"B"(12) positive

#290

The Number

I did my annual checkup last year and everything came back normal. Vitamin B12, aka cobalamin, showed up a little over 180. On the lower end, but close enough to healthy. No flags from the doc. Life was hunky-dory and I went on my way.

With one teeny change. I stopped consuming dairy completely. Going from vegetarian to vegan meant zero animal sources from then on.

A year and a half later, the next checkup showed B12 at 118. A drop of 62 points, roughly a third, in one metric. That signals deficiency. My physician linked it straight to my switch to veganism and suggested I start supplements.

For context, most labs read B12 like this: below 200 pg/mL is deficient, 200 to 300 is a gray zone worth retesting, 300 to 900 is normal, and functional medicine folks aim for a tighter sweet spot of 500 to 900.

The Clues

Sometimes the mind likes to connect the dots, matching past situations to present data. Looking back, the clues were all there. Fatigue-filled days. Random energy dips despite steady coffee, nutrient-dense food, decent sleep and plenty of water. Not my 4PM crash kind of tired I'd written about earlier. A slower, heavier kind. Workouts felt harder and recovery took an extra day. I blamed sleep, the gray Seattle skies, and possibly Mercury in retrograde. With all my home-cooked, carefully planned meals, I didn't think I was missing anything.

The inner engineer in me kept that story in check. Correlation isn't causation. Still, the dots were lining up.

Being naturally curious, I started digging. Coincidentally, I'd enrolled in a college-level nutrition course at the time, and that particular week, I was studying the chapter on vitamins. Part curiosity, part homework. Over the next few posts, I'll share bits of what I'm learning in class, mixed with what I'm learning about my own body. Consider this the trailer.

Food Sources

Vitamin B12 is made by bacteria through aerobic or anaerobic microbial fermentation, rather than by plants or animals, and animals simply store it. That’s why it naturally shows up only in foods of animal origin. My textbook’s top sources read like a non-vegetarian’s dream menu: sardines, tuna, steak, and chicken. For a lacto-vegetarian: Cottage cheese. For plant-based folks, the only real options are fortified foods like enriched cereals, fortified plant milks, and nutritional yeast. All that to hit just 2.4 micrograms a day, a speck so small it makes a grain of salt look like a boulder. When I dropped dairy and eggs, I dropped my main source without realizing it was a source at all. "You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone." -Joni Mitchell

Learnings

1. Function: B12 helps make new cells, teams up with folate (another B vitamin) to make healthy red blood cells, and maintains the protective sheaths around nerve fibers. Fatigue is one of the first whispers when it runs low.

2. Deficiency: Absorption of Vitamin B12 needs stomach acid and a compound called intrinsic factor. Low B12 can come from poor absorption too, which is why the recommendation is to rely on a professional diagnosis over self-diagnosis. Good thing I let my doc get there first. Also, B12 gets stored in the liver, which is why a year isn't usually enough to see a drop. The tank drains slowly, then all at once shows up on a lab report.

3. Characteristic: B12 dissolves in water, so whatever my body doesn't use gets flushed out. Hence ingesting once-a-day chewable tablet helps meet the body's daily needs with no risk of toxicity.

"Know thyself," said the Oracle at Delphi. I'd add: Know thy lab report too!
Every line of it, not just the famous ones.

Attitude of Gratitude

#289

In my previous post (#287) on positivity, I wrote about having an optimistic bent of mind, and briefly mentioned gratitude journaling. This practice has been with me for more than five years now. Looking back, I thought I learnt it from books, but realized that I also inherited it from my family.

Growing up, my grandma would read out snippets from her diary she maintained almost daily. Sometimes, she would even let me witness her beautiful handwriting. Almost all her entries were prefaced with "By God's Grace". She'd either say how an event went off really well, express her gratitude toward specific people, accomplishments big and small alike, or some days, just "By God's Grace, everyone is healthy."

Years later, I see my cousin doing exactly that. Same phrasing, same practice. Amazing!

My mom too, at the dinner table, would thank the Almighty not just for the meal but for a good appetite as well, which is super important. What a wonderful feeling it is when your body is working well enough to desire and crave food. She wasn't thanking for abundance. She was thanking for function. For the small things that keep you going.

