Navigating my mental health has, at times, deeply sucked. To be fair though, I've had my fair share of stressful chapters - resulting in comically embarrassing moments of figuring out just how neurospicy my brain is... to the the not-so- funny, curled in a ball and can't stop crying.
I never associated these states with what I was eating, I've always tried to eat incredibly healthily and enjoyed cooking. I did attribute some of it to lack of sleep, pushing too hard at work, drinking and not doing enough exercise - but never really food.
I'm a happy, resilient person known for being generally bubbly and optimistic but for those who know me well, also one who's mind can hunger for the void and can experience debilitating bouts of sadness and extreme anxiety.
What finally helped? An accidental YouTube rabbit hole and finding Dr Georgia Ede
After watching this talk I started eating differently, I was clumsy and slow at first, but the food noise started getting less. I started to feel more resilient and grounded.
My Missing Link: Metabolic Psychiatry
There’s an entire field of research growing in Stanford, Harvard and UCSF, that connects metabolic health to mental health. Honestly I feel like the science of this has been around for a lot longer but the new branding of 'metabolic psychiatry' sounds so much better lol.
People like Dr. Chris Palmer who wrote Brain Energy have been using ketogenic diets in clinical settings to treat depression, anxiety and even bipolar disorder. There’s Dr Georgia Ede, who wrote Change your diet, change your mind, an incredible book speaks about how blood sugar swings, phytochemicals and ultra-processed food affect our brains.
They aren't saying food can fix everything but there's increasing evidence to saying it matter a lot more than common knowledge and mainstream medicine seems to think.
I've devoured heaps of content on this topic since feeling so much better. I can highly recommend Metabolic Mind too.
But Sticking To It In Real Life? Not So Simple
I didn’t want to become a zealot or make my life revolve around macros. I just wanted to feel more stable and I've never been good keeping food diaries or counting calories.
So I started building little tools to help me stay on track.
The start of this is a WhatsApp bot that reminds me to track my eating 3 times a day, I can send it lists of food via text or a voicenote and it replies with my calories and macros by sending it off to our good friend ChatGPT.
Its not fancy but it works for the most part.
Slow Stacking Works Better Than Total Overhauls
One thing I learned is that trying to change everything at once is a recipe for collapse.
Instead, I’d layer things on slowly and keep an anchor habit, like eating eggs for breakfast instead of anything sweet.
- First, just eggy breakfast.
- Then I cut down dairy and added vanilla protein powder
- Then walks in the evening
Not perfectly but better than before but it's sticking.
This philosophy, the focus on helping people like me navigate elimination diets and figure out what made me feel bad and what didn't, slow stacking and reminders in an app I use all the time - that's a big part of the app I'm not calling HealthKin.
Meet the Creatures (They're Kind of Like Pokémon)
The original idea behind HealthKin was having a tamagotchi which represented your Health. You could share your creature with others. I wanted this because I care about some people in my life who I know would greatly benefit in reduced anxiety by doing some more self nurturing and I wanted a playful non-awkward way of seeing whether they were meeting their health goals and nudging them positively if they weren't.
But the idea has changed slightly now, you join a program like the 3 week glucose challenge, and at the start you get a cute creature in it's least evolved form. If you complete the week meeting the goal, you get that creature in your creature library. The next week on the program you have to do whatever you were doing last week and a new thing, if you meet both of these your creature evolves and you keep the evolved form in your creature library.
At the end of a program, you can look back at the creatures you’ve raised and see your effort. A visual journal of your consistency. Tangible proof that you did something hard and stuck with it.
It sounds silly, but I'm really hoping it helps. I was inspired by Neko Atsume. I haven't built this part of the app yet but I think this is where I'll go with the creature idea.
Bringing AI Into the Mix
The bot I’m building is going to get smarter. I’ll feed it blogs and recipes from health thinkers I trust like Jessie Inchauspé (Glucose Goddess) or Dr. Peter Attia.
I can't remember all the juicy goodness these people say! I want the knowledge slow-drip fed to me via AI nudges or insights pulled from people that have helped me already, I just don't need to open their book to figure out what they'd recommend.
What’s Next: Friend Challenges and Holographic Fur!
Okay, so this part’s ages away but in the future, you’ll be able to team up with a friend to do a 2-week or 4-week program together. Your creatures evolve in tandem. You get a holographic shiny fur if you both hit your goals. There's a gentle competitive edge, but mostly it’s about accountability and the holographic fur.
I'm building HealthKin because I needed it.
If you’ve ever felt like your brain is running on fumes, or your energy disappears for no reason, or your moods swings take you real low—this might help.
It’s not magic. But it is designed with real science, a little AI, and a whole lot of compassion.
And maybe a few sparkly creatures too.