Three things landed on my desk this month, from three different directions, and they all turned out to be doing the same trick: something quieter and more automatic took over a job I used to have to do myself, on purpose, with effort. What was interesting wasn’t the handoff. It was what became visible once the job was no longer mine to do. Fermentation was the first one. I’ve been…
I’ve been moving some things around behind the scenes at Gardener of Life, and I figured I owed you a straight account of it rather than just letting you notice the schedule had changed. Three months into this, I had enough real publishing under my belt to see what was working and what wasn’t. So I sat down and made some changes. The biggest one: I dropped the Sunday Harvest Digest. It…
I came to olive oil late. Started using it when I began GLP-1 medication. Had to do some reading on what to eat differently, and olive oil kept showing up. So I tried it. That was the swap — not butter exactly, just whatever I’d been using without thinking about it. Olive oil instead. One use a day, then more. I’m still figuring out what I notice. Early days yet. If you’re making…
I didn’t grow up thinking of a computer as a creative tool. I grew up thinking of it as a ledger. Something you used to count things, not make things. That changed slowly. The way most things on a farm change — without announcement. The Mac Studio sitting on my desk right now does what three or four separate tools used to do. Ulysses for the writing. A photo app for the images. A spreadsheet…
The Oura ring doesn’t lie. I started paying attention to my sleep data the same way I used to read the soil before planting — looking for patterns, not answers. What I found was humbling. On nights when my deep sleep dropped below an hour, my glucose the next morning told a different story. The CGM would show numbers climbing earlier, holding higher, coming down slower. Same food. Same day.…
People keep asking me about the Mediterranean diet. Like I’m supposed to hand them a plan. I don’t have a plan. I have observations. What I notice is that it’s less a diet and more a description of how people in certain places happened to eat for a long time. Olive oil instead of something else. More beans, more vegetables, fish when it was available. Bread, wine, time at the…
Apple & Technology — Friday, July 3 Farmers plan by the season. You don’t just walk out one morning and decide what to plant. You sit down in winter with last year’s notes and next year’s ground and you work out a rhythm before the first seed goes in. I’ve been publishing Apple and technology pieces here for a while now, but more like walking fence lines than farming —…
There’s a rhythm to a farming operation that most people never see. You don’t just walk out one morning and start planting. The harvest you want in October starts with decisions made in January. Starting today, Gardener of Life is running a full year of seed posts – 52 weeks, three pillars, every Monday a food and diet question, every Wednesday something from the health and…
* You don’t need cooking skills. You don’t need much of a budget. You need three fish and a reason to start. Sardines come in a can, cost almost nothing, and deliver more protein per ounce than most people expect. Eat them straight or on a cracker. Salmon is forgiving. Hard to overcook in a way that ruins it. Rich enough to feel like a meal even in a small portion – which matters…
* Monday made the case for fish as the protein anchor for GLP-1 users. Here’s what it looks like when you put that into practice. Open Cronometer and set a custom protein target. For muscle preservation during weight loss, most guidance lands between 1.2 and 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. Enter your number. Now you have a daily threshold to work against. Log a serving of salmon…
When the weight comes off fast, not all of it is fat. Some of it is muscle. That part doesn’t always make the brochure. Muscle mass isn’t just about how you look. It’s how you get up from a chair at seventy-five. It’s your metabolic engine – the tissue that burns calories at rest, regulates blood sugar, keeps the whole system running efficiently. Lose enough of it…
** One thing doctors don’t always mention upfront about GLP-1 medications – you can lose muscle along with the fat. When calories drop that low, the body doesn’t always know what to spare. Protein is the answer. But not all protein lands the same when your appetite is mostly gone. Red meat sits heavy. Even chicken can feel like too much. Fish is different – light enough to…
* When you’re on a GLP-1 medication, a lot is happening under the surface. The technology I carry makes it visible. Libre 3 is the anchor. Continuous glucose monitoring – a small sensor on the back of the arm, readings every minute, trends on my phone before I’ve had coffee. I can see what a meal does. What a bad night’s sleep does. What stress does. The body stops being a…
