Unlock Your Health Potential
Introduction I remember standing in the cereal oil of my local grocery store, holding a box that I had been eating daily breakfast for years. For the first time, I read the label correctly. The amount of sodium had paralyzed me. It’s not that I didn’t know salt was hidden in processed foods — just … Read more
Introduction: I didn’t come across this topic. A few years ago, a close friend — who was tired, lazy and as disturbed in silence with his body as we both wanted to admit — came up with a question. I had read somewhere that reaching 100 grams of protein a day is the biggest dietary … Read more
Introduction As a child, there were specific instructions for eating watermelons every summer: spit out the seeds, avoid swallowing if possible, and definitely don’t let them fall by mistake or something will grow in the stomach. I’m Faizan Ahmed, and I followed this principle for almost three decades without questioning it. It was one of … Read more
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before My First Fasting Panel My first fasting blood test didn’t go as planned. I had received the appointment letter, written down the date, set the alarm, and had not seen the fine letters at the end that said I should fast eight to twelve hours in advance. … Read more
Introduction Three summers ago, during a heat wave that brought our apartment close to the greenhouse, I drank iced coffee as if it were the only thing that kept me standing. By the third week of that summer, my stomach was constantly uncomfortable, I couldn’t sleep well, and a friend who had come from Pakistan … Read more
Introduction I was in my mid-twenties, craving caffeine, skipping good meals, and subsisting on food that came in seed-colored packaging. I felt constantly tired, my skin looked dull and I caught all the colds and microscopic germs that were coming within five feet of me. I used to think that’s what adult life is like. … Read more
Why I Stopped Assuming One Was Automatically Healthier For years, I automatically bought green tea every time I went to the grocery store, mostly because I thought it was just healthy tea. My dad, on the other hand, for as long as I can remember, has been drinking the same strong black tea every morning, … Read more
Until I Tried Them I used to think that longevity was mostly luck, or good genetics, or something that happened to other people’s grandparents, rather than having real control. I’m Faizan Ahmed, and for years I wrote about health research, without fully applying it to my own life. Then a routine occupational health check came … Read more
Introduction My father-in-law has had a glass of tomato juice with breakfast every single morning for as long as I’ve known him — probably longer. I always assumed it was just one of those old-fashioned habits people pick up decades ago and never question, maybe something left over from a hangover cure he’d used in … Read more
Introduction Three years ago, I often slept at my desk at 3 p.m. Also, by every standard, I was “doing everything right”—I cut my calories fast, went to the gym five days a week, and ate barely 1,200 calories a day in a body that needed just too much to work. Finally, my wife said … Read more