Over the last few months I’ve been experimenting and exploring to learn more about general cognitive function, brain hacks, and all of the tricks the “kids” in Silicon Valley are doing.

Starting with my diet. I have always had stomach problems throughout my whole life. It wasn’t until about three years ago, I went through the colonoscopy and an endoscopy. My doctor said everything was normal, then asked me about my diet. After a few minutes he recommended I look into something called the FODMAP diet.

FODMAPs are a collection of short chain carbohydrates and sugar alcohols found in foods naturally or as food additives. FODMAPsinclude fructose (when in excess of glucose), fructans, galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), lactose and polyols (eg. sorbitol and mannitol).

I quickly discovered that it was onions that would cause me to burp more then normal.  Which lead me to understand “food groups” can be based on many things. I knew that I was lactose intolerant, But now I’m understanding  how other foods can affect me.

As soon as I had my stomach feeling better on a consistent basis, I found that I had  better mental clarity and better focus.

Next I started looking at” Smart pills” and supplements. I tested so many different supplements, powders and shakes. Many of them had little benefit but nothing that I could not do without or that made much of a difference.

One of the shakes I was testing was based on vegan protein and it had veggies and greens. I noticed that I was feeling better, and had better mental focus. So I started incorporating more vegetables into my diet. So with my morning scrambled eggs I would add spinach. It was little things that started to make a big difference.

Then I started to learn more about adding higher quality fats like butter from grass fed cows, Avocados, olives and olive oil. Years ago Rebecca and I cut out as much processed sugar as we could from our diet. So I stopped eating the “low fat” or “low calorie” foods. I also realized that high quality salts like a Himalayan pink salt Is a great source of some of the minerals that I was lacking and help me stay better hydrated  Throughout the day better.

It was only natural that with my love of coffee and understanding how butter from grass fed cows were important to my diet. I soon discovered “bulletproof coffee”.