And somewhere along the way, I absorbed and imbibed this. Thanking people for things. Big things, small things. It costs nothing. You don't lose anything by saying thank you. You just acknowledge that someone showed up or that something went right or that you noticed.

The journaling part came later. I started writing three things every morning. From generic "I'm grateful for life and love" to specific "I'm grateful for having cooked this experimental dish that turned out yummy," or "I'm immensely thankful for all the support my loved ones have shown me during recent tough times by calling and checking in on me." 

Specificity matters because our brain stops scanning for the broad strokes and starts catching the actual moments. After weeks of doing this, even hard days brought in perspective.

I'll sit down frustrated about something that didn't work. Journal about it. And as I write a couple of paragraphs, I'm writing a thank you on that same page. Because I realized that no matter what, there was ALWAYS something to be thankful about. A tiny win for the day.

The habit of gratitude journaling doesn't mean or require you to pretend everything's fine. A lot of it is mostly just data. Even terrible days have small good things (silver linings) in them. Both feelings can exist at the same time. The frustration and the gratitude. My family recognizes that. And five years into this practice, I'm becoming more and more cognizant of it too.

"Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance." - Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now)

Pantry alchemy

#288

A year ago I had cut dairy because my skin demanded it (#260, #286). 

Clear skin felt non-negotiable, so instead of treating veganism like a restriction, I tapped into my creativity to concoct fun recipes with dairy-free alternatives.

A lot of my initial experiments are now our weekly staples. 

One of them is my spinach, chickpea, coconut curry.

It all started one lazy evening when I opened the pantry to see what's the easiest path to a 10-minute dinner. I saw canned chickpeas and canned coconut milk, and I knew my freezer had a few frozen spinach cubes. 

A quick mix of them along with sauteed onions and tomatoes, topped with regular spices and herbs, was all that was needed. It turned out great.

Nutritionally too, a complete package- Folate (a B vitamin), all the 4 fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), and iron (mineral) from the dark leafy green spinach, protein and carbs from the chickpeas, and healthy fats from the coconut milk.

Such trials motivate me to experiment more. Some work out, some don't, but either way, I no longer feel constrained by the lack of options (ingredients and recipes) from being dairy-free.

On days I can't quite figure out by myself what to make looking at my fridge and pantry, I turn to Claude and YouTube. Those work just as well!

Mrs. Brightside

#287

The Cloud

A few months back, life tilted. Nothing catastrophic, but heavy enough that I had to choose. Surrender to it, or find something that still gleamed. I chose the latter, though honestly some days that meant Netflix binges without the guilt tax. Some days it meant catching one small thing that went right, even when everything else looked grey. Some days it meant not shaming myself for needing rest.

The hardest part wasn't the weight. It was not shaming myself for how I was handling it.

The Silver Lining

Two months ago I wrote about letting the sunshine in- literally! About SAD and Seattle winters and vitamin D. But there's a metaphorical version of that same practice. 

Enter: gratitude journaling. 

I wrote every day. About friends and family who reached out to support me during tough times and good times alike. About grueling-but-fueling workouts I indulged in. About the morning coffees I restarted and cute, purple plushies and pens I bought that brought me little joys. It took conscious effort to stop trying to "fix" myself and instead start asking: what's already working here, thus embodying Martin Seligman's (father of positive psychology) PERMA model.

He defines five pillars of flourishing: Positive emotions (the gratitude, the plushies), Engagement (the workout "flow" states), Relationships (the friends who showed up), Meaning, and Accomplishment. Your brain spots problems automatically, that's survival. But survival isn't the same as living aka thriving. When you look for what's already working, there's more than you think.

With this, the heaviness became more easy to deal with, and I no longer treated my own coping mechanisms as a bad thing. 

The Rays

Optimism need not be something you're born with. It can be something you practice, put in effort to get better at week after week, especially when you don't want to. Calm reframing instead of harsh reprimand and self-judgment. Turning your attention toward the silver lining without pretending the storm isn't still there. 

