Are you sick, healthy or?...

Are you sick? Do you have diabetes, high blood pressure, suffer from obesity or other lifestyle related diseases? If you do, you're probably aware of this. If you don't, you're probably considering yourself to be healthy.
This is what I want to be talking about, that middle category which we don't really have a name for, but it's in between being healthy and being sick.

Before changing my diet, I never considered myself sick, I thought I was all in all healthy, and when I went to the doctor for check-ups I'd get a clean bill of health, and be told that I was in fact in good health. I'm guessing that this sounds familiar to many of you.

Despite being seemingly "healthy", I had ailments. Many, but less severe than an actual "disease" or "illness". I was unbelievably tired all the time! I'd had to fight myself from falling asleep every afternoon, I'd have to FORCE myself to get up and out of the house, so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. If I could go one afternoon without having passed out from tiredness, I considered it a success. Therefore, I also only had sporadic bursts of energy to do productive tasks like cleaning the dishes or doing the laundry, and you can forget all about studying, or even reading for the fun of it. 15 minutes with a book open right before bedtime, and I'd be done!

Obesity/overweight. Need I say more? When I was at my highest weight, I weighed 114.1 kilograms and my BMI was 39.4, I was obese! How can a doctor tell me that I'm completely healthy when I'm clinically obese, just because I haven't got high blood pressure or diabetes yet?

I suffered from oily skin and acne, it was so bad that despite a meticulous skin-care routine with scrubs, face masks, toners, cleansers, creams the list goes on, my doctor sat me down as I was coming in for a check-up and said to me "why haven't you come see me before about that acne?" I got described pills and a medical cream.

I will not attribute this only to diet, because regular headaches can and does stem from regular strain and tension, however I have noticed a decrease in the amounts of headaches I get after having changed my diet. I never used to have bad or particularly painful headaches, but I can still see positive effects from a change of diet, in terms of headaches.

Rumbling stomach and the pain of hunger. Sounds familiar? I have great news for you. It used to be the story of my life. I would never eat breakfast, be damn near starving for lunch, dying for dinner during the afternoons. The result? I kept gaining weight, even though I so desperately tried to eat so little and control myself. Now, I haven't been properly hungry for months! If I'm starting to feel hungry, I'll eat, and I no longer have to experience that hunger I used to live with everyday for so long.

In time, my ailments got worse, as my weight increased. I got hormonal disturbances, increased levels of testosterone, little hairs starting to grow places that otherwise only would, or at least should, happen to men, irregular and missing periods. Something was wrong, very wrong and I knew it. After a loooooong time, dreading the gynaecological examination, I (wo)manned up and went to the doctor. As I suspected, of course I'd done research from home, I was diagnosed with PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome which, to those of you who don't know means that there are lots of little benign water-cysts sitting on your ovaries. This will affect your hormones as well as the general state of your reproductive system. The cure? Lose weight and it will all go away. (If it's due to excess weight.)

So, I did end up being sick, I also got tested for diabetes because I was starting to show unusual numbers and my doctor got worried.
 Now you might ask, what does this have to do with the missing category in between sick and healthy? My point is, just because you are not sick, does not mean that you are in fact healthy. To me, there is a difference between being healthy and being "not-sick".

To me, when you're healthy you're sparkling, you are absolutely bursting with just how good you feel and how healthy you are. Being "non-sick" does not mean that you are healthy, just because you haven't (yet) got a diagnose, just because your doctor isn't (yet) telling you that you are in fact sick, it doesn't mean that you haven't got ailments that are decreasing the quality of your life. I'm here to tell you that you CAN be bursting and sparkling with health, and I'm telling you - you should!

Change your diet, eat only the food that is going to make you the most satisfied and make your health blossom. Fruits, vegetables, grains, pasta, rice, potatoes. A high-carb low fat vegan diet. And do it now! Do it before you get sick, because all of these little ailments, tiredness, excess weight, indigestion, headaches, hormonal imbalances, heartburn etc. are the predecessor for sickness.

 - Elk

Books: Bookforum in CPH 2014

Hi guys! To all of you who don't know, every year there is a book convention being hosted at the Bella Center Sky in Copenhagen, Denmark, called Bookforum. My friend and I have a tradition to go, and this is the 3rd year in a row that we've gone. We went yesterday, on the 8th of November.

I thought I show you a couple of pictures and the show you which books I bought as well!

I hope that from the pictures, you can kind of get an idea of what the feeling and convention/fair is like. It's really cool, there are stands from big and small publishers everywhere, stages where people are being interviewed, giving talks and discussing literature. There's a stage where baker's and chefs cook some food from their books, there is a poetry stage and fun stuff for the kids to do. All in all it's great! My friend and I went to hear Chris Carter talk about murder, a dude talk about how bacteria isn't all that bad as it's made out to be, we heard a Lucas Bianchedi talk about medicine in Medieval times and we heard Niviaq Korneliussen read from her new book Homo Sapienne, and more.

Now at the convention, there are some pretty sweet book deals, and I took advantage and carried a backpack full of 12 books home with me. My friend got some cookbooks and other stuff, and I got the following: (as to not make this post to long, I won't give descriptions, merely list and then you can look it up if you're interested)

 George D. Shuman thriller/crimes, original titles: "18 Seconds", "Last Breath" and "Lost Girls".

 Books I simply CAN'T wait to get into by the marvellous Haruki Murakami, jap and eng titles: "Suputoniku no koibito" AKA "Sputnik Sweetheart", "Umibe no Kafuka" AKA "Kafka on the Shore", "Hitsuji o meguru boken" AKA "A Wild Sheep Chase" and "Dansu, dansu, dansu" AKA "Dance Dance Dance".

 Kim Thúy original French title: "Ru". Anthology by different Danish authors, original Danish title: "Fortællinger om kærlighed".

Martin Walser original German title: "Ein liebender Mann". Konrad Lorenz original German title: "Das sogenannte Böse", in English "On Aggression". Lastly, Janet Skeslien Charles original English title: "Moonlight in Odessa".

A little note, in terms of the books and their titles. All of the ones I bought are in Danish, I've tried to give the original title in it's language and then the English title, if it wasn't originally English to begin with and if I could find an English title for it on Goodreads.com. I hope it was helpful!

 - Elk