There is something fascinating that you learn when you stop allowing optometrists to overprescribe your glasses.
You start to realize how much your eyesight varies.
If you don’t get enough sleep, if you are stressed, if your ambient lighting is of low quality … you can tell that your eyes struggle.
Now this isn’t the case if your eyes are in great shape.
But when you are trying to recover your vision, the lowered prescriptions, the blur horizon, the active focus, they all help you see and tweak where your eyesight health is under attack.
The #1 thing of course is and always will be, close-up use.
You can do a lot to work out close-up strain. You probably will struggle to actively improve your eyesight if you spend 8 hours in front of a screen in a fluorescent lit office, and then go home and watch TV or play in front of the computer for a few more hours.
But if you tweak a few of those things, your eyes will get better.
Let’s talk about sugar, though.
I travel a lot, for work.
I’ll be in Berlin for two months, and then in Bangkok, then in Saigon. Always a month or two at a time.
Depending on the local, the food varies. Thailand has this amazing, irresistible “Thai tea”. I can’t keep my mind off it anytime I’m in Thailand. If you ever tried it, you probably know what I’m talking about. It’s crack for your brain!
It’s also full of things that are probably less than fantastic for your body.
Condensed, sweetened milk. Several tea spoons of sugar. I see my insulin spiking, just thinking about Thai tea! :-)
Let me torture you with a visual, real quick:
Mmmm, yes. Who needs eyes, anyway! :-)
There is an interesting thing that happens, after a few weeks in Thailand.
At first I didn’t put it together, the locations, sugar consumption, and my eyesight. Since I originally had a -4.00 prescription (and the optometrist really wanted me to have closer to -5.00), I’m still today not at 20/10 uncorrected vision. So when my environment isn’t ideal, I notice.
I’ll be walking around seeing perfectly well in Budapest and just a few weeks later in Bangkok, I’m squinting.
And you probably know me well enough by now that you know I couldn’t just leave that alone.
I started having blood tests done, tracking my blood sugar.
And along with that I’d start keeping a detailed log of both my Snellen and my centimeter. I didn’t want just a vague “oh sugar affects my eyesight”. Instead, I wanted specific data. Is it really the sugar? How much sugar affects how much of my eyesight?
I went and dug in. And what I found is rather interesting.
So then I contacted a few of my clients, those who I knew are experiment happy. I proposed a specific diet and sugar consumption schedule, and blood test regimen. I wanted to see if my results would reflect their experience.
Off we went, on a six months Jake-Steiner-myopia-sugar-trial.
And it turns out that my hunch was right. My own experience turned out to be just about exactly as my dear client sugar guinea pigs.
What’s the best way to get into what I found?
Tell me how you’d like to get my sugar data. Here are a few options, feel free to expand on these:
1. A Podcast
I’ve never done one, but it might be a worthwhile avenue. Less writing for me, and less reading for you. Happy eyes.
Would you like a podcast, over reading?
2. A Video .. Cast?
I’m not sure that my face is the most video-genic. I’m hoping you won’t vote for video, but if you feel strongly about it, do let me know.
3. An ebook / PDF
It’s not really a very long story. But we worked out some strategies to allow you to consume sugar without affecting your eyesight. It could easily be a good little instruction set. Maybe we should help fund this site, charge people a few dollars? It did takes six months, a half dozen people, and quite a few blood tests to come to some definitely conclusions after all.
4. A Facebook Post
I’m not a social media guy. We set up a Facebook page, but all it says is, tragedy (of failed promotion). Perhaps moving some of the content to Facebook could help with reaching the younger generations. Again here, I don’t know. Would you prefer something relevant showing up in your Facebook feed?
5. A Regular Blog Post
Business as usual.
Let Me Know What You Think.
Head over to Facebook and share your opinions, here.
One way or another, I’ll definitely get you the results personally, if you are one to graciously share your opinions on our new little Facebook page. ;-)
Cheers! (and seriously, I’m getting another Thai tea, right now).
– Jake