Looking at the bright side and actually feeling better, not because everything is bright, but because you're the one choosing which direction to face. All you gotta do to thrive is: "Open up your eager eyes!"

Scar wars

#286

My face went to war with itself last month. A cyst had bloomed beneath my lip- one of those angry, pus-filled things that hurt to touch. By next morning it was a throbbing yellow beacon. By evening, after twelve hours in ninety-degree heat, it was oozing. I picked at it (yes, I know better). It cleared in real time. Now it's just a scabbed reminder that skin is deeply, brutally biological.

For the past year, I've been chasing the acne fix like a technical problem with a clean solution. Cut dairy (#260). Lift three times a week. Eat real food. Get sleep. And yet, despite doing everything the dermatologist and every wellness influencers prescribed, my skin got worse, not better.

Of course acne isn't a single variable equation. I dug deeper to find solace.

A dermatologist gave me topical creams and benzoyl peroxide face wash, and explained to me what happens when using tretinoin. It is a vitamin A derivative that rewires how skin cells behave. Your skin gets angry first. Irritated, flaky, breakout-prone. The instinct is to stop. I almost did. But she said: "You have to get past the hump." The temporary peeling off is the skin purging damaged cells and rebuilding. I learned that retinol products focus on faster skin turnover.

How they do this: bacteria live in your pores like uninvited roommates. Your immune system sends white blood cells to evict them. Pus is what's left over: dead bacteria and dead WBC soldiers. It's your body doing its job, just messily.

I started retinizing last week. My face looks worse than it did in week one. But understanding the mechanism makes it less personal and slightly more motivating. I reassure myself that my skin isn't betraying me but rather just rebuilding, albeit slower than I'd like.

The Stoics have a concept called "amor fati". It means loving your fate. A lot of things in life get worse before they get better. Acupuncture. Physical therapy. Learning an instrument. My face care journey, no exception. The discomfort isn't a sign you're doing it wrong. Sometimes it's proof you're doing it right.

Self-care isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it's investing in a cream that stings, or a dermatologist appointment that costs real money, or sitting with your face looking worse while collagen rewires underneath. 

The temporary chaos is the price of actual change.

Prompt Proposal

#285

I was voice journaling with Claude yesterday, talking through a technical question for a CrossFit workout, and I realized that when I started being more specific with my ask, the responses turned more helpful. I clearly stated what I wanted to accomplish, what I'd already tried, what felt stuck, and this made an increasingly frustrating Q&A session into more of a helpful brainstorming discussion with deeper insights.

Gathering info on how friends and family use GenAI, I learned that some approach it like a vending machine. Slot in a question, get out an answer. I faced this in my early adoption days too.

Me: "How do I get better at pull-ups as a beginner?"

AI: "Practice consistently. Strengthen your back and shoulders. Use resistance bands. Increase volume over time."

Me: "Okay but like, how many times a week should I actually train them?"

AI: "Three to four times per week is standard for most beginners."

Me: "Should I do them on consecutive days or spread them out?"

AI: "Spreading them out allows for better recovery."

Me: "What about my diet? Does that matter?"

AI: "Yes, protein intake supports muscle recovery."

Me: "How much protein though?"

AI: "About 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of body weight daily."

Similarly, when I ask questions around time and life management, I very quickly get frustrated because of not getting exactly what I want. The conversations escalate as:

Me: "OMG can you give actual helpful advice on how to not burn out?"

AI:

• "Prioritize self-care
• Take regular breaks
• Set boundaries with work
• Practice mindfulness"

Notice the pattern? Generic prompts get generic, vague responses. Frustrated prompts get bullet points that don't help. Curt prompts get curt answers.

You get back what you give. 

These rookie exchanges reminded me of an Akbar-Birbal story from Indian folklore, specifically about why Birbal remained the emperor's favorite. 

The story goes:

A jealous minister approached Akbar: "Why do you always choose Birbal for important tasks? Give me a chance to prove myself." Akbar agreed. He sends him to investigate a commotion near the kingdom.

The minister returns: "There's a carnival happening outside."

Akbar: "How long is he gonna be here?"

