Five years ago... (Report #1)

I posted this related to health.

For the last two decades or so I have been an runner.  Nothing big - a few 10K's (40:40 was my best ever) - some 5K's - but, most of the time, just grinding out the miles every day - which amount to about 2.5 a day these days.

In my original post I talk about exercise and vitamins.  In the intervening years I have learned a lot more - much from experimenting on myself.

Probably the key item has been my discovery of pomegranate juice.  I drink probably one of those large POM bottles (either pomegranate or pomegranate with blue berry) every two weeks plus a bottle of Welch's grape/pomegranate/blue berry stuff.

At first it tasted like shit - nasty - very hard to take.  It took a few years to really get to appreciate the taste - and some times it still tastes bad - I guess the taste is seasonally dependent.

So why did I drink it?

I was getting close to 50 years old and my brain was not as sharp as it used to be - I felt dull - like stuck under a sheet or something - it was getting harder to concentrate for long periods - I didn't feel as mentally productive - that sort of thing.

So I stuck with this for about 6 months before I really started to notice anything.

(Now I am rather scientific so I was careful not to change anything else I was doing in this regard - diet, exercise, all of that.)

Things started to become clearer - not a lot - but some - enough to be encouraged that over all the pomegranate was probably doing something good for my brain.  I kept at it - for several more years.  All the while things became incrementally clearer.

Its sort of like being in "Flowers for Algernon" - which was a staple of high school English in the early 1970's.  In summary from Wikipedia: "The titular Algernon is a laboratory mouse who has undergone surgery to increase his intelligence by artificial means.  The story is told as a series of progress reports written by Charlie, the first human test subject for the surgery, and touches upon many different ethical and moral themes such as the treatment of the mentally disabled."

(Does this mean I was becoming mentally disabled?  The book was apparently banned in the US and Canada over the years according to Wikipedia (foot note #6).  I remember nothing about "ethical and moral themes" for the treatment of the mentally disabled.  B.S. I think....)

So in the last five years my mental acuity has increased substantially - to the point where I feel as able as I ever have been mentally.

So what happens the the FTC bans the stuff?  I guess you'll have to wait for the last report from Charlie.

The last time I felt as I do now was about 1998 when I wrote the first version of pdfExpress.