One-year young 🎂
I take you behind the scenes of The Gut Makeover Substack on its first anniversary. Plus, who I am.
That went quick.
It seems like just the other day I was sitting in a WeWork co-working space in Old Street, London writing my first Substack, and a whole year has whizzed by.
72 newsletters later and here we are.
I set out to write broadly about nutrition, and after six months realised almost every article - as in the science and clinical practice - comes back to the gut, which I first wrote about with my book The Gut Makeover in 2015.
So I changed my Substack’s name to that - and here I am, sending gut news you can use, every Wednesday.
There is so much new stuff coming out on eating for gut health which impacts your digestion, skin, bones, brain, heart, weight, immune system, and ability to age well.
Which is why I’m doing this Substack. These tips need sharing simply and clearly ASAP!
I also talk a bit about fasting, and eating more local, which feed into all that too.
As you may have noticed I write mainly from a food-first perspective - practical actions based on available research and clinical practice.
I go with food because it works!
Most of us have to eat 2-3 times a day anyway, so you may as well choose foods with the best impact for health.
Many of the hundreds of plant chemicals, and bacteria - plus what you serve them up with - work synergistically together like an orchestra for good health.
Sucking a handful out into one pill, forcing them down on an empty stomach, and expecting great things long-term…really?
Learning how to get the orchestra through food is in my experience working with hundreds of people as a nutritional therapist, the most effective action.
Interestingly some of my most popular posts have been the most practical ones - eg upping your protein, fasting like a human, and WFH 5-minute lunches.
Also the personal tale of how (and I still feel slight shame about this), I developed a mild eating disorder (I had no history of before) using the Zoe app was widely-read.
Anyway, with so many new subscribers (now totalling 4,800 free ones, and 150 of you paid members across UK, US, Europe, Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand), I thought it time to go behind the scenes.
I thank everyone who reads this publication and takes an interest. I’m especially grateful to those of you who have become paid subscribers, and made this publication possible. It couldn’t happen without your backing.
This week I write a personal piece for you paid members so you know a bit more about who is writing this Substack.
Behind the scenes we go…
I spend two and half days each working week researching and writing this Substack at home in a brutalist high-rise building in east London which I love.
Or you’ll find me tapping on my laptop in a local library.
I’m no longer using WeWork. I went there to get away from the solitary confinement of working from home, but no one talks much to anyone and honestly, the state of the loos…