Minister: (Runs back) "One week."

Akbar: "What's causing all the noise?"

Minister: (Runs back) "A traveling is performer with drums."

Akbar: "Is anyone doing anything about it?"

Minister: (Runs back) "No one's complained yet."

And so on. Multiple trips. Multiple direct answers to each separate question. No anticipation or further thought whatsoever - what does the king actually want to know and why? How to make the exchange more efficient? 

Birbal shows up later. Akbar asks the same of him.

Birbal: "A traveling performer arrived this week. He'll be here seven days before moving to the next town. He's playing drums at the carnival, which is loud. I checked, no one's complained yet. But I also learned he's performing to raise money to support his family (his wife and son), so he might be open to adjusting his schedule if the noise becomes a real issue."

One answer. Everything Akbar asked for, plus context Akbar didn't even know to want. The other minister immediately realized why Birbal was the favorite.

I applied similar logic to prompt better and leverage AI for learning:

CrossFit workout:

Me: "I've been doing CrossFit for three months. I can do five strict pull-ups in a row, but my form falls apart after that. My shoulders get fatigued before my grip does. I've been training pull-ups three times a week. What I'm trying to figure out is whether I should focus on shoulder strength work first, or keep practicing pull-ups and adjust my training volume."

AI: "Your shoulder fatigue before grip fatigue tells me your shoulder stabilizers are the limiting factor, not your pulling strength. Try this: add two dedicated shoulder stability sessions weekly, focus on scapular work and horizontal pulling. Keep your pull-up practice to twice a week for now, but prioritize quality over volume. Once your shoulders stabilize better, you'll see form hold longer."

Nutrition course:

Me: "I'm studying nutrition. The textbook explains that carbs convert to glucose, which powers muscles. But I'm a visual learner and I'm confused about the timing part. Like, when exactly does glucose get used versus stored as glycogen? Does it matter if I eat carbs before or after my workout, and why? Can you explain it simply?"

AI: "Timing matters because of insulin sensitivity. Post-workout, your muscles are primed to absorb glucose directly into muscle cells as glycogen, not store it as fat. Pre-workout carbs give you energy for the actual effort. If you eat carbs at random times with no training nearby, they're more likely to be stored. Think of it like this: post-workout is like an open door to your muscle cells. Pre-workout is fuel in the tank before you drive."

If the nutrition prompt was in the same chat session as the CrossFit one, Claude would even tie those threads: "So when you do pull-ups and eat carbs post-workout, your muscles absorb that glucose directly as glycogen to repair and rebuild the shoulder stabilizers you just worked. You're not just eating rice, you're refueling exactly what you broke down."

A note for people new to AI tools (this works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity): 

The practice matters more than the tool.

When you show up with thought already happening and share specific instructions on what outcomes you're looking for, the AI can actually think with you. When you hand it vagueness, it hands you back a generic, non-useful blob.

Yes it takes longer to create those prompts. But in reality, those save time (and tokens!) You could even try using voice over typing to get the job done faster.

Be like Birbal.

Learning Styles

#284

I've watched people learn my whole life. Some light up when someone's explaining something out loud. Others zone out and need to read it themselves (that's me!). Some need diagrams and visuals (also me). Some need to hear the story. There's no one way, though unfortunately most classrooms teach like there is.  Conforming to a single format and expectation. No wonder so many people think they're bad at learning. They're just not learning the way their brains actually work.

For me, I took advantage of that as an adult once I not only became more aware but also as resources like GenAI made learning, its modes, and accesses virtually limitless.

I always thought I was a visual learner because I respond to images and written words. I need specific examples to understand the underlying concepts at times, but then I'd click on an educational video, say, ten to fifteen minutes on how manual vs. automatic automobile gear transmissions work, and I'd lose focus after just two or three minutes. Listening to someone talk, even when they're drawing on a whiteboard tends to exhaust me. So I'd think, "Well, I'll just read about it instead," and somehow I don't tend to zone out. The words on the page have a vastly different effect on me. And I know the situation is the exact opposite for a lot of folks out there.

