I am not a doctor nor am I nutritionist. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that most of the people writing on the internet are not doctors. Mostly because doctors are busy people who work in hospitals instead of coffee shops with free wifi, but also because doctors know that it’s pretty difficult to give people medical advice without ever having met them.
Yet somehow the internet is saturated with blogs and websites giving you the latest instructions on how to obtain optimal health. Everywhere you look, someone is there to warn you about the perils of gluten or teach you 60 ways to lower your cholesterol. All it takes is one article on the risks of dairy consumption for me to look at my milk differently. Sure, some of these tips are well founded”dairy is difficult for some people to digest and a lot of people are intolerant to gluten”but if we let all of these health tips get to us soon we’ll only be eating air and acai bowls. Sorry, I just read acai bowls have too much sugar. Just air it is then.
As someone who takes a dark pleasure in reading articles like five ways to turn into a glowing goddess this spring, I’ve developed a few techniques to help me ward through the internet without going crazy.
Tune into your own body
If someone tells you that you’re allergic to gluten but you regularly eat McDonalds at 3 am and it feels like a gift from God, you are probably not allergic to gluten. Listen to how your body responds to things. You are the best judge of what works and what doesn’t.
Take everything with a grain of salt
We’re trained from a very young age to absorb the things we read and take them seriously, but there is so much free information on the internet these days that we need to start reading with a grain of salt. Next time you read an article on a yoga blog you found in the darkest corners of the internet that makes you think that you need to integrate turmeric into your diet” stop. Look at yourself, you are a beautiful self-actualized human, you do not need turmeric. Do not let healthylotuspose.blogspot.ca convince you otherwise.
Do actual research
If you genuinely want to know if apple cider vinegar will improve your digestion, boy do I have news for you. There are people who actually dedicate their lives to researching this stuff in labs. With a quick search on Google scholar or JStor, you can have access to a whole host of peer reviewed research on health and nutrition. If you’re too lazy to get the facts yourself, ask your doctor at your next appointment!
There are definite pros and cons to the amount of information available on the internet. Pros: people are easily able to understand health and fitness, and have quick access to everything from nutritional guides to gym workouts. Cons: sometimes you get scared of eating white bread because you’ve read somewhere that gluten is bad for you. Just remember, only you know what works best for you. Don’t let a random yogi blog convince you otherwise.
