I have learnt more over the last two years, outside the realm of work and parenting, than I have in the last ten. Who knew that so many facts (some scarily concerning!) are known, but yet unknown. Known by experts, scholars and large members of society at large, but unknown by so many, including me. I’ve come to realise that sometimes I don’t know these facts as they aren’t widely shared, but more often I don’t know them as I wasn’t ready to hear them.

I am now an enthusiastic avoider of ultra-processed food (UPF), an advocator of whole food, and an exercise and yoga(!) enthusiast (no hard feelings if you stop reading here). However this was very much not always the case. To paint a picture for you, a poem about my key traits on my 30th birthday made reference to not only McDonalds (my first love, and indeed job) but also my liking for KFC and my proclivity for vino. For my first 38 years of life, nutrition, cooking, and exercise outwith the capacity of what was a laugh were low priority (with wine quite a high priority). I was known for hosting a great dinner party, sans food. I wasn’t always the most supportive to my friends that valued putting effort into themselves and their food and bodies (sorry about the burger buns Hilde). My husband would probably readily make the point that he told me lots of things about health and wellness, and I just didn’t hear them.  And most worryingly, I don’t have any memory of not hearing them at all!

When I’m interested in a topic I go “all in”. Give me every article, podcast or book and I’ll power through them. I like to share all of this new found amazing information with my husband and friends (which is, as I understand from some recent feedback, quite annoying). It was when I decided to purchase a hard copy of a book in order to photograph specific pages to send a friend a bundle of unsolicited advice, that I took pause. I wondered if perhaps my friends and family don’t want quite as much well intentioned non-solicited advice as I was willing to doll out. Perhaps there’s a better way to channel this!

The purpose of this blog is to capture (ideally succinctly!) information on the topics that I previously didn’t know about. The three core areas I’ll explore are nutrition, alcohol (or rather giving up alcohol) and nature. In terms of my background, I have no special expertise or training around nutrition, so anything in the blog are my views which are formed from an amalgamation of reading and listening.  In terms of alcohol I feel ever so slightly more qualified having grown up with a father who suffers from an alcohol use disorder, and taking steps in that direction myself, prior to this change in my lifestyle. Nature is a recent passion, however I’m lucky to be managing a mid-scale rewilding project, so do have first hand experience in this area.

Anyway, enough of that. The topics I have planning, in order of attack, are below:

• UPF and living in the real world
• The microbiome (and what alcohol does to it)
• Women’s health and alcohol
• The best quit lit I’ve found
• Coffee! (one I’m scared to explore, please don’t take it away!)

If this sounds like it’s for you, read on. Comments welcome!

S.W.