly grateful he didn’t, and really glad I didn’t.
From the start, he made it very clear that I would benefit hugely from juicing. It was too bad I could not afford a juicer at that time, but now, 2 years later, I finally got my juicer. Better late than never, but for you, if you can, start juicing right from the start. You won’t regret it!
The sarcoidose had caused the rare case of hypercalcemia and hypercalciuria. This was the only reason I had to be very cautious when supplementing with D3. Guillaume insisted many times that I start supplementing with the combo of vitamins A, D, and K2. I was hesitant, and I was worried about the calcium as hypercalcemia can become life-threatening very fast and even if not, it will do much damage in a short time. Now, in retrospect, my opinion is that the root cause of the sarcoidose might actually have been the chronically low level of D3. This is what Guillaume thought, this is what he told me, and I think he was right, because things continued to get better, even if I was taking smaller doses than he would have liked me to take. If you have this rare condition, be sure to monitor your D-25,1,25 and all calcium levels when supplementing.
The sarcoidose had caused massive discomfort for a long time. It was time for it to go. Hormone levels reached rock bottom. Calcium levels started to normalize. And then, hormone levels started to go up. The sarcoidose went dormant, and the body was waking up. What it took was two years of life without carbs, alcohol, drugs or late nights. A strictly measured and timed daily regime of alkaline water, green smoothies, unrefined sea salt, loads of coconut oil, greens, nuts, animal protein and the most important supplements including vitamins A-D-K2, Iodine, Magnesium and B12. These crucial nutrients were the ones I was most deficient in. I hope when you read this, if you feel sting, start to change your life until it changes you.
Also something worth to mention is that common colds or flu’s, headaches and fevers are non-existent. I don’t even have any drugs at my home, not even for headaches that used to plaque me.
The reality is much more detailed and full of ups and downs. Following this protocol did not heal me in a day. Luckily, I had not damaged my body beyond it’s capabilities of repairing itself. I think the aim of the blog is to lead the reader to an understanding of how to give the body what it needs to function and repair itself. What I consider crucial is to get rid of the idea that drugs can help you in the long run. These writings contained a formula, but they only worked once I realized it was about me. I played a key role by letting myself get sick. The actual healing is done by the body when it is given what it needs, no matter what we think of it. The process continuously tries to find balance.
I had moments when I was going downhill so fast, that I thought what is the reason I am living according to some stranger, people around me joking about the lifestyle, thinking that I had read a blog, and had become completely insane. When I was doing it and still felt weaker, that was the crucial point as I did not give up. The route of healing is not always going for the better. Once you realize there are more good days than bad, you know you are going in the right direction. What I mean by this is that even when you are doing everything right, when you are sick, you will have bad days. But don’t give up!
I was tested many times with CT scans, MRI scans, blood testing, lung capacity testing, and all the medical procedures that are concerned with sarcoidose and other illnesses I used to have. And every time I felt better, the tests revealed the same. It was no placebo. By no means I am against medical treatment. After all, I had needed it myself. But now I understand they have their place when the situation is dire, but the actual healing process can only be done by your body. Even if you must take drugs, they usually just mask the symptoms. I hope after reading this you will understand you must be proactive with your health. Before my problems, I was living the lifestyle considered to be healthy. My story could have had a very different ending.
Writing this today, I just turned 30. So what has changed after I found this blog? Everything. I don’t miss my old ways. I don’t miss the old food I used to eat. I sure as hell won’t miss the problems that used to plague my life. Two years ago I had a disease that most people spend the rest of their lives struggling with, a disease considered incurable by any medical intervention. Now I am the proud father of a little girl, who was just born a month ago! Guillaume’s help did not only save my life, it helped in the procreation of a new one.
This writing is a testimonial of this miraculous healing journey of mine. Amazingly, even I am now starting to forget all the problems I had, how crippling they were, and how difficult it was for me to live like that. For this reason, I want to share these details with everyone, so that you can know the incredible level of healing this way of life has given me.
I know saying thank you a million times are still only words. We all get a salary from our work, but when you love what you do, it is not about the money either. So what can I say or do to show my level of appreciation? Guillaume’s guidance has transformed my life. My healing process and health are the living proof of this. We have a saying in Finland: “talk is talk, action matters”. So I took action, and it has brought me freedom of the disease conditions so many people are desperately trying to get over. I too was desperate to get better. And, thanks to this blog and thanks to Guillaume, I succeeded.
So to you Guillaume, thank you. You were there for me when I was at my worst. You always had faith that everything would one day be fixed, that it was a matter of time and effort. And you were right. Not even in my wildest dreams could I have thought that this host of different problems could be fixed. I hold you in the highest esteem, and can only imagine the countless hours it has taken you to prepare and write these articles. Some of them must have taken you years of research and work. I really appreciate this. Thank you so much.
After reading this, if you decide to take the plunge, do it without hesitation. Do it before you get ill. Don’t give up if it doesn’t feel easy all the time, as life usually doesn’t. It is worth the effort. Schedule time to read all of the articles mindfully, and you will see what I mean.
All Guillaume ever wanted in return was for me to write about my experiences. If Guillaume’s work has helped you, what I would like to ask from you, is that you help spread the word, share these articles on your social media, like, comment, subscribe and interact. Join me on Patreon, a crowdfunding site to show your support for Guillaume. If we all help a little, we can make a difference.
