What vision therapy has taught me (pt 3)

 Wow, I had an incredible day.  I was walking back to my car from yoga and realized I had hit a turning point.  I am very close.  Did something happen?  Yes it did.  

I hit upon an extremely positive life change, and it seemed to have had a massively positive impact on both my vision, as well as overall quality of life.  Basically, it was a dietary change.  

I've always experimented with diet, as well as with lifestyle in general.  Well, this change seems to be huge.  I seem to have struck gold.  Basically, I have the normal breakfast I'd been having for a long time (four-egg omelette with a lot of butter and cheese--strict ketogenic).  Then I drink green tea throughout the day.  I'll go as long as I can without eating (usually until 4pm), and then I'll eat a giant spinach salad with a small amount of Balsamic dressing, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and then I douse it with probably around 600 Calories of extra virgin olive oil, and then cut up some pre-cooked chicken I had made in bulk with my sous vide immersion cooker.  

I've talked about the beneficial impact of ketogenic diets on vision quality in previous entries.   So what's changed?  I've been keto for a long time now.  What's different?  

I think there are a few things.  One is that I'd never done this combo before--and I think I now have my macros that are more inline with keto (high, high fat--and moderate protein).  The other thing is that I've eliminated a lot of bullshit from my diet.  I kind of suspect that it's this more than anything.  This is functionally an elimination diet that I didn't really intend to do.  So... now all I'm eating is eggs, butter, cheese... and then spinach, chicken, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and a ton of extra-virgin olive oil. 

I kind of suspect that most people have some degree of allergy to the foods their eating, and that the cumulative effects of these allergies has a level of degrading effect on people that they're not even aware of.  The only way you can find out is through elimination.  

So I think that's what I accidentally did.  It's not just that the food I'm eating is super nutritious (it is--eggs, spinach, chicken, olive oil, broccoli)--it's a lot of other bullshit that I removed--which I'd argue may have been the major source of improvement.  

And what are the impacts?  One is I've noticed that the vision has improved markedly.  Walking around, looking at things, it really feels like I'm on the last leg of the journey--like... there's still work to do, but I have so much mental energy now, I have the energy to steer my vision.  The diplopia is really minimal now.  I think this diet is going to really accelerate things and take me to the end of the road.   I'm extremely excited.  

And it also seems to have given me a ton more mental energy for my job.  Heh, I recently had a 20-hour long shift.  It's not normal for my job to work that many hours, but in this case it was an emergency.  I started at 8am on Thurs, and ended up working until 4am the next morning.  There's no way I would have been able to do that on the previous diet.  Despite the dire situation (network outage) I was able to stay relaxed and focused the entire time.

Another thing is that lately in the past three months or so, I had gained love handles.  It's gross.  Now, they're rapidly melting away, and I think I'm going to have abs again probably in a few weeks.  Other thing is boozing.  I've never been much of a booze-hound, but I would enjoy having a drink or two after work.  Well, since I've made these changes, I've had zero desire for alcohol.  I know it's not good for you (I don't think small amounts are too deleterious), but it would always take the edge off, and help me relax.  Well, now when I think about drinking booze, all I can think of is how it wouldn't improve my state (only degrade it)--and the desire is just not there.  I just totally stopped drinking, and didn't even have to try.  Weird how diet can do that.  

Or is it?  You really are what you eat.  I know ketogenic diets are anti-inflammatory.  But I also suspect it's cumulative effects of years of experimentation (time of Caloric ingestion), eliminating bullshit (I still have carbs on Saturday), and getting the macros right.  Definitely gives me new appreciation for the importance of proper diet. 

More massive changes

 Holy shiznit, things are changing a lot.  Still have no idea of when it's going to happen, but I'm happy as long as I continually see positive improvement.  I am beginning to get some semblance of depth, as I walk past objects on the counter.  I notice I can pay attention through both eyes (weird to think about), and use those two images to infer some type of depth (it is not quite stereopsis--but it's getting there).  Weird that I'm seeing so much fast improvement, and so far along.  I think it may be somewhat related to dietary changes.  I'm eating super clean, and eating basically a ton of eggs for breakfast, and then salad and chicken as the linner meal, and then eating nothing in the evening.

What gives me hope...

 ... is how malleable the visual system is.  One thing that comes to mind is inverting glasses.  There are glasses you can buy out there that will flip your vision upside-down.  The brain is so crazy that if you wear these glasses long enough, the input will eventually flip itself again in the brain, and everything will then appear as normal.  However, when you take them off, the world will be upside-down again, and it will appear that way until the brain adjusts to having non-inverted vision.

The brain is so nuts man.  Progress is still coming.  I am noticing near weekly changes, but the changes that are occurring are pretty significant... especially when playing games in VR and reading text.