Unlock Your Health Potential
Faizan Ahmed 
Introduction For most of last winter, my mornings followed the same routine. Pressing the alarm twice, getting ready quickly, and picking up whatever was near the door when it came out, usually nothing happened. When I finally ate something, often breakfast on the table around 10:30, I was already feeling crushed, irritable, and weirdly heavy … Read more
What I Learned After Switching My Entire Kitchen to It My sister moved her entire kitchen to coconut oil about two years ago, through a wellness podcast she believed was healthier than anything in her wardrobe. He began to fry everything inside, even the things he had previously cooked on a fairly high heat, and … Read more
Introduction I thought I ate well. I’m Faizan Ahmed, and for most of my adult life I’ve described my diet as quite healthy: home-cooked food, whole bread, yogurt for breakfast, salad for lunch. Then, a week of honest diet monitoring brought out something that really left me behind. The ‘healthy’ foods I had been eating … Read more
Introduction I’m not excited for just one component. I’m Faizan Ahmed, and after years of writing about nutrition, I’ve developed a healthy skepticism about anything called a superfood. But California walnuts have quietly gained a different kind of attention in my kitchen, not because of the marketing but because of what they actually do and … Read more
Introduction My mother sat outside our family park last spring, claiming that her knees “are no longer what they used to be.” He had said the same thing at most family gatherings over the past few years, always in the same pessimistic tone, as if it were the fact that he was in his early … Read more
After My Sister-in-Law Went Vegan and Panicked About Protein A few weeks later when Sarah fixed the magnesium gap she had already fixed, she called me again, this time looking really concerned and not just curious. A friend at her gym asked her directly how she was getting enough protein “now that you don’t eat … Read more
Introduction My sister-in-law, Sarah, went completely vegan about a year ago, mostly for moral reasons and not for health. I was three months old when she called me around midnight, half laughing and half nervous, because her calf muscles were so tense that she couldn’t keep her foot straight on the ground. It happened again … Read more
Introduction I used to buy a particular brand of granola bar precisely because the packaging had a picture of oatmeal and a strawberry and the word “natural” printed near the top. I ate two or three of these a week for years, sincerely believing I was making a reasonable decision to snack, until one night … Read more
And What I Wish I’d Ignored Sooner Three years ago, I did a five-day juice cleanse because an online follower swore I had “completely restarted” her digestion. On the third day, I was dizzy at my desk, irritable with everyone, and so hungry that I dreamed of toast. On the fifth day I broke it … Read more
Introduction For years, I thought of healthy eating as a complete project or nothing. I’m Faizan Ahmed, and every attempt to ‘cleanse’ my diet revolved around the same story: three weeks of serious commitment, a week in which I ate something I’d banned, and then quietly returned exactly where I started. What ultimately worked was … Read more