Most people think appetite is a willpower problem. GLP-1 medications make a pretty convincing argument that it isn’t. GLP-1 is actually a hormone your body already makes. It releases after you eat and sends a signal to your brain – you’ve had enough, slow down. The medications work by amplifying that signal and holding it there longer than your body would on its own.…
When you’re on a GLP-1 medication, appetite drops fast. Some people are down to one small meal a day. That changes everything about how you think about food. Every bite has to carry weight now. You can’t afford empty calories – not when you’re only going to eat a handful of them. That’s where the Mediterranean pattern starts making a lot of sense. Small portions of…
It’s easy to say you eat Mediterranean. Fish a couple times a week, olive oil, plenty of vegetables. Sounds right. Then you start logging it. Cronometer is where I’d start. Enter a week of meals honestly and ask it to show you omega-3 intake. Most people are surprised. The number is lower than they expected – sometimes by a lot. Fish frequency is the usual culprit. You thought…
Monday we talked about the fish. Today, what the fish actually does once it’s inside you. Omega-3 fatty acids – the thing that makes sardines and salmon worth eating – aren’t a supplement industry invention. They’re structural. Your body uses them to manage inflammation, protect joint tissue, and keep the brain running the way it’s supposed to. After fifty, all…
* Most Americans picture the Mediterranean diet and see pasta. Maybe some olive oil drizzled over bread. If they’re generous, a Greek salad. That’s the postcard version. The actual diet – the one that people in Crete or coastal Sicily actually ate for generations – was built on fish. Sardines. Anchovies. Sea bream. Whatever came in off the boats that morning, eaten the same…
* I’ve been tracking things. More things than I expected to, honestly. Blood glucose. Steps. Sleep. What I eat, when I eat it, how much. Heart rate variability – which I couldn’t have defined two years ago and now check most mornings. At some point I looked at the devices on my wrist and nightstand and thought – there’s a lot going on here. Worth talking about. So…
A good farmer doesn’t plant the same crop the same way every year without looking at the soil first. You check what the season did. What worked, what didn’t, what the ground is telling you now. Then you adjust. Not because you failed — because that’s just how farming works. Your health is the same way. The plan that got you moving six months ago might not be the right plan today. Your body…
Nuts and seeds don’t look like much. Small, quiet, easy to overlook. You could walk right past them in the store and never think twice. But calorie for calorie, they punch well above their weight. Healthy fats. Protein. Fiber. The kind of slow, steady fuel that keeps you out of the kitchen an hour after you just ate. I spent years growing crops that fed people. Almonds. Walnuts. Sunflowers. I knew…
Last week I wrote about how I decide what health information to trust. This week I want to show you the actual system. It isn’t complicated. Three tools do most of the work. Apple Health is the hub. Everything feeds into it — my CGM data, my workouts, my sleep. When I read a health claim, I can check it against my own numbers. That’s not available in any article. It’s only available in my own…
Most people measure progress wrong. They’re looking for the dramatic moment — the before and after, the number on the scale, the finish line. When they don’t see it fast enough, they figure nothing is working and quit. I spent forty years farming. You know what progress looks like on a farm? It looks like nothing. Day after day, the field just sits there. Then one morning you walk out and…
I spent decades growing food for other people’s tables. Watched it go from field to truck to store to kitchen. Somewhere in all that, I started paying closer attention to what actually ended up on the plate — and what it did to the body eating it. The more I’ve learned, the more the answer keeps coming back to plants. Not exclusively. I’m not here to take your steak. Just more. More color, more…
The internet has a lot of opinions about your health. Eat this. Don’t eat that. This study says one thing. That podcast says the opposite. I’m a retired farmer. I spent decades reading weather reports, soil tests, and water tables — learning which sources were worth trusting and which ones were selling something. Health information isn’t much different. Here’s how I decide what to pay attention…