A part of it ties to cognitive load: basically, how much information your brain can process at once. Video lectures layer sound, visuals, pace, and duration all at once. Reading lets you control the speed. One can pause, reread any number of times, skip ahead and come back more easily, and differ the pace on different sections of a page. For some brains, that's the difference between learning and tuning out.

When I studied for my PMP (Project Management Professional) exam, I tested this intentionally. I grabbed the PMP Exam Prep for Dummies book from the library and paired it with video lectures strategically - not as my primary source, but to fill gaps. Reading was my workhorse. I'd absorb the material in half the time. It was slightly different in this particular case because preparing for an exam is different from actually learning the subject. I needed to understand what the exam tested more than memorizing answers or learning the concept as such due to hands-on experience at work, and the combination of books and  videos helped me strike that balance.

The meta part- I also started noticing how I learn about things I'm genuinely curious about - hobbies, interests, random topics. Same pattern. Reading first, videos when I'm stuck.

Learning styles are many: visual learners absorb through images and written words, auditory learners thrive on listening and discussion, reading/writing learners (like me) need text to process, and kinesthetic learners need hands-on experience.

If you notice your learning style skews toward reading, or video, or listening, or hands-on, stop forcing the other way and honor the working of your brain. That's self-care, too- giving yourself permission to learn the way you learn best. Your future self will thank you for the time you save.

Artificial constraints

#283

I borrowed twenty-something books from the library three months ago. Some I finished. Most I didn't. And for weeks, I carried around this low-level guilt about the ones still sitting on my nightstand: half-read, abandoned, judging me quietly.

When I voiced this shame out loud one day, my partner asked me: "Why do you have all these artificial constraints!?"

I'd been complaining about always showering before breakfast. That's the rule I'd set for myself, apparently. Why? Because that's how I was raised and I'm rather obedient, so I didn't question it. But then one day I didn't have time. So I ate breakfast first. Waited an hour. Then took a shower.

The world didn't end.

That day, I went and returned those unfinished books to the library. I became aware of the fact that I was forcing myself to finish books I no longer wanted to read urgently or that other activities took priority during that phase of my life. It helped me let go of my own made-up rules that no longer served me.

When obligation becomes the point

The borrowed books weren't the problem. The pressure I'd put on myself to finish them was.

I had borrowed the books with real excitement. New frameworks, new stories, new ideas - I'd wanted them all. But then life got dense. Some books didn't land the way I expected. Others I started and realized I'd outgrown them. A few were just... not it.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that I should finish them. Because finishing things is what you're supposed to do. One of the ways I'd measured success in life. But also: psychology.

There's a concept known as the "sunk-cost fallacy". It's the idea that because you've already invested time, money, or effort (i.e. sunk cost) into something, you should keep investing more to justify what you've already spent. It's a cognitive bias, a trick our brains play on us. We think that the effort we've already wasted somehow obligates us to waste more.

But in reality: that obligation is completely made up.

Turning completion worship into intentionality

My partner noticed a pattern quickly enough when I used to yes to things I didn't have to say yes to, and feel trapped. I created rules and forgot they were optional. I pressured myself to finish because stopping felt like failure and I couldn't tolerate leaving things unfinished.

Sunk costs don't obligate you. Returning the books didn't erase what I'd already read. Breaking the shower rule didn't undo my morning. The sunk costs were sunk either way. Finishing them wouldn't un-sink them.

What finishing them would do is tie me to decisions I no longer believed in.

I gradually learnt that meaning comes from who you are now, not from finishing what made sense five years ago. You don't have to be who you were when you started, because you've grown. You've evolved.

What artificial constraint are you carrying today? What would happen if you broke it?

Continuity over perfection

#282

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." -Aristotle

For three months after I started CrossFit, I kept waiting for the right conditions before I'd go: eight hours of quality sleep, good hydration, zero excuses lined up. That combination hardly ever lined up, so I rarely showed up either. It was irregular, sometimes twice a week, sometimes four times a week to catch up then burning out and skipping a week, then vowing to thrice a week but going at different times of day anyway. The days I went half-baked with less than 6-7 hours of sleep, I realized my cortisol ends up resetting after a while. So now I go regardless. Tired, dehydrated, running on four hours, whatever the day handed me. On Saturdays, when I actually get to sleep in and catch up in the afternoon, all of me thanks me for having gone and showed up at least.