I pledge that all of what is written above is true, and exactly as it happened.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Guillaume,
Before I met you, and before I read through your blog and material, this was my general understanding regarding weight control and health:
The result of the above misguided view was an average of 2h per day at the gym, almost every day, either running, training judo or weights. My life was dominated by the requirement of these two hours per day to burn the excess calories, which I would consume again afterwards, recklessly, to kick-start the next cycle. Only a visit to the gym would regulate my moods and would make me feel happy, accomplished, worthy. It was crazy, unsustainable.
As I started ageing, and acquiring responsibilities (work, family, social), I found it increasingly difficult to comply with my ridiculous requirement, which lead to frustration and fatty tissue covering my waist line. I was never quite happy with my physique and now it seemed that I was destined to have dad bod.
Then I met you. I understood that our bodies are an ecosystem of cells that add to form systems that interact and communicate in complex ways, everything being regulated through hormones. I saw for myself how proper nutrition can optimise the workings of our body and reverse the effects of long term exposure to bad nutrition. I reached the conclusion that for a garden to be beautiful, healthy, proper nutrition needs to be supplied and I truly learnt the meaning of proper nutrition.
Following your advise I now enjoy these benefits:
I accept the advise of your blog as my lifestyle and I live a happier more enjoyable life. I feel my body, at the risk of sounding eccentric, I actually feel like I inhabit in a body, and I take full responsibility in maintaining it.
Thank you! keep the good work!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Brilliant! I’m very happy for you Miguel. Thank you for sharing, and thank you for your support.
LikeLike
Hi Guillaume,
My heatlh problems started many years ago during my studies (I am 46 now). I got chronic inflammation of the colon and was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease (autoimmune illness). I had severe pain in my stomach, loss of weight and energy, and insomnia. With intensive medicines I somehow got the disease under control and learned to live with it over the years.
About 2 years ago things worsened, though, as if my immune system itself launched a full attack on my body. I got psoriasis and itchy skin, I started to get Thyroid problems (Hashimoto), and worst of all, my joints started swelling. On a nice sunny weekend we went to the mountains, and my left knee started to hurt. I almost did not make it to the bottom; my family had to help me walk down. The next day, my left was twice the size of the right knee. I got diagnosed with arthritis, which was so severe that I could hardly walk. Arthritis was by that time one of 4 autoimmune deseases I was diagnosed with, but it was the one that most impacted the quality of my life: no sports, no hiking, no energy, and a lot of pain. First reaction was to plan more drugs… there are bio drugs, quite expensive and supposedly very efficient. Luckily I got advice from my dear neighbour Boštjan, a long time fan of yours, to start reading your blog and to become a patron. I finally understood that unless I dealt with the root cause of my illnesses I would never get well.
Most valuable was your advise on the lectin-avoidance diet to heal the gut. The key to success with the diet is to stick with it long term. Hard to achieve when you crave the foods that you enjoyed for so long… Your explanations during one on one video sessions about why a very low carbohydrate and lectin-free diet works to heal the body helped me over the rough times. I think you simply need to understand the reasons and the foundational biochemistry and physiology in order to be able to stick to it. Invaluable were also our sessions related to the results of my blood tests. They made me realise which supplements are key to suppress inflammation and to improve my health. Since these recommendations were personally tailored, they were priceless.
Not to be too long… I am much better now. Not only has my arthritis has greatly improved, also all my other autoimmune diseases are almost gone. I have just returned from our annual summer family holiday where I happily surfed in strong winds. I also skied in winter, and I regularly play tennis and hike again in the mountains. Lately, since the diseases have improved so much, I am no longer that concerned with healing, and have started to focus on longevity! I am fasting daily now and keep getting better at it. Hopefully this will keep me young into old age :-)
My sincere thanks for all your advice. Your blogs are an inspiration. Please keep writing and improving peoples’ lives, you certainly improved mine.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That is amazing, and I am truly very happy for you, Marko. As I told you right from the beginning, when we remove from our diet what causes disease, and give the body all that it needs to heal itself, recovery is always only a matter of being determined, consistent, and patient. Your story is another perfect example of this. Your body was on the brink of a serious collapse and breakdown when we first spoke. Now, you have apparently almost completely recovered. And if you keep it up, you will never again fall back to the conditions that allowed disease to set in and take hold of your body systems. It is indeed a remarkable thing that this can be done, and it is indeed a remarkable story that which you have shared with us here. Thank you.
LikeLike
I’ve followed Guillaume for many years now, and I have to say, he’s one of the best sources of medical and health information that I’ve known. I’m a 51-year-old healthy mother who is active, does crossfit, eats keto, avoids all types of sugar, and follows the advice of Guillaume when a problem does arise. He’s incredibly generous with his knowledge, quick to respond and very direct and to the point. He’s a great storyteller and always willing to hear opinions, even though they may not coalesce with his own. I’m so happy that I found him and that he’s so willing to share his great expanse of knowledge regarding health and nutrition. Please keep sharing, Guillaume. Thank you so very much.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much Kristin. I really appreciate your sharing these thoughts here.
LikeLike