Blogging taught me the same lesson. I'd sit on a post for weeks trying to get a sentence exactly right, and by the time I published it, I'd lost momentum on the next four ideas sitting in my drafts folder. With this year's commitment to myself to uphold weekly publishing on self-care, a slightly clunky post that goes out on Wednesday afternoon beats a polished one that never leaves the folder.

The two versions of me

There's the version who's still negotiating with the conditions: waiting for the right amount of sleep, the right mood, the right stretch of free time to do it properly. And there's the version who just does the smaller, messier thing on schedule. Same person, same goals, and only one of them actually keeps a streak going.

I used to think the gap between those two was discipline. Gritting my teeth through mornings and grinding through. Turns out it's mostly just the size of the bar I'd set for what counted as showing up. Lower the bar enough and willpower has no room left to matter.

Falling to systems

"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." -James Clear

One aspect of James Clear's research on habits is all about how motivation is unreliable, so what works is building a habit that survives a bad day. He calls this identity-based, rooted in who you are rather than what you want, which is why skipping it feels like betraying yourself instead of just missing a goal.

The compounding part that small and consistent beats big and rare, every time, given enough weeks, might sound boring. But boring is exactly why it works. The only thing that survives "every single day, no exceptions" for me is a lowered bar.

The new bar

Now a workout counts if I show up to the gym and work out for an hour instead of 90 minutes, at 60% of my capacity. A post counts if it says the true thing plainly, even when the sentence isn't singing or the words haven't fully scratched the itch in my brain. Some days I still catch myself waiting for eight hours of sleep and perfect hydration before I'll commit to anything. I just don't wait as long as I used to, and on the mornings I go anyway, tired and unprepared, some part of me is always relieved by the afternoon. I also realized I tend to regret not doing something more than doing it and having to pay the price for it later, like being tired the rest of the day and having to push through because of the workout, because deep down, I convince my brain that my body's better off for having done it.

Conflict and repair

#281

"The best fighter is never angry." — Lao Tzu

My partner and I had a disagreement a few weeks ago over something so small I'm almost embarrassed to write it down- it was about taking the trash out. But honestly, it doesn't matter what it was; what matters is that ten minutes in, we weren't actually arguing about the thing anymore. We were arguing about being right. Voices a notch sharper, and both of us digging into positions neither of us fully believed, just to avoid being the one who backed down first.

A day or two after the instance, during a moment of self-reflection, I pondered things like- what was I even defending during the argument? Was it the original thing or my ego stemming from my need to not be the one who folds first because of my belief to be in the right?

I used to think a good relationship meant fewer fights. Turns out one of its aspects is faster repair. The couples who never disagree aren't necessarily healthier. They often might be avoiding something, or one person has quietly stopped bringing things up at all. The actual skill isn't conflict-avoidance. It's knowing how to stay in the room, stay yourself, and still care about the person across from you while you're both a little annoyed.

There's a researcher named John Gottman who teaches at UW and has spent decades studying couples, watching them argue in a lab, tracking who stayed together and who split. His finding wasn't that stable couples fight less. It's that they're better at what he calls "repair attempts". These are small moves, sometimes just a joke or a hand on an arm, that de-escalate a fight before it turns into contempt.

Contempt looks like an eye-roll, a sarcastic jab, or mocking your partner's point mid-sentence. A repair attempt looks like the opposite: a joke, a hand on an arm, sometimes just admitting out loud that you're both being ridiculous. The couples who last aren't the ones without friction but rather the ones who know how to hit the brakes.

I'm glad to have become more aware about these things nowadays. The fix has almost become unglamorous- some days, it's a simple "can we start over." Other days it's even simpler: "I think we've shifted topics." My favorite ones are where one of us comes up with a clever joke or pun to diffuse the situation instantly.

What do you do in the ninety seconds after things get a bit fraught- Do you dig in, look for the exit ramp, or something else entirely?